Flint: Treasure of Oblivion (Winifred Phillips) (2025)

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion (Winifred Phillips) (1)

Assisted by his friend Billy Bones and his crew, Captain Flint sets sail for a mysterious treasure. If the call of the unknown galvanizes him, he doesn’t yet suspect this adventure will set him free. The videogame Flint: Treasure of Oblivion is set in a pirate world bordering on fantasy, with comic-book styled narration and tactical turn-based combat. The game has received mixed reviews, but is praised for its visuals and interesting concepts regarding the gameplay.

The original score for Flint is by Winifred Phillips. She is no stranger to videogames having worked on Little Big Planet, Wizardry, Jurassic World: Primal Ops, Horse Club Adventures, God of War, The Davinci Code and many other interesting titles.

For Flint Phillips has created a score that I’d want to describe as medieval hardrock. To achieve that oldy-wordly sound, Phillips used an unusual stringed instrument. Phillips explained to me:

that’s a talharpa (sometimes called a tagelharpa or stråkharpa).It’s a bowed lyre.Historians conjecture that it originates in Scandinavia (although the actual origin of the instrument hasn’t been proven). In modern times, the talharpa is widely associated with the Viking mythos.Since Vikings are essentially the earliest known pirates, I thought this instrument could bring a great texture and grit to my compositions for Flint: Treasure of Oblivion!The talharpa is extremely portable, which puts it alongside the concertina, pipe and fiddle as convenient instruments for a sailor to take on a voyage. The talharpa has all of the energy and drive we associate with fiddles, but the tone and pitch have lots of extra character and quirkiness due to its open-string design.I had a great time playing the talharpa for this project!I played multiple talharpas of different sizes for Flint, which are featured in nearly every track on the album.

A clear example of the talharpa is heard right off the bat in “Beastly Buccaneers” where it performs the main theme (it returns in “Batten Down the Hatches”). It’s hard to describe the main theme. It’s a sort of see-sawing, undulating maybe even meandering melody, and it’s tricky to get a grip on it. The main reason for this is its 9/8 time signature. As filmmusic fans we are quite used to 5/4 and 7/8, but a 9/8 is rather disorientating. I do believe it suits the subject matter very well. It’s menacing, confusing and somehow just out of grasp’s reach – precisely what every self-respecting pirate would strive for! I asked Phillips about it and she said:

“Yes, I used 9/8 in “Beastly Buccaneers” and “Batten Down the Hatches”.I was looking for a time signature that would feel exciting and unpredictable. In addition to the generally irregular time signature, I also frequently varied how the time signature is counted so that the emphasis would shift — further adding unpredictability to the track.”

If syncopation is your thing, you’re going to have a blast.

Phillips creates a dark musical world. The raspy sound of the talharpa is never far away. Low strings occasionally provide a rhythmic background. Brass is limited to provide low growls and specific crescendoing accents. Woodwinds too are used sparsely with a flute accompanying the main theme on the odd occasion; and I think I heard a clarinet and duduk along the way. Phillips uses dark vocal samples to add a menacing touch, especially to a cue like “The Pirate’s Curse”. Much of the overall sound is made up from the various talharpas that Phillips performed. Percussion of all kinds also fills out much of the soundscape. The sound of light wooden percussion is particularly pleasing, but Phillips doesn’t stop there. Of course it’s got the big drums that every project demands these days; but also tablas (I suspect) adding an exotic flavour to the percussion. What I particularly like about the percussion is that it sounds very natural (though I fully expect it to be samples).

It’s quite a relentless little score. Not overly in-your-face, but with percussion almost constantly ticking away and the talharpas creating that dark, uneasy soundscape, the score moves along at pace and doesn’t deviate from its dark narrative. When “Treasure of Oblivion” introduces a sea-shanty style melody complete with electric guitars, my hardrock analogy begins the make sense.

As much as we love classic swashbuckling pirate scores, from Korngold’s Sea Hawk to Debney’s Cutthroat Island, the reality is that pirates probably did not travel with a full symphony orchestra. Since Zimmer’s Pirates of the Carribean, in particular, the sound for pirates has shifted to something at once more authentic and also more modern. Hence the talharpa and electric guitar in Flint. It’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s undeniably modern and yet sounds authentic thanks to Phillips imaginative instrumentations and spot-on programming of the percussion.

You can find the score on the familiar online places. 10 tracks, 25m.

Article by Pete Simons (c) 2025 Synchrotones

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion (Winifred Phillips) (2025)
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