Minecraft on vinyl

Music, what a marvel it is! Perhaps humankind’s greatest invention, with the power to lift spirits, soothe souls, and set the mood for just about anything. It’s a universal language everyone can understand, with an ability to perform miracles. Except get rid of my earworms. I simply can’t get the new-and-catchy Villager News song out of my head!

If you, like me, are struggling to go above a certain threshold but want to stay within the genre of marvelous Minecraft music – just aim lower. No, not in quality – fidelity! We’re partnering with the creative geniuses at iam8bit to bring you a lo-fi sensation: the Minecraft Dungeons 4xLP!  

The Minecraft Dungeons 4xLP is a collection of terrific tunes, presented on Nether purple and orange vinyl contained in an elegant box set slipcase. More importantly, the tunes pressed onto these records feature not only a selection of the most memorable tracks from Minecraft Dungeons and its many DLC and seasonal events – but also all-new remixes, featuring musicians Eevee, The Deli, WunTwo, Esbe, o k h o, and ptr.  

Now, we’re sure that many of you are asking yourself the question: What is love? But also: Why lo-fi?

“It all began with me and Audio Director Samuel Åberg being silly about releasing our take on the genre,” says Minecraft composer Peter Hont. “But we also, unironically, like this type of music, so it's both tongue in cheek and a serious attempt at remaking the Minecraft Dungeons tracks in that context.” 

As a test, Peter created a concept track, a form of a pilot that he ran through colleagues at Mojang Studios to get a feeling of their interest. He was met with excitement, and soon, the project was growing into a whole collection.  

“We started thinking ‘Why don't we expand the vinyl to include the soundtrack in general?’ After all, it's common nowadays to release "collector's editions, and it really felt like a solid idea to have both the remixes and original soundtrack in a vinyl.”

In total, there are 31 original songs and 11 remixes on the album – many written by Peter himself. And after more than two years of Dungeons, DLCs, and seasonal adventures, there’s bound to be a favorite in there somewhere.

“The first one that comes to mind is of course ‘Dalarna’, since I feel I connected with people over it, which is one of my goals when writing music,” he explains. “Second, I think ‘Tempest Golem’ is a fun one since I originally planned for it to be a regular arena battle song, but felt it was better than the boss track I originally planned on using. So, just a couple of days before deadline, I swapped them out hoping that people would be of the same opinion. And it seems they did, looking at the reaction we got from players. Lastly, the ‘Broken Heart of Ender’ was fun since the melody is a randomly generated sequence based of the main theme from the camp and other songs in the soundtrack.”

While song titles like “Tempest Golem” and “Broken Heart of Ender” might be easy to connect to certain places or mobs within the game, names like “Halland” or “Dalarna” stand out as tougher nuts to crack. Luckily, Peter is happy to share why there are songs with this naming convention. 
 
“Both Halland and Dalarna are specific places in Sweden. 'Sweden’ is also one of the most influential songs, if not the most influential song, in Minecraft. What better name to pick for our attempt to extend that aesthetic into Minecraft Dungeons than two provinces in Sweden? ‘Halland’ was honestly just named that way because it didn't contain any Swedish letters like Å, Ä, or Ö. But for ‘Dalarna’, it was me sneaking in my heritage in the sense that half of my bloodline is from there. The song ‘Finnbacka’ is also named after a village my family is from since I felt it the forest in the main menu reminded me of the forests in Finnbacka.”

The Minecraft Dungeons 4xLP is planned to be released in the second quarter of 2023, and is currently available for pre-order at iam8bit. It may have started as a silly test, but with the result in hand, Peter doesn’t seem to regret having started what could eventually become a Minecraft music tradition.

“I wanted the LP to balance tracks people have listened to a lot while at the same time summarizing the past few years of hard work, with some added fun in terms of the remixes. And I wanted the remixes to be songs that people would likely recognize the most so they could appreciate the artists’ interpretation of them, as well as see the connection between each artist's style and the songs they would remix. I'm really happy about how it turned out and want to sincerely thank the artists for their hard work and awesome interpretations!”