Midvinter

I first heard about Midvinter in the game dev podcast Den Fjärde Väggen, where Anna was interviewed. She spoke about a game she was currently developing, with the working title The Gnome. It was described as a point and click game with Swedish folklore and that immediately caught my attention, since grew up loving point and click games (and still do) and I’m really fond of Swedish folklore, and folk music, as well. So I contacted Anna (before the podcast had even ended, I might add…) and asked I could write the music for the game. So, a few months later I started writing demos, and recording stuff. Anna wanted the music to be original material that sounded like old folk tunes. Among other things, I used a 19-th century swedish instrument from Tornedalen called a psalmodikon (see image below, the thing on top of the organ) and a chord zither from the 50’s. I also found some amazing players – a violinist from Malmö Symphony Orchestra named Klas-Göran Wahlgren, a nyckelharpa player (key fiddle harp) named Britt Forsströmson (who also plays violin in Malmö Symphony Orchestra), my old friend Robert Fuchs who played the slightly less traditional instruments (in a Swedish folk music context…) cello and double bass, and my friend and fellow sound designer Henrietta Skoog who played alto and tenor recorder.  I had a great time writing and recording the music and working with Anna! If you want to listen to the music, check out douglasholmquist.bandcamp.com/album/midvinter-ost or better yet, experience it in its full right in the game.