This thematic sense of narrative in games has shaped a lot of artists approach to making music. Hyperdub mainstay Ikonika, who has sampled game sounds such as Chun-Li dying on Street Fighter, also views her music as more than just an aural experience. “I’ve always channeled different worlds with every album. Whether it’s the 2D feeling of ‘Contact, Love, Want, Have’ to the ultra-HD loneliness of ‘Distractions’. I’ve always imagined landscapes. I don’t think it’s enough to just have the music. It’s like food to me, I need to use more senses,” she says, ascribing this approach as inspired by the way “games can take you to different worlds, different times. My life feels more like a game than a movie. Music is the biggest game I’m playing. Every album is a different game and every song is a different level.”

Dark0 notes how the sensibilities of gaming music resonated with him, so that certain musical repetitions or progressions from his gaming experiences are intrinsically locked into his mind. “I could hear this really positive, happy song in Popworld, and get triggered because it's in the same key as the moment a character was killed off in a game,” he says. “The storytelling can be so compelling that moments scar you with their melodies.” He sometimes works these impactful sounds into his productions. “I'll only sample a piece of game music that has resonated with me on such a personal level that it's helped me survive some very difficult times in my life growing up. Sometimes you can't really convey what you're trying to without letting the sample speak for itself, and I'll always approach it as tastefully as possible,” he says.

Algorave is a relatively new musical movement that’s allowing artists to take the concept of 3D storytelling via performance to the next level. At Algoraves, programs are used to simultaneously live code music and displays, creating audio-visual experiences. Miri Kat, who has a degree in Game Design from Durham University and now works for hardware company Novation Music, is strongly influenced by both music and gaming, and sees Algorave as the perfect style to marry these worlds. “From my experience sound is very much an afterthought in games, it just doesn’t get the same attention to detail that the visual does. In the music industry it’s the opposite as the sound is everything the visual is only added later. I strive to bridge this gap,” she says. “We experience sight and sound together and it needs to be thought of in that way, equal attention to both. My AV shows are about conveying an audio-visual immersive experience, I’m telling a story and I want the audience to fully feel it.”

Another point many of these artists considered was this solo similarity between bedroom producing and gaming: A solitary pursuit where you have to be very comfortable with a personal sense of victory. So any aspiring young producers with gaming habits facing grief from their peers or parents for ‘wasting their life away playing silly games’ - you could soon be leading electronic music innovation.

Patrick Hinton is Mixmag's Digital Staff Writer. Follow him on Twitter



Lawrence Abbott is an artist and freelance creative designer. Follow him on Twitter