Level with Emily Reese

I met video essayist Jacob Geller during my occasional appearances on The MinnMax Show to discuss the best game music of a given year. Meeting him led me on a journey through his videos, and I absolutely adore his videos. We talk about why in this conversation! In addition to YouTube, you can find Jacob on Patreon . You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon . Join us on Disco...

Composer Thomas Cipollone writes 8-bit scores for games that release on NES cartridges. He has to adhere to all the rules composers followed in the 80s, constricted heavily by the size of his audio files and the voicings he can compose. And he does so brilliantly, with creative textures, great grooves and fulfilling melodies. We spoke about four of his scores, some of which have been released, som...

Composer Curtis Schweitzer talks about his hypnotic, largely orchestral music for the indie 2D space explorer, Starbound . I loved how many of the tracks stretch out almost indefinitely, giving the listener time in that musical place. And there's quite a bit of music too - more than 6 hours of it. It's worth your time, I promise. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon . Jo...

Dylan Wiest is the director, drummer and sometimes-keyboardist in The OC Jazz Collective , a talented group of musicians from the legendary OverClocked Remix brigade. The ensemble released a new album in November, 2022 called Mode Seven: A Jazz Tribute to the SNES . If you've never dipped your toe into the OC Remix crowd, this is a fantastic start. Dylan, who goes by "Wiesty" in the OCR community,...

Composer Vincent Diamante 's music for Sky: Children of the Light is gentle, gorgeous and uplifting. The palette is mostly orchestral, especially in the early volumes of the soundtrack (there are 4 volumes , currently). The game is from thatgamecompany , known for its brilliantly designed indie games such as Journey, Flower and Flow. Vincent composed for Flower , and that soundtrack remains one of...

Nuno Fonseca grew up with an equal love for music, audio and technology. He's a former university professor in Portugal, and he's published more than 20 papers on computer audio and 2 books on sound and computer design. His interests led him to create Sound Particles , which is immersive software capable of generating thousands or millions of sounds for 3D audio. It's a tremendously efficient way...

Kristin Naigus plays dozens of instruments and has performed on dozens of soundtracks. Here's a fraction of her credits : Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, Aragami 1 & 2, ABZU, Farpoint, various Minecraft mythology projects like the Egyptian, Norse and Chinese Mythology packs, Moss: Books 1 & 2, Darksiders Genesis, Hades, The Pathless, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, Amb...

Composer Ed Critchley talks about his music for South of the Circle , a narrative adventure about an academic named Peter and his relationship with another lecturer named Clara. The game is set in the Cold War in the 60's in Antarctica. South of the Circle came out more than 2 years ago, which matters, because there were a couple of times Ed needed to listen to his tracks in order to know what I w...

Composer Cris Velasco talks about his music for the game Dauntless , a co-op action RPG that debuted in 2019. This release is Cris's third volume of music from the game. We talk about the evolution of the score over the last several years, and how he takes instruments from all around the world to create the sound palette for the game. It's always so great having Cris on the show! You can find a pl...

Composer scntfc (C. Andrew Rohrmann) talks about two of his scores for games: Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is from 2022 - an ecological adventure game about Gibbons. As a player, you swing, slide and somersault through the trees while learning about these special creatures. Andy's music is heavy on struck percussion, rhythmic and full of energy to match the near-constant motion of the game. JETT: The...

Composer Austin Wintory talks about his music for Aliens: Fireteam Elite , a squad shooter from Cold Iron Studios . The game is a part of the Aliens universe, you know, the face-hugging, chest-exploding, H.R. Giger -designed Aliens. And the soundtrack is fabulous, with many subtle and less-subtle tributes to the famous film scores written by Jerry Goldsmith , James Horner and Elliot Goldenthal . Y...

Composer Maclaine Diemer 's music for Salt and Sacrifice is grimy and unpolished. As producer Sam Keenan says , "You can make a cello sound a lot of ways, and he found a bunch of fun ones." Of course, Maclaine is best-known for his gorgeous, lush, epic orchestral music for Guild Wars 2 . And this is definitely a departure from that in all the wonderful ways. I loved all the grit, and all of the gu...

