After covering a couple of G4F releases recently (Road ’96 and the Haven), I was keen to learn more about this French label, as they had incredibly diverse releases on their site.
I was lucky enough to get in contact with Content manager Rémi and Marketing Assistant Yoann to learn more about their history, focuses, triumphs and ideals.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us! For those unfamiliar with G4F records, can you give a little background on how the label started, how you decided on the name G4F records, and what drives you?
G4F Records: The group behind the label formed in 2008, when Vincent Percevault founded Game Audio Factory, a studio dedicated to sound production for games (Music, SFX, voice recording).
We've always tried to produce original soundtracks for the games we were working on, and in 2016, while working on the soundtrack for Furi (from The Game Bakers), with talents like The Toxic Avenger, Carpenter Brut, Danger, Waveshaper, Lorn, and others, we thought it was the right time to create a subsidiary that was 100% dedicated to game music promotion & distribution, and we called it G4F Records (G4F = Game 4 Fun). Furi's game and soundtrack were a tremendous success for an indie project, and to this day, is still our best-selling soundtrack.
How has the industry changed since you started the label?
There is a growing interest in physical releases of soundtracks, and vinyl in particular. This corresponds to game fans having a growing desire to have a souvenir, a physical object from games that are becoming more and more dematerialized.
It's also similar on the supply side, with more and more labels, of all sizes, getting into the video game business, and especially into manufacturing. When we started, the market was already growing, and still is today, although you have to remember that we're in a niche market, far away from the mainstream music industry of course.
It's also nice to see that nowadays, many studios and composers are taking the time to publish their soundtracks, in order to make the music accessible to everyone. Music in video games has always been a primary factor for a large part of fans but has become even more important in recent years and expectations are growing. Music and video games are getting closer, as we can see during events such as Fortnite concerts for example, so I think we can be very optimistic for the future of the industry.
I believe that you are the first French label we’ve interviewed here at Games Freezer, how is the scene over there for video game music? I’ve stayed in Paris a few times and I know that there are quite a few gaming stores on Boulevard Voltaire as well as Reset Bar and Coin-Op Café, so it seems quite a vibrant place in terms of the gaming community.
The French video game scene and music scene are pretty active. France is one of the major video game markets in the world and it's for good reason! To talk about music specifically, you have to know that French people are very fond of Japanese culture and already at the time of 16 / 32-bit consoles, for example, fans spent hours listening to Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Mega Man music, etc. This doesn't represent everyone's relationship to video game music of course, but music already had a special place for French gamers overall. And this interest has only grown, and players are gathering more and more around this shared love.
France has also given birth to many composers known worldwide today, especially in the electronic scene. Like The Toxic Avenger, Carpenter Brut, Danger, and others, who of course were already popular artists, but were able to reach new audiences thanks to video games.
I have spoken to several labels over the last year or two and I know there have been delays with vinyl - seemingly across the globe, how has that impacted you, and do you see the situation changing any time soon?
It has become very difficult to plan releases. We try to anticipate as much as possible, but the deadlines have become very, very long. Not to mention the prices, which have also increased a lot. This was initially due to the health crisis, of course, which notably caused a shortage of raw materials worldwide. It should also be pointed out that factories are overwhelmed by production demands and the biggest record companies occupy an important place in this production.
For us, as for everyone, this obviously had an impact on our release schedule. Many of our physical releases have been delayed compared to what we were hoping for. This is an opportunity to once again thank the players and our buyers, who are always very understanding despite the delays.
Looking ahead, lead times will likely decrease in the coming years, but the trend seems to show that it won't be immediate.
I was quite blown away by the selection of releases on your label, what is it about the soundtracks that you’ve chosen to release that drew you to them?
At G4F, we are fortunate to work with studios in several areas other than music. G4F is a group dedicated to sound production and post-production, so we work with studios well upstream during their creation (sound design, dubbing, musical production...). And naturally, most of the projects we have distributed the music for, as well as produced physical editions, are projects in which we have participated in the development.
Today, our G4F Records label activity has grown enough that we are also working on projects that are only the digital and/or physical distribution of music. In these cases, connections with the developers come about naturally who contact us directly or whom we meet at professional events.
What has been your proudest moment so far?
