When Konami's Silent Hill was released in 1999 it looked very different from other video games. But perhaps more important, it sounded radically different.
With music and sound design by Akira Yamaoka, the sonic environment of Silent Hill was an inseparable part of the game's sepulchral mood.
As players explored Silent Hill's fog shrouded streets and decaying halls, Yamaoka draped the world in vast sheets of sound.
Often suggestive of air raid sirens, background radiation, or the quiet hum of a dialysis machine, Yamaoka used guitar and electronics to create a sound that was alternately lush and bracing, with melancholy dreamscapes dissolving under a rain of lacerating distortion. Video game music could never sound quite the same again.
Below, we present the full text of the interview with Akira Yamaoka which ran in the December issue of Game Developer magazine, including the musician's controversial comments on the state of game development in Japan.
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