Level with Emily Reese

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.

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 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 guitar too.

Maclaine, inspired by Led Zeppelin and Game Boy Star Wars. Loved it! Buy on Maclaine's 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.

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 and Twitter. Patrons have access to special Discord events and special guest playlists.

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.