Sean Booth of Autechre Says Group was Supposed to Score Metroid Prime

When the Nintendo GameCube title Metroid Prime came out in 2002, fans of more challenging electronic music noticed that the names Sean Booth and Rob Brown, known professionally as Autechre, appeared in the credits. Booth has finally said that Retro Studios initially enlisted them to soundtrack the game, but Nintendo decided on longtime Metroid franchise composer Kenji Yamamoto.

As VGC first reported, Booth confirmed the rumors during a Twitch AMA. “Well I can now [explain my mention in the Metroid Prime credits],” he said. “Even though I am violating an NDA technically by saying this, but basically we got asked to do the soundtrack by [Retro Studios]…”

“We met up with them in Austin. They were really keen and we were really keen, because it’s fucking Metroid… the best game ever. And then Nintendo borked it for some reason and wanted their guy to do it, so that was that really.

“I don’t know how much involvement they had in the sound of it, or whether they intentionally tried to make it sound a bit more [like] us, but I don’t think so really. I’ve read people saying they think it sounds a bit like us, but I don’t think it does. But it’s subjective really.”

In his 1998 book Energy Flash, dance music journalist Simon Reynolds describes the music of Autechre as “unlovely but queerly compelling sound-sculptures: abstruse and angular concatenations of sonic glyphs, blocs of distortion, and mutilated sample-sones, with occasional light relief in the form of pretty pulse-scapes of chime color.” While the duo’s musique concrète-reminiscent execution may have certainly complemented the otherworldly imagery of the Metroid franchise, perhaps Metroid Prime’s developers decided it would clash too significantly with the melodic in-game music of previous installments.

Last month, 11 tracks later confirmed to be Autechre and Gescom compositions were leaked and uploaded to YouTube.