Murcof | All These Worlds Pt. II
What is Murcof’s “All These Worlds Pt. II” about? How a canceled video game, a 17-year silence, and IRCAM technology created one of 2024’s finest electronic tracks.
Quick Facts: Release Date, Genre, and Credits
“All These Worlds Pt. II” was released on November 15, 2024, as track 4 on Twin Color (Vol. I), Murcof’s first full-length album in nearly two decades. The track runs 4:00 and sits in the electronic/ambient/cinematic space that Murcof has occupied since his 2002 debut. Composed and produced by Fernando Corona (aka Murcof) between 2020 and 2024 at Plasma Studio in Celrà, Spain, with additional work during 2023 IRCAM residencies in Paris. Mixed by Fernando Corona with additional mixing by Lorenzo Targhetta, who also handled mastering. Released on InFiné, the French label that has followed Murcof since 2009.
What Is “All These Worlds Pt. II” About?
The title carries the weight of science fiction grandeur, and that’s deliberate. Twin Color is built around a cinematic, dystopian narrative influenced by the great sci-fi films of the 1980s. “All These Worlds” suggests something vast and plural, the feeling of standing at the edge of multiple realities simultaneously.
The track itself doesn’t use words (apart from the voice of Murcof’s daughter Alina, whose contributions across the album are treated as texture rather than language). Instead, it communicates through the tension between Murcof’s signature minimal electronics and the brighter, more synthetic textures that define Twin Color‘s new direction. Boomkat described it as “tweaked minimal whirr woken up by plasticky electro synths,” a description that captures the track’s central movement: something dormant being activated.
Story Behind “All These Worlds Pt. II”
The Video Game That Never Was
“All These Worlds” didn’t start as an album track. It was originally conceived as part of a video game soundtrack that was eventually canceled. When the project fell through, Corona revisited the music he had been developing. As he told XLR8R: “When the game fell through, I revisited the music I had been working on. ‘All These Worlds’ fitted perfectly within the emerging concept of Twin Color, so I developed it further, aligning it with the album’s aesthetic.”
This origin explains something about the track’s structure. There’s a functional quality to its architecture, the sense that it was built to accompany movement through a virtual space, to loop and evolve as a player navigated. When Corona pulled it into the album context, he reshaped it to fit Twin Color‘s cinematic narrative, but the DNA of that interactive origin remains audible.
Seventeen Years of Silence, Broken by a Lockdown
Twin Color (Vol. I) is Murcof’s first proper album since Cosmos in 2007. Seventeen years between full-length releases. The gap wasn’t idle: Corona released EPs, collaborations, film scores, and performed extensively with French pianist Vanessa Wagner. But the full-length format had gone quiet.
The album began taking shape in 2020, during pandemic lockdowns. Corona had just turned 50 and found himself in a reflective mood, revisiting the poppier electronic material he had made in the 1980s before Murcof existed. “I continued working in my studio, as I always do, but even more so because of being locked down,” he recalled. That nostalgia for his earlier synth-wave and post-punk experiments became the fuel for Twin Color‘s new sound: darker and more cinematic than anything he had made before, but shot through with the brightness of music he had loved as a teenager in Tijuana.
“All These Worlds Pt. II” Recording and Production Details
IRCAM and the Intersection of Acoustic Research and Pop
Twin Color was produced at Corona’s Plasma Studio in Celrà, Spain, with key contributions from IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris during 2023 residencies. IRCAM, the legendary French institute housed beneath the Centre Pompidou, has been a crucible for electro-acoustic pioneers from Karlheinz Stockhausen to Laurie Anderson. This was Murcof’s first project there, though Corona had used IRCAM-developed tools before, including Max for his 2003 album Secondary Inspection under his Terrestre alias.
At IRCAM, Corona worked with Pierre Carré on computer music production and Clément Cerles on sound diffusion. He described using Trax and Verb for sound design, and delving into sound synthesis and voice processing tools. But the core production remained on Ableton Live, his primary instrument for years.
Analog Synthesis Meets Post-Digital Methods
The album blends analog synthesizers with modern production techniques. Corona described Twin Color as a return to his roots: a reimagination of his techno-pop origins, filtered through decades of experience with minimalism, drone, and classical music. “All These Worlds Pt. II” sits in the middle of this tension, combining the sparse, glitchy percussion Murcof is known for with warmer, more recognizably melodic synth textures that pull from the 80s sci-fi palette.
The track also exists within an audiovisual context. Twin Color was premiered at Mutek Montreal in August 2024 as a live performance created with Brussels-based visual artist Simon Geilfus, who used game engine technology to generate moving natural landscapes in real time. The collaboration with Geilfus goes back over a decade, though an earlier attempt to incorporate game engines hadn’t worked out. IRCAM provided the framework to finally realize the concept.
