11: Lena Raine and the quest for the cosy web

It’s a question that crops up a lot: how do musicians move into
video game soundtracking?


Lena Raine is one of the most respected game composers on the
circuit, capturing the imagination of millions with her work for
Minecraft and Celeste, one of the key indie games of the last
decade.


Often with No Tags, we try to focus on people who haven’t had
their story adequately told. That’s not the case with Lena. She’s
given many interviews, and she’s always an excellent subject. But
we wanted to ask some practical questions: just how does a
musician enter the world of video games? And what do they need to
know about pitching, contracts, copyright and the difference in
process between releasing recorded music and working for video
games? 


It’s an interview of two halves: the first serves as a practical
resource for musicians, but in classic No Tags style, the second
half goes somewhere else entirely, with Lena on fine form
tackling Gamergate, the evolution of the modern internet (not
familiar with the theory of the Cozy Web? You soon will be) and
the sale of Bandcamp. She saves her most righteous response for
the coming of AI, though – that’s worth the price of admission
alone.


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