No Man's Sky: Journeys - OUT NOW
Hi friends.
How's it going out there? On a scale of dread to doom, where would you say your anxiety levels sit? We are living through some pretty heavy days. Hope you're all ok.
Here at 65HQ, it seems clear that we're somehow gonna have to bring about the dismantling of capitalism in order to manifest the kind of peace, happiness and joy that every human being deserves to experience. Like, it does seem to be a choice between this or total oblivion, no? Because even if it was ever really in doubt, at this point it is surely increasingly apparent that nothing about How Things Are Now is remotely sustainable, right?? And for as long as it does sustain, it is going to lead us into some very, very dark times?
Still. Until we figure out how to do this we have to remember to take care of ourselves. We need to make sure that we maintain our ability to conceive of better ways of being, better ways of treating each other, better ways that worlds can work. We need to protect our imaginations in the face of rising fascism and AI tech bros trying to make us out-source all of our thinking to their clouds of LLM slop. Because it doesn't have to be this way. None of it is inevitable. As David Graeber so succinctly put it: "The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently".
And so in the fight against this capitalist realism, this merciless limiting of our collective horizon of possibility, making and enjoying art feels like one way to protect our imagination. It cannot be relied upon to save the world, but it can be relied upon to keep precious ideas illuminated as the world darkens. It can bring us community and solidarity, visions of better futures. It can remind us that we are not alone, that in fact we are all in this together, all here being human together, no matter how much the rising horrors are trying to divide and alienate us. Oh yeah - and it can simply bring people joy! [Note to self - why do 65 always forget about joy??]
Are we saying that video games and more specifically, newly released albums that are lovingly crafted from video game soundtracks are going to save us all from doom and lead us into utopia? No! Well, probably not! But you know, as the saying goes "bread for all, and roses too!"
Look. We are just a noisy band. An increasingly tired, logistically-challenged noisy band, in the business of growing roses, wanting to write a mailout that celebrates our new record coming out, and yet this is what we have managed to write. This is the kind of band we are, you all must know that by now. Really this mailout is quite like most 65daysofstatic songs. Starts off sad and doom-laden, probably ends quite sad and doom-laden too, but you cannot deny that it nevertheless stubbornly clings to a strange kind of hopefulness as it travels from one doom to another! And, if nothing else, it is trying its best.
GETTING TO THE POINT
Ok so: as we have now established, art brings joy. Art is vital. Art is roses.
Like all art forms, the domain of video games offers myriad experiences, good and bad, happy and sad. And in the growing history of video game art, No Man's Sky stands out as a milestone for various reasons. The hype ahead of its release back in 2016 was unprecented. Its ambition and scope remarkable, its procedural generation techniques audacious and game-changing. And how the game has developed in the time since its release is something else again.
65 are from a world where you make an album, and once it is done, it is entombed in time, like a mosquito trapped in amber. A frozen document. It is literally called a record. And so for us the way that Hello Games continued to evolve No Man's Sky over the next decade was fascinating. A game already the size of a universe just kept on expanding. (Actually, that's what universes do isn't it). It is a living, evolving piece of art. We were thrilled that we were a small part of that back in the beginning, and it is great that we have been able to work with Hello Games again, and specifically Paul Weir (the Hello Games audio guy), to put together this new album.
There is more about how we approached this record in our previous mailout but the short version is:
We wrote a lot of music for an early No Man's Sky update eight years ago that, until now, only existed inside the game as endless, generative soundscapes. In the meantime, Paul Weir had added more music as the game grew. This new record features music by both of us, about 50/50, but very deliberately tangled together into a cohesive whole. It is not a 65daysofstatic album, or a Paul Weir album, it is very much a No Man's Sky album. It is the sound of how that game's universe has evolved over the last eight years.
It is out TODAY, RIGHT NOW. Streaming in all the usual places. Click that thing above or go here: https://lnk.to/nms-journeys for all the relevant streaming links. If you'd like to buy it digitally then the best place to do that is over on Laced Records' Bandcamp:
Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 14, 2025
It will also be available in this lovely double-vinyl package, and the vinyl pre-order should be going live at the same time this mailout was sent. This too can be found at those links above.
Right, that's it for now.
Enjoy the music. Take care of each other out there.
65.x
