The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

C418

[#] Minecraft - Volume Alpha (2011)

I wrote this waiting for cobblestone to smelt.

Reviewed October 28, 2024

The soundtrack of a generation, innit? That's what makes reviewing Volume Alpha so tricky. You'd have an easier time finding clay in Minecraft Alpha itself (I need bricks, send help) than you would finding someone who hasn't or doesn't know a kid who plays it, and its soundtrack is frankly just as renowned. The same way Minecraft presents an aimless world of builds and encounters that happen by your own hand, Minecraft's music is a set of creepy-calming ambient hauntology doomer-bloomer indietronica vignettes that sprout alongside your adventures. For us fans, it's obvious, you want this. You probably already own this. What if you're just an ambient music fan with no interest in the game, though? What value does Volume Alpha hold then?

The good news is that Volume Alpha is a totally standalone work sequenced like one big, dusty, electronic adventure made up of evocative singular moments. There's a lot of variety in its mix of aged and electronic sounds, synth orchestras ("Clark", "Beginning"), pianos warm ("Living Mice", "Minecraft") and tense ("Dry Hands", "Excuse"), chiptune synths and sub bass ("Cat"), growly Moogs ("Moog City"), haunting bells ("13"), in-game field recordings ("Death"), and the occasional hit of percussion to give it some propulsion ("Chris", "Dog"). It's really what you want out of ambient: musically simple enough to blend in and color its surroundings, and sonically strange, suggestive, and sinuous enough for devoted explorers to get lost in its veiny caves. It can drag a little towards the end—but so can trying to get out of a cave in Minecraft.

Essential:	"Dry Hands", "13", "Droopy Likes Your Face"
Quintessential:	"Minecraft"
Non-Essential:	"Clark"
Rating:
Further listening:	Download from C418's Bandcamp