Notes About “All These Worlds Pt. II” by Murcof
Release Date: November 15, 2024
Duration: 4:00
Genre: Electronic / Ambient / Cinematic / Minimal
Album: Twin Color (Vol. I) (track 4 of 9)
Writer/Producer: Fernando Corona (Murcof)
Label: InFiné
Studios: Plasma Studio (Celrà, Spain), IRCAM (Paris, France)
Mixed by: Fernando Corona, additional mixing by Lorenzo Targhetta
Mastered by: Lorenzo Targhetta, additional mastering by Fernando Corona
Origin: Originally conceived for a canceled video game soundtrack
Murcof “All These Worlds Pt. II” Era Details
Album Details
Album: Twin Color (Vol. I)
Release Date: November 15, 2024
Label: InFiné
Format: Vinyl (12”), CD (with bonus tracks), digital (24-bit/44.1kHz)
Producer: Fernando Corona (Murcof)
Studios: Plasma Studio (Celrà, Spain) and IRCAM (Paris, France)
Visual collaboration: Simon Geilfus (Brussels), with additional technical art by Robert Hodgin
A&R: Alexandre Cazac
A&D: Motoplastic (David Normand)
Premiered: Mutek Montreal, August 2024
**First full-length album since Cosmos (2007), a gap of 17 years
Personnel
Fernando Corona (Murcof) - Composition, production, mixing, additional mastering
Alina Corona - Voice (treated as instrument across the album)
Pierre Carré - IRCAM computer music production
Clément Cerles - IRCAM sound diffusion
Simon Geilfus - Visual art, game engine development
Robert Hodgin - Additional technical art
Lorenzo Targhetta - Additional mixing, mastering
Album Context
First volume of a planned multi-volume collection
IRCAM collaboration: InFiné’s first project with the legendary French institute
Influenced by 1980s sci-fi films, post-punk, and synth-wave
CD version includes two bonus tracks (”Tomorrow Part. I” and “When The Need Is Gone”) and additional track “Cosmic Drifter” not on vinyl
Murcof was a member of Tijuana’s Nortec Collective under the alias Terrestre before launching his solo career
Previous collaborators include Vanessa Wagner (piano), Talvin Singh, Erik Truffaz, Philippe Petit, and Kronos Quartet (via Nortec)
Interesting Facts About “All These Worlds Pt. II”
From Game Engine to Concert Hall
The journey of “All These Worlds” follows one of music’s most productive creative patterns: the rescued piece. What began as functional music for a video game found its way, after the game’s cancellation, into an album that took four years to complete and premiered at one of the world’s most prestigious electronic music festivals. The track’s original purpose as interactive sound design left traces in its structure: it has a spatial quality, a sense of movement through environments, that pure album tracks rarely achieve.
The visual dimension reinforces this. Simon Geilfus built real-time landscapes using game engine technology for the live performance, meaning audiences at Mutek Montreal experienced the track not just as music but as navigation through a virtual world. The game that was canceled found its afterlife in a concert hall.
The Daughter Who Named the Project
One of Twin Color‘s quietest details is also its most personal. Murcof’s daughter Alina Corona contributed her voice to the album, used as an instrument woven through the production. Corona thanked her in the credits “for allowing me to use her sweet little voice as an instrument, and for accidentally naming the project.” The title Twin Color came from Alina, though the exact circumstances of the “accident” remain part of the family’s private story. In an album built on dystopian sci-fi imagery and IRCAM technology, the presence of a child’s voice creates an emotional counterweight that keeps the music human.
Common Questions
Q: What is “All These Worlds Pt. II” by Murcof about? A: The track is part of Twin Color (Vol. I), an album built around a cinematic, dystopian narrative influenced by 1980s sci-fi films. The music communicates through tension between Murcof’s signature minimal electronics and brighter synth-wave textures rather than through lyrics.
Q: When was “All These Worlds Pt. II” released? A: November 15, 2024, as track 4 on Twin Color (Vol. I), released on the InFiné label. It was Murcof’s first full-length album in 17 years.
Q: Who is Murcof? A: Murcof is the project name of Mexican electronic musician Fernando Corona, born in Tijuana in 1970, now based in Celrà, Spain. He is known for sparse, minimalist compositions that fuse classical music influences with electronic production. His debut album Martes (2002) blended the holy minimalism of Arvo Part and Henryk Gorecki with glitchy beats.
Q: What genre is “All These Worlds Pt. II”? A: The track sits between ambient, minimal electronic, and cinematic music, with 1980s synth-wave and post-punk influences that mark a new direction for Murcof. Boomkat described it as minimal textures “woken up by plasticky electro synths.”
Q: Was the track originally written for a video game? A: Yes. Corona revealed to XLR8R that “All These Worlds” was originally conceived as part of a video game soundtrack that was canceled. He later developed it further to fit the Twin Color album concept.
Q: What is IRCAM and how was it involved? A: IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) is a French institute housed beneath the Centre Pompidou in Paris, dedicated to pushing the boundaries of music and sound. Murcof completed residencies there in 2023, using their tools for sound synthesis and voice processing. This was InFiné’s first collaboration with IRCAM.
Q: Whose voice appears on the album? A: Alina Corona, Murcof’s daughter, contributed her voice to the album, treated as an instrument rather than traditional vocals. She also accidentally gave the project its title, Twin Color.