The unreleased Destiny album created in part by Halo composer Marty O’Donnell has surfaced online despite the legal and professional conflict that had previously prevented its official release five years back.
The Music of the Spheres album was created by the musical trio of O’Donnell, Michael Salvatori, and Paul McCartney but never saw the light of day after Bungie fired O’Donnell in 2014 and later won the rights to the album in a courtroom.
Now, all eight tracks of the album have been released online, a feat Kotaku says was accomplished when the leader of a Music of the Spheres recreation effort was contacted by someone that had a copy of the unreleased musical work. The album is currently up on SoundCloud, though it’s hard to say for how long given that this is far from a sanctioned release.
Music of the Spheres itself was a significant part of O’Donnell’s conflict with Bungie following what he described as his termination “without cause” in mid-2014.
The noted composer would later take Bungie to court over his firing, agreeing to settle with Bungie over unpaid benefits in one case and winning another to recover nearly 200,000 shares of Bungie stock. Though O’Donnell walked away victorious in that second case, he was required to give up rights to the Music of the Spheres album as part of the agreement.
Since, O’Donnell has been vocal about his desire to see an eventual Music of the Spheres release, noting as recently as November that he lacked the authority to greenlight its release, it but that an unofficial release had his blessing.
Now, in a statement given to Kotaku, O’Donnell says he’s glad the album finally found its way out into the world.
“I’m quite relieved and happy. This was the way it was supposed to have been heard 5 years ago,” he told Kotaku over email. “My wife and I spent the afternoon with my now 93-year-old father and we showed him that people were finally able to hear this work. It made our Christmas even better. My mother, his wife of over 60 years died a couple years ago and although she loved listening and shared it with some of her friends (she was a musician) she never understood why it wasn’t released. I don’t know who actually did it but they have my blessing. I honestly don’t know how anyone could begrudge this any longer.”