Daniel Olsén about the music in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes


Even though I produced a lot of good material for Lorelei and the Laser Eyes early we continued working to find a musical expression that felt unique, and made for this game only. In a way, that mirrored the entire development of the game, as it was very iterative, and kept changing. It feels like we always strived to find an expressions that felt unexpected.

Just like the project itself, the music changed and went through a lot of different phases. We experimented with everything from 8-bit and 16-bit videogame styles, to music inspired by the wobbly and noisy sound of VHS-cassettes, acoustic, digital, minimal techno and trip-hop beats. I even tried sampling our own songs, using piano bits. You can hear traces of this type of piano sampling in Radio Waves.

The sound design went through a lot of different phases, as well. I experimented with making everything feel low quality, as if every sound being played of an old cassette. In the end I aimed to make the soundscape of the hotel more realistic, and made environments like the maze and the quiz club have a more otherworldly feel to them.

Most of the songs is a mix of my digital elements and Linnea’s vocals, cello and base. It creates some kind of hybrid sound, a contrast between acoustic and digital mirroring the visuals of the game, with its blend of the analog photos and 3D environments. We’re always aspiring to have all components of a game work closely together with eachother like that.