Composer Andrew Prahlow wrote music for Outer Wilds over the course of ten years, most recently for the game's giant expansion: Echoes of the Eye. At the conclusion of that project, Andrew felt compelled to write more music inspired by the game. The result is The Lost Reels , a set of segueing tracks Andrew wrote as homage to the decade spent with the story's characters. And it is fantastic. I hig...

Composer Jason Graves talks about his music for Moss: Book II , a VR game where the player helps a mouse named Quill save her homeland from evil. The score has numerous solos for various wind instruments, like flute, oboe, English horn and Irish penny whistle. Jason also mentions the baby grand piano he bought and features in the soundtrack, and a couple different types of dulcimers are heard too....

Composer Nick Roder talks about his music for Roadwarden , an illustrated text-based RPG released in September (2022). Since the game is text-based, the music functions a bit differently than game music often does, allowing Nick to stretch tracks out over longer periods of time. It's very melancholic music - deeply introspective, calm... maybe a bit sad, but also beautiful and lyrical. You can fin...

The Game Brass are a team of seven musicians on a mission to share video game music in a brassy way. Six of them are performers: John Robert Matz (who's been a recurring Level guest), Robby Duguay, Danny Flam, Daniel Romberger, Alex Hill and John Stacy. The seventh, Thomas Kresge, is The Game Brass's arranger and producer/audio engineer. You can read more about each of them here . They live scatte...

Composer Phill Boucher wrote a fantastic score for HEROish , a new castle defense game on Apple Arcade. It's an amalgamation of Celtic instruments, a full-orchestra and some hardcore metal guitar. He calls it "Celtic metal plus" and the description is appropriate. Definitely take a few moments to check out this score video if you want to see the actual notation for the HEROish main theme - it's gr...

Composer Nainita Desai is all over my playlist these days, whether it's her game music or film music. Most recently, it's for Sam Barlow's new interactive film/game called Immortality . In Immortality, the player sifts through footage of 3 unreleased feature films, trying to solve the mystery of missing (fictional) film star, Marissa Marcel. As a result, the music shifts through several different...

Ben Hanson and Kyle Hilliard are serious content creators in the world of video game media. They have a media empire of sorts here in Minneapolis at MinnMax , with weekly podcasts and videos, a vibrant Discord and a variety of events. They met years ago as colleagues at Game Informer magazine (published here in Mpls) and have been making media for game fans ever since. Ben graciously invites me to...

Alina Matson is the founder of Glossbird , a Minneapolis-based game developer making a game called Fitment. Alina and her company are making a social micro-fitness game, described as Animal Crossing meets Duolingo for exercise. It isn’t out yet, although it will be hitting early-access soon! Fitment's release is expected in 2023, and now you can get it on your radar! You can support Level with Emi...

Brian Schmidt is a composer, but his influence and reach within the game audio community are wide after more than 3 decades in the industry. Brian is also the president of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) and the founder of a game audio convention called GameSoundCon .  Importantly, Brian is encouraging game composers to submit their scores for the upcoming (Feb. '23) Grammy Awards , with t...

I loved talking with Zac Tiessen . He's a phenomenal guitar player (look him up on YouTube for sure). He's just composed the soundtrack for a StarCraft II mod called UED: First Light, a prequel to the StarCraft universe. Zac's music matches the epic expanse of the cosmos he scored, with an epic orchestral style and the vocal talents of Julie Elven . It was a pleasure to speak with him! You can fin...

Composer Kristofer Eng 's music for It Takes Two is fantastic. For the most part, it's cinematically orchestral, with other styles heard depending on the level in the game. The game is a 2-player puzzle/adventure platformer, where you play as the parents to a girl named Rose. Her parents are planning to divorce, and Rose doesn't want that to happen. It's a marvelous journey with beautiful and clev...

Meena Shamaly is a singer, an instrumentalist, a composer, a radio host and a performance poet. While not a definitive list of his artistic talents, it's a list relevant to our conversation we had at the end of July. So, we talk about how he sang, played oud and served as an Arabic music and language consultant for Christopher Tin on Old World . We discuss his one-hour radio show on Australia's AB...

Composer Will Savino talks about his music for Souldiers , a metroidvania platform puzzler with RPG elements, pixel art and a retro-ish soundtrack. So much music in this game! It was fun to talk about it with Will! Also, Will composes loads of music for tabletop gaming, a topic I haven't explored very much, and was delighted to discuss. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patre...