Hollow Knight - Greenpath (Accordion Duet)
57Track: Greenpath
Composer: Christopher Larkin
Game: Hollow Knight (2017)
I've had a couple requests that I cover some music from Hollow Knight, and although Greenpath wasn't originally first on my list, I got inspired by this month's Pixel Mixers contest theme ("May Flowers" - i.e. earth and plants), and the more I listened to it, the more ideas I started getting on how I could make it work.
My two primary accordions have noticeably different sound profiles, and with this arrangement I experimented with switching between the two to emulate various parts in the original orchestral instrumentation. Additionally, I get to continue learning the quint free bass mechanism on the Titano, which I used to play the stacked 5th arpeggios in the intro. And I had fun putting together the percussion kit and setting it up to be playable by a single musician.
This is also my entry to the #SoundoleChillOut2025 contest, in which I'm happy to participate again after a couple years.
What I love about Greenpath is that, up until this point in the game everything feels incredibly dark and bleak - the colors are mostly monochrome, and everyone looks and acts like the empty vessels they are, which greatly enhances the feeling of being lost in this world. So you spend the first couple hours of the game wandering aimlessly in this unforgiving wasteland until you stumble upon a path of beauty: the first real sense of color and growth... and of hope. And then this music plays: it's essentially a rhythmically inverted version of the Dirtmouth theme, but somehow it feels lighter and more full of life, invigorating the player 's desire to press onward. It's no wonder this game is so critically acclaimed; it's a masterclass in storytelling through its environment.