#diegetic

Soundtrack: Papers, Please — It plays at the top of the day, then the stamp takes over

You sit in an inspection booth hunting for discrepancies in documents. The music Lucas Pope wrote himself is barely a thirty-second anthem. It blares at the top of each day, then withdraws once inspection begins. What carries on is the sound of the stamp, the shuffle of paper — a beat tapped out by the player. Black coffee in hand, I take apart this 'play it at the top, then go quiet' design in a form you can carry home to your own composing.