If we had to name one, it would undoubtedly be Furi's 2016 launch concert at the Machine du Moulin Rouge in Paris. In collaboration with The Game Bakers team, we decided to organize a concert bringing together the artists on the soundtrack to celebrate the release of the game. It was quite a big undertaking for us as a new company... but what a great memory! Waveshaper, The Toxic Avenger, Carpenter Brut and Kn1ght were present and played their Furi music, among others. The event was sold out, it was awesome! We've published some excerpts on our YouTube page: Furi - Live Concert in Paris
The presentation and design of Road ’96 – which I had the pleasure of covering recently – was top-notch, do you have certain artists that you work with regularly for covers and design features?
Regarding the design, it's on a case-by-case basis! As we mentioned above, we often work directly with the upstream development studios, so sometimes it's the studio artists who take care of the design. In these cases, they send us their design and we take care of adapting their files and finalizing the last details before sending the final project to the manufacturer for printing.
Sometimes we take care of creating the design ourselves with our creative team.
So, we don't work with a single recurring graphic designer, but our guideline is to work hand in hand with the studios and their teams in order to define the artistic direction of the project, based on the game's universe and visuals!
For Road 96, we worked with Digixart and gathered as many visuals and artwork of the game as we could, and we created the designs for the vinyl and the CD in-house, with the help of a graphic designer!
Are there any releases currently in the works that you can let us know about, or possible projects on the horizon?
We officially shared the first single from Endless Dungeon earlier this year, Amplitude Studios' next project, composed by Lera Lynn featuring Arnaud Roy (Free Again (From ENDLESS™ Dungeon) - Lera Lynn Feat. Arnaud Roy).
We are also working on the musical supervision (art direction and executive production) of many soundtracks, but nothing that I can reveal today, sorry!
I want to take this opportunity to point out that, as you can see, we don't work "only" on vinyl production. We're involved in the entire production chain — from the artistic direction of projects to the final distribution, through to the legal and contractual management between the studios and composers, etc!
Which video game soundtracks have caught your ear recently, and which ones are always close to your heart?
Rémi: It’s difficult, I would like to name a lot! To put it quite simply, I recently played Returnal on PS5 and the combination of the music composed by Bobby Krlic and the in-game sound design is fascinating and really moved me. The soundtrack that's available on streaming platforms is already fantastic, but the interactive music comes into its own in the game.
A quick word about the Outer Wilds soundtrack, the original game's soundtrack by Andrew Prahlow was excellent, and the recently released “Echoes of the Eye” DLC is in the same vein — sublime acoustic melodies that I can only advise you to check out for yourself!
As for the soundtrack that struck me the most, it's undoubtedly all of Nobuo Uematsu's work on the Final Fantasy saga. It's not a very original choice, obviously, everyone is familiar with it, but his music will always remain special to me!
Yoann: Just like Rémi I would like to name a lot! Personally, I find Mick Gordon's work on Doom Eternal terrific. The care given to the mixing is really enjoyable and the in-game integration is perfectly mastered. Of all the video game music I know, this album really holds a special place in my heart.
Of course, like many players I imagine, there are also the great classics that I find myself obliged to mention such as the game “The Legend of Zelda”.
But otherwise, I recently really enjoyed the music of Fearmonium. A small independent game made by Redblack Spade and whose music is composed by Expecte Amour. Check out the album, it's worth the detour.
Finally, I often listen to the Endless Space II OST. Arnaud Roy has composed such a gem and I like to listen to it in the background when I am busy with other tasks.
Are there any other local developers or members of the industry that we should check out?
There are plenty of great development teams around, Amplitude Studios, Big Bad Wolf, Cyanide Studios, Digixart, The Game Bakers, Artefact Studios, and Tactical Adventures but also new interesting projects like BlueTwelve Studio with the release of Stray, published by Annapurna Interactive, and also lots of upcoming games like Ixion developed by Bulwark Studio in our neighbourhood, SacriFire by Pixelated Milk from Poland, and we're working on many projects under NDA's so stay tuned!
Finally, what is the best way for our readers to keep up to date with your releases and promotions?
We're of course present on social networks, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, where we share all our news as well as our favourite musical discoveries. We also invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can listen to all our soundtracks, see making-ofs, interviews, and more. There's also our Bandcamp label page, for platform users, where we publish all our soundtracks.
Finally, we also have our newsletter, which summarizes our announcements and releases. Don't worry, we absolutely do not spam, it's only a few mailings in the year and it only concerns video games and sound!
Thank you for offering us this interview, it's always a pleasure to talk about our work and our passion! See you soon!
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