By Thomas Quillfeldt As we’ve been exploring in our blog series, ‘Why we ♥ video game music’, game soundtracks can come to mean an awful lot to people, not least because they become wrapped up with memories and emotions of specific gaming moments. We asked some of the most passionate...
Tune by tune, we break down the structure of Roger Wanamo's Final Fantasy VI Symphonic Poem—an epic struggle between our heroine, Terra, and the villainous Kefka. By Thomas Quillfeldt Conceived as a set of orchestral concert suites, first performed in 2013, Final Symphony is based on the music of video game...
This is part of a blog series “Why we ♥ video game music”: – ‘Nostalgia’ – 'The feels' – 'Scratching the vinyl itch' By Thomas Quillfeldt There are reasons other than nostalgia that video game music enjoys fans beyond the act of playing games themselves: in the era of portable,...
By Thomas Quillfeldt How to depict an infinite universe? It’s a question that has tested developer Hello Games in creating 2016’s much talked about sci-fi exploration and survival game, No Man’s Sky. The largely generative in-game soundtrack draws its music cues from an album—Sheffield rock band 65daysofstatic's No Man’s Sky: Music for an Infinite...
By Thomas Quillfeldt 99% of music from games is created to sit in the background—one aspect of the ‘video’ bit of ‘video games’. As a result, there’s a lot of laid-back game music that is perfect for sending you off to la la land. There’s also a whole world of...
By Thomas Quillfeldt Listen to enough music (and play enough games) and the chances are that you’ll come across songs or pieces that remind you of certain games. Of course it’s a bit chicken and egg: music for modern video games has escaped the limitations of sound chips and can...
It has been a busy 12 months here at Laced Records HQ and we've been beavering away creating extra special releases, taking pride in every little detail. Here is a round-up of our 2016 releases, bringing together product details, artwork and relevant links. ENTER THE GUNGEON: HEART IN HALVES EP...
By Thomas Quillfeldt Music from video games can have a wonderfully soothing effect—after all, it is often designed to be emotionally affecting yet sit in the background. To that end, as Christmas rolls around, it’s a good time to pluck out some of the more delicate, relaxing tracks either from games...
By Thomas Quillfeldt We previously covered 65daysofstatic’s EGX developer session on the creation of their album No Man’s Sky: Music for an Infinite Universe and how they worked with developer Hello Games to implement this body of music into one of the most talked-about video games of the last few years. Instrumental to that...
By Thomas Quillfeldt Some 35 years old, the Japanese role-playing game genre doesn’t seem to have dimmed in popularity, with 2016 seeing the flagship JRPG series, Final Fantasy, enjoy its 84th game release (depending on how you count the numerous spin-offs, re-releases and mobile titles). Of course a major element...
By Frederik Lauridsen AKA Blip Blop Wax I was really excited by the recent announcement of Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s a good time to be a fan of the series, with 2004’s Red Dead Revolver coming to PlayStation 4 and Red Dead Redemption becoming backwards compatible on Xbox One and...
By Thomas Quillfeldt We’re feeling all classical here at Laced thanks to our work with Merregnon Studios on bringing the orchestral suites Final Symphony and Symphonic Fantasies Tokyo (based on the music of Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and other JRPGs) to vinyl and CD. Classical music might not seem like...
By Thomas Quillfeldt At EGX 2016’s Developer Sessions, Sheffield band 65daysofstatic—the audio architects of No Man’s Sky’s sonic universe—gave a talk about how to create an infinite, ever-changing soundtrack. The band’s frontmen, Joe Shrewsbury and Paul Wolinski, spoke openly about their involvement with Hello Games, the technical challenges they faced...
By Thomas Quillfeldt and David Housden The Final Fantasy series is one of gaming’s crown jewels. Say what you will about individual games, quirks and tropes of the series or core gameplay mechanics—it can’t be denied that the fan community is incredibly vibrant both in terms of the wider series...
By Thomas Quillfeldt Merregnon Studios and Laced Records are teaming up to bring you the concert albums Final Symphony and Symphonic Fantasies Tokyo on CD and vinyl, covering the music of a number of composers that worked on classic Square Enix RPGs including Nobuo Uematsu & Masashi Hamauzu (Final Fantasy),...
