Here is the August 2022 G4F Records article on video game music releases. Enjoy!
This is a non-exhaustive list without any classification hierarchy. We invite you to discover new video game music releases that will brighten up your day! 🙂
The G4F Records team wishes you a good start to the new school year! To remind us of summer, let’s take a look (and an listen…) at the different video game music releases from this scorching month of August.
South of the Circle, Sweet and Fresh Notes
Composer: Ed Critchley
South of the Circle is a narrative experience whose aesthetic oscillates between a cinematographic project and a video game. Driven by BAFTA-winning studio State of Play, and distributed by 11 Bit Studio, the plot pushes the player to reflect deeply on past choices and their consequences on present and future life. Several themes are addressed, including love, which remains a key element.
The project boasts a high quality artistic cast. We find actors from “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Gwilym Lee), “The Woman in White” (Olivia Vinall), “The Crown” (Richard Goulding), “Game of Thrones” (Anton Lesser), “Chernobyl” (Adrian Rawlins) and “Downton Abbey” (Michael Fox).
Sweet and Fresh Notes
In order to immerse us in this experience at the crossroads of the worlds of cinema and video games, the composer Ed Critchley rocks us with sweet and fresh notes, allowing us to explore a palette of emotions. We feel the sensitivity of the artist and the desire to remain in this contemplative state that we can be in while watching a film.
The piano plays a considerable role throughout the whole album. Ed Critchley shows us the extent of his talent with a quality mix. We particularly appreciated the track “Russian Base”, which is also one of the longest tracks on the album.
We can also find the composition work of this British artist on the EP, Circles, published by 11 Bit Studio. Inside are two tracks by Frostpunk composer, Piotr Musiał, covered by Ed Critchley, as well as two tracks by Ed Critchley from South of the Circle covered by Piotr Musiał. Great initiative from 11 Bit Studio to offer this kind of content. We are always fond of these types of artistic collaborations.
As a bonus, an interview with Piotr Musiał & Ed Critchley!
Cult of the Lamb, Satanic Trap
Composer: River Boy
If you’ve ever dreamed of starting your own cult and battling hordes of infidels, all in a cute, cartoonish aesthetic, then you can try your luck with Cult of the Lamb. Developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital, Cult of the Lamb is a sort of rogue-like action-adventure game that would have a place in the Happy Tree Friends universe!
Satanic Trap
Cult of the Lamb‘s soundtrack is just as atypical as its universe. The artist behind this composition is River Boy. This alias is the solo project of Australian, Narayana Johnson, who is also half of the duo, Willow Beat. This artist-composer has several strings to his bow, bouncing between the stage, composing music for video games, and being the audio director at Massive Audio.
We can spot some typical Trap elements on the Cult of the Lamb album. In particular, the constant use of bass 808 and the particular rhythm of the hi-hats which echo the genre. River Boy also highlighted the use of sidechain and gate on the vocal samples, which created a unique identity to the soundtrack. Everything is perfectly arranged and mixed for the pleasure of our ears. The use of certain percussions, FX and other ear candies make the excellent quality of this soundtrack.
It’s complicated to choose a favorite track among this catalog. Though we’ll admit that Praise The Lamb gets stuck in our heads and we also appreciate Knucklesbone, which almost reminds us of certain songs from Darren Korb’s album, Hades.
RollerDrome, Rolling Bass, Resonating Snare and Synth Pad
Composer: Electric Dragon
The Roll7 studio behind OlliOlli World is back for a new game on wheels, but not just that! Here, we forget the peaceful, relaxing and good vibes side of OlliOlli World. The plot of Rollerdrome forces us to interact in 2030 in a cyberfuturistic world where megacorporations have taken power. A new ultra-violent sport which views itself as a new form of entertainment is in vogue: the Rollerdrome. Un nouveau sport ultra-violent qui se veut comme un nouveau spectacle est en vogue : le Rollerdrome.
Simply put, you’ll have to ride and fight with all kinds of guns in frenetic and fierce combat. The game has already been very well received by critics, and deservedly so.
Rolling Bass, Resonating Snare and Synth Pad
To match Rollerdrome‘s rather nervous aesthetic and gameplay, Roll7 called on Electric Dragon! This artist is known in the world of synthwave and darksynth, so we can expect something edgy, and it delivers. Electric Dragon‘s universe and its musical style fit perfectly with Rollerdrome.
True to the genre, rolling bass, resonating snare and synth pad are in order. Electric Dragon provides a fairly sustained rhythm throughout the entire album. Lovers of this genre will be pleased, because all the ingredients that they love are brought together here.
Like the previous soundtrack, many tracks caught our attention, but Kara’s Theme is the one we’ll remember. It’s a great representation of synthwave as a whole and we feel sucked into the game with its sequences of arpeggiators with retrofuturistic sounds.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, An Anthology of Composers
Composers: Various artists
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is a simulation game set in a science fiction universe. More specifically, the player will have to lead their life in an extrasolar space colony. Each choice made will have consequences on the sequence of events in the game. The development team behind this project is Northway Games and the game is published by Finji.
The game’s particular aesthetics offers an original visual experience. The player will be able to evolve on Vertuma through colorful watercolor decorations. Starting as an innocent 10-year-old pre-teen, we’ll have to survive until we begin to live through trials that will shape our nature and our vision of the world. But we’ll leave you the freedom to try the game and discover it all yourself.
An Anthology of Composers
What’s interesting with this project is that Sarah Northway (the project leader) shared as much information as possible around the creation and progress of the game. By following the posts shared on the Northway Games website, we can learn more about the inspirations and how the soundtrack of I was a Teenage Excolonist was built
What emerges is an anthology of composers on the album! What’s obvious is the presence of Daniel Rosenfeld (aka C418, or even “that Minecraft guy”) but also of A Shell in the Pit (which we already talked about for the soundtrack of Rogue Legacy 2 in our April edition) who is also the audio director on I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. But that’s not all, because the album has a total of 14 artists for a total of 27 tracks!
As explained on the studio’s website, C418 suggested building a soundtrack involving several artists in order to perfectly fit with the changing visions of life. With the help of A Shell in the Pit, Sarah Northway asked several friends and new artists to complete this soundtrack.
Listening to the soundtrack of Excolonist, we immediately feel this desire to travel, to escape and to discover new horizons. We also notice that the animation used for this album’s video on YouTube is a nod to the famous 24/24 radio of the Lofi Girl channel: lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to. Which confirms this album’s desire to create a soothing moment of listening.
Islets, An Incentive to Travel and Daydream
Composer: Eric Thompson
This aesthetically resplendent metroidvania, featuring hand-painted landscapes, is something of a family project. Indeed, the developer of Islets is Kyle Thompson, an American living in Oregon and the composer of the game’s soundtrack is Eric Thompson, his brother.
In Islets, players take on the role of Iko, a mouse warrior who sets out to explore the world in order to connect various islands together. Iko will have to activate the magnetic core of each island and will thus be able to expand his world and discover new characters as endearing as each other. Islets is not intended to promote violence and the gameplay is rather filled with tenderness despite the fact that Iko has to face several enemies who will stand in his way.
An Incentive to Travel and Daydream
Erik Thompson has composed an album full of sweetness. Some of the music is more groovy, like Ice Storm or HyperDrive, in order to adapt to the gameplay. But the rest is only pure incentive to travel. This only confirms the desire of Islets to allow the feeling of sweetness prevail.
And this concludes our August 2022 article on video game music releases! See you next month 🙂
Thank you all!