One of the things I pride myself on in my day-to-day work is the fact that I get to pick the music in the office. Yes, I really am that shallow. It’s not just a case of sticking the Mood playlist on Spotify and cracking on, though, it’s a very subtle art (last Nick Hornby reference, I swear). Depending on what the vibe of the day is, it might be a case of upping the tempo to get everyone motivated, or cooling things off so that everyone can concentrate/chat. A few weeks ago, I threw down a wildcard, and spent the better part of the day dropping nothing but video game soundtrack tunes, from the bouncy optimism of Super Mario 64, through the glitchy nostalgia overload of Pokemon Red, past the ridiculous Goa trance madness of Extreme G all the way to more recent fare like Journey and InFamous 2.
It’s a trick I picked up during university, game music can provide a particularly potent blend of ambience and urgency which makes it ideal background music for working to. I’m hardly the only person who knows this, and there are a litany of game score mixes out there, but ‘Gamebient’, a new one from Berlin-based DJ Basco, might be the new gold standard. As the name suggests, it’s chill af, but by throwing in material from Silent Hill 2, Firewatch and Limbo (all fairly creepy), and then mixing it around with more optimistic pieces from Journey, Fez and Minecraft, he’s created something which works almost as well as a piece of audible drama as a working playlist. Here’s the full tracklist:
1. Martin Stig Andersen – Menu (Limbo)
2. Akira Yamaoka – White Noiz (Silent Hill 2)
3. Floex – The Mezzanine (Machinarium)
4. Ben Prunty – Cosmos (Explore) (FTL: Faster Than Light)
5. Chris Zabriskie – CGI Snake (Her Story)
6. Ben Benjamin – Air Parsing (Hohokum)
7. Disasterpeace – Formations & Memory (Fez)
8. Dual Ryan – Va (The Beginner’s Guide)
9. Chris Remo – Calm After The Storm (Firewatch)
10. Chris Remo – A Very Long Phase (Gone Home)
11. Disasterpeace – Wisdom’s Tragedy (Hyper Light Drifter)
12. Michiru Oshima & Kōichi Yamazaki – Impression (Ico)
13. Austin Wintory – The Call & First Confluence (Journey)
14. Heathered Pearls – Raising Our Ashes (Hohokum)
15. C418 – Subwoofer Lullaby (Minecraft)
16. Jim Guthrie – The Cloud (Sword & Sworcery)
17. Dual Ryan – D.S. Al Coda (The Beginner’s Guide)
Original source – the lovely folks over at FACT Mag
If you put this on at work today, let us know how it went down in the comments, would you kindly.
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