The next time your grandparents blame video games for all the world’s evils, point them in the direction of Wingspan.

Adapted from a board game of the same name, the Wingspan video game involves competing against others (or the computer) to attract as many birds as possible to your own customized wildlife preserve. It’s been described as a “relaxing strategy game” – which feels like a genre the world needs more of – and strikes me as a more sedate, less bloodthirsty version of Monopoly.

A game that is trying to give its users equal doses of relaxation and problem-solving needs a special kind of soundtrack, and Poland’s Paweł Górniak definitely came through.

I haven’t played the game, but listening to Górniak’s soundtrack makes it easy to imagine the landscapes and the plumage. This is the album’s opening track.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. One interval, a major third, keeps going throughout the track as the changing chords beneath it. It’s like watching a bird fly across various backdrops.

2. Including a flute in a song about birds sounds too obvious to work, but the flute that comes in at 1:24 is so subtle that you don’t notice it until it’s flown off again.

3. At 1:50 some soft strings show up, but rather than exploding into intricate harmonies they play in steady unison, like a flock flying as one.

Recommended listening activity:

Hooking your thumbs together and making shadow birds on your bedroom wall.

Buy it here.

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