Inside The Score - Donkey Kong 64 - Hideout Helm

Try to escape Mr. Kong

We keep the celebrations for Donkey Kong going by featuring….the less DK sounding track ever made (at least we could say the DK Rap has ties with Funky Kong or something). That is because composer Grant Kirkhope decided to bring his GoldenEye 007/Perfect Dark hat unto the world of these monkeys for a brief sequence that finds the team of five Kongs on a Mission Impossible style setpiece that requires them to deactivate the Blast-o-Matic of King K. Rool whom we are also celebrating due to the return of the very missed Kremlings to the series (Disclamer Note: I don’t actually have a clue whether they returned on the latest Donkey Kong Bananza, it is just a hunch. So please help me confirm this by supporting the project and thus allowing me to purchase a Switch 2 with the latest Donkey Kong adventure; his second in 3D).

The secret agent mission connection was already foreshadowed by the character Snide and his spy inspired theme; he acts as the Q to the monkey agents, examining the blueprints we have been acquiring in order to buy time to deactivate the lethal weapon (The Blast-o-Matic which is a similar device to the huge raygun featured in Banjo-Tooie, a game also developed at this time, is so important that it ended up as the final smash for King K. Rool).

Musical Analysis

Hopefully somebody out there decides to arrange this track with the soundfont of either GoldenEye or Perfect Dark. Only thing missing here is the classic sonar sound effect sprinkled throughout the score of both the GoldenEye film and game. In its place we have the traditional Banjo-Kazooie/DK64 cartoon orchestra with a special focus on the string arrangements. The equivalent to the sonar sound would be the snare drum played at a very low pitch, creating sort of the same metal clang vibe that is required for action thrillers. Other epic elements include the use of huge tom drums and gong sound effects.

This is all about tension since time is ticking. The track is unrelenting and anxiety inducing throughout. Not even the barrel where you change between Kongs has its goofy music, showing how serious this moment is supposed to be. This is pretty much a Hanz Zimmer track in the sense that it focuses on a low pedal note mimicking a clock and cool ostinatos throughout—Even though Kirkhope is not a big fan of Zimmer due to the film composer not being so tied with the classic melodicism of more romantic film composers; still, he is has become the go-to guy and cannot be beaten for action sequences full of epicness. The Kirkhophisms appear at the end when the strings play a proper melody leaving the pedal accompaniment behind and jumping from frantic chord to chord.

After being musicalized with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal for his appearance on Donkey Kong Country with the track Gangplank Galleon, K Rool keeps the metal alive (R.I.P Ozzy) with a main riff worthy of a doom metal track; just replace the string ostinattos with a distorted electric guitar in drop D riff and this Phrygian scale would sound appropriately dark.

The interlude of the piece is based on another track Kirkhope had already composed for the canceled Project Dream game from which a lot of tracks come from. The short snippet can be heard here:

Alongside an early version of Mayahem Temple from Banjo-Tooie and Angry Aztec from our game in question Donkey Kong 64—which shows Grant did not care about differentiating the Aztecs from the Mayas, and in any case nobody knows what they sounded like so he just pulled some middle Eastern tricks and called it a day.