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Disasterpeace

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Disasterpeace is the stage name of Richard Vreeland, an American composer and musician. He grew up on Staten Island and learned a great deal from his stepfather, a trained musician and the music director of their church. As a child he was fascinated by drums and drummed along during the band rehearsals in the basement. In his high school years he learned to play the guitar, and around the age of seventeen he began writing music. He became known as a chiptune artist.

Music and breakthrough

Vreeland wrote the music for many computer games, including Fez and Hyper Light Drifter. For Fez he used few of the usual chiptune tricks. He worked with soft synthesizer sounds and reverb to bring the sound closer to the synthesizer music of the 1980s, used little percussion and processed sounds with bitcrushing and wow. He wrote slow pieces with changing tempos that could move along with the player. In 2014 he made the music for the film It Follows by David Robert Mitchell, who was a fan of his work for Fez. With that he stepped into film music, and he afterwards also wrote for Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.

Influence

The music of Disasterpeace shows that the sounds of old computer games can grow into mature electronic film music. Game music always had a colour of its own, and Vreeland brought it to the cinema.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Heels and notice the electronic sounds and the menacing atmosphere they create. Which instruments sound like synthesizers, and how does the tension persist?

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: ArtistsSynthwave-revival