Uploaded February 2020 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Sea of Thieves is a multiplayer pirate adventure complete with sailing, cutlasses, sea monsters and even interactive shanties. Though given a cartoonish and playful feel, as is often the case with Rare, its creation and continued evolution are taken very seriously. That’s exemplified in Sea of Thieves’ music, which uses an arsenal of intriguing instruments in its authentic sound. In fact, its composer, Robin Beanland, received an Ivor Novello award in 2019 for his inventive OST. But its strength, and clever use of generative elements, are to be expected from Robin – a Rare mainstay who cut his teeth on Killer Instinct before writing immensely popular scores like Conker’s Bad Fur Day.

After leaving a huge Robin Beanland-shaped hole in my first series of VGM podcasts, I was particularly eager to speak to him for ST2. As a result, this is only the first of two appearances, with the second covering his output on the Nintendo 64.

Lee Tyrrell on Twitter:
twitter.com/GreenT128

Robin Beanland on Twitter:
twitter.com/TheRealBeano

Also available through:

Audioboom
audioboom.com/channels/4966905

iTunes
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sound-test/id1418674203?mt=2

Spotify
open.spotify.com/show/0nt97mhg0PgE3pqUmDXmhC

Stitcher
stitcher.com/podcast/the-sound-test?refid=stpr

and many more...

Early access, unedited interviews, LIVE shows and more:
patreon.com/_secretcave