Lena Raine: Minecraft composer (Pigstep)
Lena Raine is an American composer based in Seattle who has written music for Minecraft updates since 2020. She is the composer of Pigstep from the Nether Update, Otherside and other tracks from Caves & Cliffs, and Aerie from the Wild Update. Outside Minecraft she is best known for the soundtrack of the platformer Celeste.
Who is Lena Raine
Lena Raine is an American composer based in Seattle, Washington.
She studied music composition. While working at ArenaNet, she composed music for the Guild Wars 2 expansion Heart of Thorns.
Her breakthrough came with the platformer Celeste, which she worked on with Maddy Thorson and the Extremely OK Games team. The game, released in 2018, was widely acclaimed, and Raine wrote its soundtrack.
Music for Minecraft
Her collaboration with Mojang Studios began in 2020. The first track the studio commissioned from her was Pigstep, a music disc you can play in a jukebox and find in Bastion Remnants in the Nether. It was added to the game with the Nether Update (version 1.16) in June 2020 and became one of the best-known tracks in the game's soundtrack.
Her next collaboration began with the Caves & Cliffs update in 2021. For it she wrote new ambient tracks for exploring caves and the new biomes, including Infinite Amethyst, Stand Tall and Ancestry. Otherside, a new music disc added to the game in the same update, is also hers.
She also contributed music to the Wild Update (version 1.19, June 2022), including the track Aerie.
Best-known tracks in Minecraft
- Pigstep: one of the best-known music discs in the game. An electronic track with a prominent bassline, found in chests in Bastion Remnants in the Nether.
- Otherside: a rare music disc from Caves & Cliffs, an atmospheric ambient track.
- Infinite Amethyst, Stand Tall and Ancestry: ambient tracks from the Caves & Cliffs update.
- Aerie: a track from the Wild Update.
Her style in Minecraft differs noticeably from the minimalist aesthetic that characterizes C418. Her new tracks bring different emotional shades to the game, from quiet ambient pieces to the danceable energy of Pigstep.
Collaboration with Mojang
Raine is not a full-time Mojang employee. She works as an independent composer on a recurring basis. She receives commissions for specific tracks for upcoming updates, which gives her artistic freedom and gives the studio the flexibility to hire other creators as well. Other composers working for Mojang alongside her include Kumi Tanioka (a Japanese composer known for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles), Samuel Åberg and Aaron Cherof.
Other projects
Outside Minecraft, Lena Raine's career includes several notable indie titles and her own solo albums. Celeste (2018, Extremely OK Games) remains one of her best-known projects. She also composed the soundtrack to Celeste: Farewell (2019).
Chicory: A Colorful Tale (2021, Finji) is another major indie collaboration, a puzzle adventure game for which she wrote the soundtrack.
Raine also has a solo music career. Her solo releases include Oneknowing and Singularity.
See also
C418
The German composer Daniel Rosenfeld, author of the original Minecraft music.
Markus Persson
The creator of Minecraft and founder of Mojang. He is the one who brought the game's first composer on board.
Mojang Studios
The studio that has commissioned new tracks from Lena Raine since 2020.
Minecraft versions
A chronology of the updates with Raine's music: the Nether Update, Caves & Cliffs and the Wild Update.