Montreal-based, Japanese psych-rock group TEKE::TEKE released Assassin’s Creed: Shadows – Kage No Iro (Original Game Soundtrack), offering six original songs in addition to their own fiery take on the series’ recurring theme, “Ezio’s Family.”
This new album release arrives as both a thrilling new entry in TEKE::TEKE’s discography, as well as an exciting evolution for Ubisoft, with the songs playing in-game for the first time, tied intrinsically to the story to soundtrack key narrative moments. While composers and longtime Ubisoft collaborators The Flight were again charged with the game’s score, the video game giant had never used a full album of original songs to deepen the game’s narrative immersion, until now. Kage No Iro (Original Game Soundtrack) by TEKE::TEKE is now available to hear within the game as well as a standalone album out on streaming platforms everywhere today (with vinyl announcement plans in the works).
Arriving alongside the album today is the official video for “Michi,” a song that perfectly scores a key fight in the game while anchored in the eccentric DNA of TEKE::TEKE’s music, as can be heard on previous albums Shirushi (2021) or Hagata (2023). “I am a monster, I am a god, I am a mane, I am a voice/ I am dappled sunlight, I am nothing, I am a shadow,” the band’s lyricist and vocalist Maya Kuroki whispers in Japanese, before crashing bass thunder and surf guitar peel through the mix. The video shows the band members ferociously playing the song, seamlessly spliced between game footage. It was produced by TEKE::TEKE singer Maya Kuroki, Samuel Woywitka and Jeff Mitchell.
Wind, forest, fire, mountain. Those four words emphasize warriors’ swiftness, gentleness, ferocity, and unshakability. But another element flits through the background—a shadow, slipping through your fingers and yet strong enough to bring everything to its end. “Formless things become everything, disappearing and reappearing,” Kuroki sings. That shadow is the shinobi, a spy, a warrior, a ninja, a survivor — much like Naoe, one of the two protagonists of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. The formidable Montreal-based seven-piece utilize that same shapeshifting strength to detail Naoe’s journey throughout the game.
The TEKE::TEKE members’ Japanese heritage connected them deeply to the game’s setting. Their surf and psych rock influences were a natural match for the game’s direction and were adopted readily by the whole team, to the delight of music supervisors Benedicte Ouimet and Jerome Angelot, who were imagining a Tarantino soundtrack when sourcing music for Shadows. As the Ubisoft team was developing its first playable demos, Mr. Angelot recalled TEKE::TEKE’s composer Sei Nakauchi Pelletier’s scoring work, while at the same time, someone on the development team was pushing to use Shirushi hit “Meikyu” for the game’s first internal playable demo. “That track is a banger, and everyone immediately agreed we needed the band to be part of the project,” Mr. Angelot says.
