Level With Emily Reese

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 highly recommend you spend time listening to this music in the absence of doing anything else. Just.... listen. It's a prime example of the love the artist has for the art. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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. It's such lovely music! You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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 find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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 scattered about North America and all are professional musicians (although not necessarily as performers). They've made several outstanding albums in the past, please consider supporting them by purchasing their music. And/or buy a shirt (or a patch or other fine merch)! THE ALBUM, by the way, is Brass Effect; 2 hours of covers of space-themed music from games, and it's well worth a listen. It includes several talented guest performances and a variety of styles, from hardcore brass ensemble writing to rock. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube

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 great!! You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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 moods throughout the experience. We also discuss Nainita's Emmy-nominated scores for 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible and The Reason I Jump. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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 participate annually in a game-music-of-the-year podcast, and had me out for jucy lucy's a couple of weeks ago (along with the esteemed Janet Garcia!). You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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 Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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 the addition of the new Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media category. We talk about all of these things, including Brian's music and sound work on Mutant Football League (2017) and Mutant League Football (1993). You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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 find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists. https://www.zactiessen.com/ (Website) https://uedfl.com/ (UED: First Light website) https://music.apple.com/us/artist/zac-tiessen/786236894 (Apple Music) https://open.spotify.com/artist/44VIiKcvL7jtY8hcWIraKc (Spotify) https://www.instagram.com/zactiessen/ (IG @zactiessen) https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9459340/ (IMDb)

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 clever level design, all enhanced by Kristofer and the other composer on It Takes Two, Gustaf Grefberg. Additionally, Kristofer co-created a company called Elias Software, which makes adaptive music and audio software for games. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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 ABC called Game Show, where he talks about and plays video game music. We also talk about his poetry - he is a performance/spoken-word poet. It was great chatting with him! You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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 Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

A few things about my conversation with George Sanger. It's the longest single-interview episode in my 11 years as a podcaster, and the interview itself flew by. I felt like each question could've been its own episode. I kept wanting to turn the page and discover more. Alas, we barely scrape the surface of this game audio legend. We talk about his music for Wing Commander and The 7th Guest. We talk about writing lyrics, loving The Beatles, and math. George's nickname is The Fat Man, thanks to a typo on a business card decades ago. I encourage you to spend time listening to as much of his music as possible. You can do so on his Bandcamp page. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

Joel Schoch's music for the Far series of games is truly wonderful (Far: Changing Tides from 2022 and Far: Lone Sails from 2018). I can't recommend it highly enough. Joel does a laudable job scoring the open, watery worlds in both games. An abundance of live instruments but with respect for the, well, "simplicity" that the games present. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

There are 14,000 sound effects (aka "Foley") in the game Unpacking. That's a handful. And what a charming game, no dialog, just art and sound. You learn the story as you unpack the belongings of a young girl as she grows up, goes to college, moves in with friends, then experiences different relationships in adult life. Jeff and Angela van Dyck are responsible for the audio, and Jeff wrote gleefully chill, melodic and thoughtful music to represent various phases of the woman's life. I love it so very much. Be sure to grab yourself the soundtrack on Bandcamp. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

Imp of the Sun is a gorgeous 2D platformer from Sunwolf Entertainment, a company co-created by the game's composer, Jose Varon. The game was inspired by the landscape, history, culture, art and music of Peru, where the developers live. Jose got the chance to record instruments in a museum, some of which were 6,000 years old. And he highlights other instruments with roles in Peruvian culture, like pan flutes, the quena, various percussion, charango and other strummed instruments, wooden trumpets, and more. You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

The music for Loot River was composed by two brothers in Vienna, Austria - Markus and David Zahradnicek. Markus and David, who go by Wobblersound, are a full-service audio package, so for Loot River, they supplied not only the music, but the sound design and implementation.   You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

Chase Bethea talks about his music for Questlike: Pocket, a mobile monster-hunter RPG with a rhythmic component to battle. Chase wrote four battle tracks for the game, all in the same time signature of 5/4, and all at 60 beats per minute to match battle tempo throughout the game. In addition to the four battle tracks, Chase also wrote the main theme. As always, it was a pleasure to speak with Chase about his music! You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

Composer Ben Nichols talks about three soundtracks: OMNO, a gorgeous adventure game (for which he received an Ivor Novello nomination); Before We Leave, a colorful world-builder; and The Falconeer, a dogfighting aerial combat fighter. So different from each other and delightful to discuss each one! You'll find a YouTube video on our channel (sometimes they post a few days after the audio version). You can find a playlist and support Level with Emily on Patreon. Join us on Discord for free. Find us on YouTube and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.