Civilization, Part 11.

After many moons of playing Civ 4 (all posts on xsamplex), I finally found out who sings that brilliant opening tune: It’s the Talisman a cappella, a group of a cappella¹ singers and students operating from Stansford University. The song itself (‘Babu Yetu”) was arranged and composed by Christopher Tin and if you don’t own Civ 4 yourself, you can listen to the tune right from Tin’s site (It’s a slightly different arrangement from the game, though²). From the site itself, the following comment:

The lyrics are a Swahili adaptation of the Lord’s prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven…” This version is the original ‘Composer’s Mix’, as remastered by award-winning engineer Casey Stone. It’s available as a free download: our only request is that you email Chris if you like the song, and want to hear more like it in upcoming album projects

Hell, yeah. Actually, I dare to say that that song makes the game.

¹ A cappella: music is vocal music or singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way.
² Notice that 2 K Games uses a complete different arrangement of the very same song. (Add.: portion is part of the game’s introduction).

Update: I just found out that even in the latest version of WP there’s no way to edit or change attachments. I guess, I have to dive into SQL to correct the typo in that attachment linked in this posting. Or I should rectify this by writing a small plug-in. Oh: and for some freaking scary reason I tend to write attachment as attachement.