Scarlet Moon released the Mineko’s Night Market soundtrack featuring a beautiful traditional Japanese-style score by Daniel Simmons. Given the wide array of live performers and a guest arrangement from Hiroki Kikuta, we wanted to have a chat with Daniel about the creative process that went into crafting the soundtrack. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the soundtrack including some of Daniel’s struggles and how writing this music helped him through a difficult time.
On Collaborations with Developer Meowza Games and Direction for Mineko’s Night Market
I started making music for videogames back in 2009 or 2010, working on a web-based MMOG called Glitch. Meowza (Brent Kobayashi) made almost all the art assets, and I handled all the audio. The game had a cult-like following, but it didn’t have wide enough appeal and sadly shut down in late 2012. The internal messaging system the developers created for us to communicate eventually became the business software Slack. Even now, some of the art persists as Slack emojis, and some of the sound effects and music from Glitch are still used in Slack today.
Later, we worked together again at Spry Fox, where Brent was lead artist. When I heard that he and his wife Brandi were setting off to make their own game, I practically insisted on doing the music for it!
From the beginning, it seemed important that the music be informed by traditional Japanese music—given the setting, art style, and story of Mineko’s Night Market. Meowza Games gave me creative freedom with the music, aside from Brent writing a couple of the tracks himself. I guess we’d worked together enough that he trusted me with it, and they had an “anything goes” attitude when it came to the score.
Wanting to include a strong Japanese traditional influence did add some pressure, but it was self-inflicted. I knew very little about Japanese music, so I made a point of connecting with local musicians in Toronto who were steeped in the tradition. I come from a folk background myself, so that’s where my instincts took me. Luckily, with all the traditional elements in the game, it ended up working well.
On the Importance of Live Performance in Music
More than anything, I love playing music with other people. I’m lucky to have access to a tremendously talented and varied community of musicians in Toronto. I quickly connected with Aki Tenten (shamisen), Heidi Chan (flutes), and Jessica Stuart (koto), who helped me understand how to write for their instruments and answered so many of my questions about traditional Japanese music.
I think it would be nearly impossible to recreate the sound of a shamisen or Brian Kobayakawa’s double bass with a sample library. That said, I could have made believable parts for the koto, flute, and other instruments using samples—but it would’ve been incredibly hard to match the musicality that real musicians bring when they’ve mastered their instruments.
I also had a very limited amount of time to create the whole soundtrack, so recording live sessions actually saved me time in the long run. There’s something magical that happens when great improvisers play together in real time and feed off each other’s energy. Not only do you get tons of variation on a simple theme, but the music itself just elevates.
On Daniel’s Favorite Tracks
I’ll start with “Nikko’s Lullaby,” the first piece on the soundtrack, because that’s one Brent composed and arranged himself. It’s a perfect example of how real instruments breathe life into music. The track was already beautiful, but when we added the koto and flute, something magical happened. There’s also a real violin layered in with the sampled strings, adding warmth and breath. When Brent and Brandi heard the final version, I’m pretty sure they said tears were involved.
Since I couldn’t be in Toronto for most of the sessions due to family health matters, I had to patch in remotely. One silver lining of the pandemic was that solid remote collaboration tools were already in place, so I could still see the musicians and engineer and talk to them in real time as if I was in the control room.
I was under a lot of stress trying to organize everything while dealing with personal grief, but then there was “Summertime in the Village”—a moment when all the musicians just clicked. They were listening and playing so beautifully together, I was sitting in a room in Alberta grinning ear to ear, crying and laughing at the same time as the music lifted me.
On Collaborating with Hiroki Kikuta
I’m very much part of the gaming community now, but I didn’t grow up playing many videogames—we didn’t even have a TV! So I wasn’t familiar with Kikuta-san beforehand, but Meowza Games was thrilled to have him involved, and that got me excited too.
Since then, I’ve developed a deep respect for him. I’m amazed by the soundscapes he created with the technical limitations of 30 years ago. When asked about the piece he wrote for Mineko’s Night Market, he said: “It’s not my job to compose but to find the melody that should flow into that world.” That really resonates with me—it’s how I think about music too.
“Finale” is beautiful and uplifting, and I feel honored to have been part of a game that Kikuta-san wanted to contribute to.
