Lena Raine is a name that has garnered a fandom of its own within the gaming industry. She is known for her work on Minecraft, Celeste, Guild Wars 2, and Chicory: A Colorful Tale, just to name a few. Her music resonates with the audience and brings the game’s whole personality together.

In collaboration with Resonant Union, Lena Raine and the talented artists have revisited Chicory’s classic soundtrack. The album, reimagined as Chicory: A Musical Tale, features special guest collaborations with bermei.inazawa (Lies of P, DJMAX, Taiko no Tatsujin), Kohta Takahashi (Ridge Racer, TEKKEN, Klonoa), and Emi Evans (NieR, Dark Souls, Granblue Fantasy).

The arrangement covers styles ranging from classical to metal to jazz and electronic. It is a creative blend of different genres, each bringing something new to the world of Chicory. In light of its release, we spoke with Lena Raine to discuss how the album came to be, its arrangement, and some fun tidbits to get to know her better as an artist.

What were your initial thoughts going into this project with Resonant Union and other talented artists? Especially since the original work is your own.

I was really honored when given the chance to work with Resonant Union arranging my music! Through my contribution to their previous album, Green Arrange, I was very familiar with the high-quality bar each arranger brings to their tracks.

RU also has some great industry connections, especially within the Japanese game music community, so we all brought a wishlist of talented composers we’d love to work with. Not all of them had the time to contribute, but the ones we got did incredible work.

Could you tell us a bit about the arrangement of Chicory: A Musical Tale? There are 32 available tracks, and I am curious how everyone decided which tracks from the original get a reimagining?

I was fairly hands-off on the actual decision-making process for how the album was arranged, as I trusted the talented folks at Resonant Union to come up with a high-level idea and present it to the arrangers to find tracks they’d feel comfortable arranging & make something that sounds great.

Philip Saguil headed up the pitch and production, so I asked him for more insight! He says, “The album has a seasonal theme, and tracks are split up between them. In concept, the album tells a story of Picnic Province over the course of a year, with Pizza and Chicory visiting each area in association with its matching season. It’s a journey of olds and news, making memories and reflecting on challenges that once made them feel small. Each arranger was allowed to choose their own track to arrange, but as the seasons began to fill, I asked the last few arrangers to choose tracks from specific sections so the seasons would end with an even number. A few tracks that were originally planned did not make the final cut; ‘Erase You,’ a character theme melody, and ‘History Against Us’.”

I know it’s a bit difficult to choose your favorites from an album you worked so hard on. But with such a variety and blend of different artists, if you had to pick your top 5 tracks from Chicory: A Musical Tale, which would they be?

Please don’t ask me to choose!! Render all 32 tracks into 5 files, and that’s my top 5… But I will give a huge, huge amount of love to the incredible work put in by Yukihiro Jindo, arranging my final boss track “Do The Impossible.” I got pretty emotional hearing how it turned out, because the original track was a very personal achievement for me.

I grew up loving the kind of big epic finales I heard in JRPGs, and since the themes of the game (Chicory) revolved around finding confidence in yourself and doing things you didn’t think you could do… Despite all the amazing instrumentalists on the original soundtrack, I wanted to create and perform the entire final boss track by myself. Mix and master, too. It was a huge undertaking, and I learned so much from doing that style of production myself.

So hearing Jindo-san’s epic rendition of the theme alongside everyone else that played and sang on it… It felt like everyone was rushing in like Chicory at the end of the game, saying, “It’s ok, you don’t have to do this alone!!” I definitely teared up the first time I heard it.

Growing up, who were your biggest inspirations? Have you collaborated, or do you wish to collaborate, with any of them?

My big five as a kid were Yasunori Mitsuda, Yoko Kanno, Nobuo Uematsu, Yoko Shimomura, and Hitoshi Sakimoto. Collectively, they’re responsible for all the soundtracks that defined my original inspiration in writing music. Honestly, I would love to eventually collaborate with all of them, if they’re still active & working and a project mysteriously materializes… I haven’t yet, but a girl can dream. I have met Yoko Shimomura, though! She’s so wonderful.

Aside from your own, which five video game soundtracks are your favorites, and what specifically do you love about them?

Xenogears by Yasunori Mitsuda – Everything I love about music is in here. There’s fun Gaelic folk inspirations, weird electronics & sampling, orchestral bombast with crunchy synths, choral writing, a song for Men of the Sea… It also introduced me to emotional ballads that play over the credits, so it’s directly responsible for the song I wrote for Chicory, “The Mountain Top”.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim by Basiscape – Legitimately one of the best-produced soundtracks I’ve ever heard. The core theme writing is top-notch as expected of Hitoshi Sakimoto, but all of the individual composers at Basiscape who tackled the various combat themes created a generational work that I’m still mining for inspiration.

CRYMACHINA by Sakuzyo – This sort of falls into the same category as 13 Sentinels since the main focus is an incredible series of battle themes. All of these ones are fantastic character themes, too, with lyrics that lay out the core conflicts. It’s very operatic in that way!

Scarlet Nexus by Hayata Takeda & Masato Nakamura – This is another weird choice, I know, but the composition & production here really goes all out for a completely original ARPG by a first-time composer. (I wonder if you can tell if there’s a pattern here.)

Resonance of Fate / End of Eternity by Kohei Tanaka & Motoi Sakuraba – One of the coolest things you can do in a game soundtrack is pair up two contrasting composers. In this case, you get the gorgeous orchestral arrangements of Tanaka-san & the prog rock grooves of Sakuraba-san. Together, it’s one of the coolest soundtracks.

What aspects of composing for the gaming industry do you find most exhausting or unpleasant? If you could choose to work in another industry instead, which would it be and why?

The games industry is not having a great time like, in general. While large corporations are doing mass layoffs, even indie teams are doing layoffs because investors and publishers aren’t funding new or unproven games. Nearly all jobs are being threatened by CEOs thinking that generative AI can come close to human creativity (it can’t).

Computer hardware is becoming increasingly unaffordable due in large part to the rampant abuse of resources by AI-focused corporations. The concept of making or contributing to games amidst all of this feels impossible. But it’s also the art form that I derive my biggest creative drive from.

Interactive fiction isn’t going anywhere, and ultimately, I’m a storyteller. I could write more fiction. I could make standalone albums. But doing that through games still feels like the most natural way to present what I want to the world.

While the conversation was short, it was interesting to hear how the album came about. Lena Raine is always working on an ambitious project, some personal, while others are more collaborative. If you want to stay updated on her work, you can follow her update blog.