Level with Emily Reese

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 p...

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 su...

Composer Carlos Eiene began his career at age 14, uploading video game music covers to YouTube from his living room on piano and saxophone. He posted a video at the beginning of 2022 stating he would no longer be uploading game covers, but that he would be focusing on original composition. Carlos and I talk about some of his new music, and some of his old music, on this episode. Find him on YouTube, Spotify and elsewhere by searchi...

A song by composer Robert Wolf is nominated for Best Original Song in the upcoming Game Audio Network Guild Awards on May 25, 2022. He composed "Immutable" for the game Arknights, a mobile tower defense/ tactical RPG from Hypergryph. Robert is a composer for Hexany Audio, a company that provides music and sound for many different game projects around the world. Robert also composes for Honor of Kings and Call of Duty Mobile...

Mark Schimmelbusch - known as "Mahn" in the VGM world - talks about his album called The Old Blood: A Bloodborne Concept Album. This album was recently awarded best remix album at the 2022 VGM Con Remix Awards in Minneapolis. Mahn has remixed many other favorites from game music, and we enjoyed talking together about his musical adventures!

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Composer Mason Lieberman works for Tencent Games, and writes music for all types of games and projects, like PUBG Mobile and Teamfight Tactics. He's composed for tons of different anime projects too, like RWBY and Beyblade Burst Evolution. Mason has a keen ear for composing J-rock, and other J-styles and C-styles, and was exposed to these styles starting at a young age when his family had a foreign exchange student from Japan. 

Drummer Dom Palombi talks about his new album Game Night! with game music covers and three original tracks. The album features several seasoned video game, anime and all the J-styles performers like Patrick Bartley (J-Music Ensemble), Carlos Eiene (insaneintherainmusic), the Super Soul Bros., Charlie Rosen (8-Bit Big Band) and more. Dom and the Game Night! band recently traveled to Minneapolis for VGM Con to perform. Dom and Emily ...

Composer Lee Jackson's legacy in the world of game music includes the theme song for Duke Nukem 3Dcalled “Grabbag”. Lee talks about writing music for Duke Nukem 3D and other Duke projects, as well as how quickly he wrote music for Rise of the Triad, and how he made sounds for Balls of Steel (all games from Apogee Software / 3D Realms). Lee also takes commissions to write new music, and his albums on Bandcamp include music he wr...

You’ve probably heard DB Cooper's voice at some point in your gaming life. I first heard her in BioShock 2 as the voice of the PA system. Most recently, she cast and directed the voices in Lake (in my intro to the episode, I mention she voiced characters in Lake, which is incorrect). And she is one of only two who voice ALL of the characters and sounds in the strategy roguelike deck builder Monster Train. And there have been ma...

Ego Plum talks about his music for The Cuphead Show, a new animated TV series on Netflix based on the 2017 game Cuphead. The music Ego composed for the TV series is inspired by the early jazz that accompanied cartoons in and around the 1930s, and that you heard in the original score for the game itself (props to composer Kris Maddigan and here is his interview about Cuphead). Netflix recently announced that The Cuphead Show is rene...

Hear a conversation with Inon Zur about his music for Syberia: The World Before. The game comes out in February 2022, but the soundtrack came out late last year. That gave me the chance to speak with Inon about all of the music, and the music in this game is special for several reasons. One of the main characters is a concert pianist and part of the game is set in 1937 with clear parallels to World War II - all of this sets the sta...

Erik Desiderio is composing music for Last Epoch, an action RPG from Eleventh Hour games. Erik just released a music video with the performers from Last Epoch's Main Theme and you can view it here! Last Epoch has been in early access for quite a while, and Erik is busy filling in the music - 4+ hours of music, to be exact. He used the Scandinavian instrument called the tagelharpa (which you see in the video link above!), an...