David Wise

David Wise is a British video game music composer and musician. He was a composer at Rare from 1985 to 2009, and he was the company's sole musician up until 1994. He has gained a dedicated following for his work on various games, particularly Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country series. Wise is known for his atmospheric style of music, mixing natural environmental sounds with prominent melodic and percussive accompaniment.

Career and influences Wise has said that he has had a wide range of musical influences. The first instrument he learned to play was the piano, before later learning the trumpet, and learning to play the drums during adolescence. He played in a few bands during his youth, and he was active in a band as of 2004.

(1985–2009): Career with Rare Wise's career at Rare began when he happened to meet its two founders while; as he explained in response to a question posted on its company website: "I was working in a music shop demonstrating a Yamaha CX5 Music Computer to a couple of people, Tim & Chris Stamper. I'd written and programmed the music for the demonstration material. They offered me a job."

The very first game the Wise composed music for was the 1986 NES skiing game Slalom.

While working at Rare, Wise gained attention and acclaim for his work on the Donkey Kong Country series. In addition to the percussive and ambient 'jungle' influences that serve as a thematic undercurrent for much of the series, the games feature a wide variety of different musical styles that are reflective of the various areas and environments they appear in.

The song "Aquatic Ambience" from Donkey Kong Country has particularly attracted people's attention. Wise said was inspired by a failed relationship.

In the book Playing with Super Power, some influences for the music of Donkey Kong Country were mentioned. Specifically, Koji Kondo's work on the Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda series; the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game Plok, composed by Tim Follin and Geoff Follin; and synthesized film scores and rock and dance music from the early 1980s. Wise composed the soundtrack for the Game Boy Advance port of Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!.

Wise composed the music for the GameCube game Star Fox Adventures which was released on September 23, 2002, and was Nintendo's final project with Rare before ending their partnership.

In October 2009, it was announced by the OverClocked ReMix community that Wise was remixing a track for Serious Monkey Business, an unofficial Donkey Kong Country 2 remix album. Grant Kirkhope and Robin Beanland collaborated on this track, playing guitar and trumpet respectively. On 15 March 2010, Serious Monkey Business was released and Wise's track, "Re-Skewed", was featured as track No. 33. Much like his contribution to Serious Monkey Business, Wise later remixed one of his own compositions, the GBA version of "Jungle Jitter", for an unofficial Donkey Kong Country 3 remix album titled Double the Trouble!, which was released on 1 December 2012. Wise also provided a saxophone solo for another remix, in addition to mixing and mastering the track.

(2009–Present) Freelance career On 14 November 2009, Wise announced his resignation from Rare, feeling that the company had "changed a great deal" and there was no longer an opportunity to create music tracks that Rare is most known for. In December 2010, Wise created a personal studio called the "David Wise Sound Studio". In June 2013, it was announced that he would be composing for Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, after receiving a call from Retro Studios president Michael Kelbaugh, who previously worked at Rare. Wise composed for Yooka-Laylee along with Kirkhope and Steve Burke.

Works

Cancelled TitlePublisherPlatformHarmonyNintendo / Retro StudiosNintendo Switch