Soundtrack: Contrast — live jazz lit inside a city solved by shadows

Introduction — in a smoky bar, you hear a voice first

You play as Dawn, the imaginary friend of a young girl named Didi, moving light sources to reshape the shadows on the walls and then slipping into those shadows as a 2D silhouette — that is Contrast. In this light-and-shadow puzzle-platformer that Komugi reviewed, the city wears the scent of 1920s vaudeville and film noir. And in a game where most puzzles proceed in silence, what lingers in the ear is neither ambience nor sound effect. It is live jazz.

The music was written by Montreal composer Nicolas Marquis; the singing is by jazz vocalist Laura Ellis, with lyrics by Alex Epstein, who also wrote the game. Step into the bar for the first time and, over an upright bass, brushed drums, and a muted trumpet, Kat's low, languid voice arrives — 'Kat's Song.' By ear it sits around 70 BPM, a touch slower than a heartbeat, roughly the tempo of a black coffee going cold. I heard this not as mood-setting BGM but as a voice someone is actually singing inside the story.

The song becomes a character — Kat is singing inside this story

What sets Contrast's music apart is that the songs belong to a character. Kat is Didi's mother, a cabaret singer. So 'Kat's Song' and 'House on Fire' are not score drifting in from nowhere but numbers Kat actually performs on stage — diegetic music, sounding from within the story. The voice, Laura Ellis, is simply Kat's voice.

This design ties straight to the heart of the story. Didi's home is shaken by her parents' discord, and her mother is caught between her dream of singing and her family. It matters that the lyrics were written by Alex Epstein, the game's own writer — the songs were composed as part of the script, not outsourced as background music. As the player solves puzzles of light and shadow, Kat's singing delivers the family's pain. The sound is not an explanation of the world but a character's confession.

Light and shadow, sound and quiet — during puzzles, the music quietly steps back

The puzzles themselves are quiet and ask for observation. Where on the wall should the light fall to make a shadow platform you can cross? Dawn does not move fast. Nudge a light source, check the shape of the shadow, nudge again — the time for thinking is long. So during a puzzle the full-band jazz does not push forward. A thin ambience and noise are laid at the bottom of the city, and the ear is handed over to the shape of the shadow. Not draping a strong melody over a thinking head is a demand made by the puzzle form itself.

Then, at the stage numbers and the turning points of the story, the sound throws itself open. The band gathers, Kat's voice rises. I love that the title 'Contrast' is itself the design of the sound — the contrast of light and shadow, of 2D and 3D, runs through the ear as a contrast of sound and quiet. It doesn't push with flashy volume; a quiet layer tears open and a song lights up, and the temperature of the scene shifts through that gap.

The analogy — slipping into a shadow and slipping into a song are the same motion

Here is my reading. Dawn's motion of sliding from the 3D city into a 2D shadow overlaps cleanly with the player's motion of sliding from quiet (thinking time) into song (story time). A shadow is a plane, where things grow much simpler and the path to cross becomes visible. A song, too, folds a complicated family situation into a single melody and turns Kat's heart into one line. By dropping a dimension, the essence, paradoxically, comes into view.

The tempos match, too. This city's puzzles break if you rush them — swing the light around carelessly and the shadow snaps. So the tempo of solving pairs well with that 70-BPM ballad. Instead of being hurried by a fast beat, the slow, breathing pulse of the jazz becomes the accompaniment to a hand nudging a light source bit by bit. I often put old torch songs on the record player, and Contrast's bar was exactly the kind of place where I wanted to drop the needle.

Tracks worth hearing

Start with 'Kat's Song.' This first number you hear in the bar holds the entire core of the game's sound. Over a low, settled bass, Laura Ellis's voice drifts languidly. Feel for yourself the sense that the song is the character's own voice.

If you want a little more heat, try 'House on Fire': House on Fire (feat. Laura Ellis) ↗. By ear it sits around 120, its rocking swing beat fanning the family's smoldering embers. Both are from the official Compulsion Games - Topic channel (YouTube's auto-generated official artist channel).

Closing — if I were writing it, I'd give the song a role to play

What I steal from Contrast is the courage to let the music play a character. Rather than adding score from the outside, you place a singer as a character in the story and write the songs as numbers that person sings. Then a single track does mood, characterization, and narrative propulsion all at once. It matters that the game's writer wrote the lyrics — the songs become continuous with the script. Farm the songs out in isolation and this density would never have emerged.

If you listen again, make it a night when a puzzle stumped you and your hands went still. Recall Kat's voice from beneath the thin ambience and the city's contrasts — light and shadow, quiet and song — rise once more. As works where the song becomes a tool of story, hear it alongside Paradise Killer and Immortality, which I wrote about before. On the single point that a voice carries the world, they quietly hold hands.

Reference links

・Steam: Contrast - Original Soundtrack and Art Book (official OST DLC)

・Compulsion Games - Topic (official YouTube audio)

・Spotify: Shadow Music (A Soundtrack to Contrast)

・Nicolas Marquis (composer) official site

・Wikipedia: Contrast (development and music credits)