Madrigal singing, Elizabethan wit, and a choir that roasts you to your face. Astrologaster is a 2019 comedy game about real-life 16th-century astrologer Simon Forman, and the soundtrack is entirely performed by a vocal ensemble singing about each client who walks through his door.
Read more
"Alice Blague" and "Thomas Blague" get their own choral introductions dripping with period-accurate harmonies and very period-inaccurate sass, while "Emilia Lanier" brings genuine historical weight since she's thought to be Shakespeare's Dark Lady.
Every track is essentially a character portrait sung in Renaissance style. "Nicholas Mugg" has the choir practically giggling through the verses, "Humphrey Bell" gets a more stately treatment, and "A murdering" takes a gleefully dark turn.
The standout might be "Fap not, Forman," which is exactly the kind of bawdy Elizabethan humor it sounds like and the choir commits fully. Nyamyam and composer Andrea Boccadoro created something genuinely unique here. You will not find another game soundtrack like this.
It is Shakespeare-era a cappella comedy performed with total sincerity, and it is wonderful.