Disasterpeace

As Disasterpeace, chiptune artist and composer Rich Vreeland steeps his albums and scores for games, films, and more in retro-futuristic wonder and horror. His earliest acclaimed works made the contrasts within the Disasterpeace moniker clear: the music for 2012′s puzzle-platform game Fez drew from serene ambient and playful 8-bit influences, while the score to 2015′s indie horror sensation It Follows borrowed the analogue arpeggios John Carpenter and from the work of John Cage and Krzysztof Penderecki. As the range of Vreeland’s projects spanned stage productions like 2016′s Mud Water as well as pop culture touchstones such as Adventure Time and Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, he remained true to Disasterpeace’s gaming roots with 2019′s Crimson Tooth and 2022′s Paradise Marsh.
Growing up in Staten Island, New York, Vreeland was surrounded by music: his mother and sister were both singers, while his stepfather was the music director of his church. He began playing guitar as a child, and he joined his stepfather’s band on the drums during practice. Inspired by Tool and Rage Against the Machine, he dabbled in recording his guitar-based songs before becoming interested in electronic and video game music. In 2004, while still in his teens, he came up with the Disasterpeace moniker, and soon issued albums including History of the Vreeland and The Chronicles of Jammage the Jam Mage. He began working on game music in 2005, when he got an offer to write music for cell phone games after posting his demos online and scored games such as 2008′s Rescue: The Beagles. During this time, he also released his own chiptune albums 2006′s Atebite and the Warring Nations and 2008′s Level.
After attending Berklee College of Music, Vreeland scored an internship at the Singapore-MIT Game Lab, gaining more experience with scoring and sound design with his work on the puzzle games Waker and Woosh. He went on to make a name for himself scoring games ranging from big franchises like Bomberman Live: Battlefest to independents such as 2012′s Fez, which won acclaim for its innovative gameplay as well as Vreeland’s soundtrack. He also pursued projects such as 2013′s January, a game where players make melodies by catching snowflakes on the playable character’s tongue, the Fez remix album FZ: Side F, and the music for 2015′s transport simulation game Mini Metro.
Vreeland began his career as a film composer when director David Robert Mitchell explained he was a fan of the Fez soundtrack and wanted to work with him on the music for his horror film It Follows. Upon the film’s wide release in 2015, Vreeland’s volatile yet slow-burning score won acclaim for heightening It Follows’ dread-filled atmosphere. Disasterpeace’s other projects that year included the music for the short film Loop Ring Chop Drink and the loop-based score for the video game Gunhouse. He remained busy in 2016, scoring works as diverse as the video game Hyper Light Drifter, the Adventure Time episode “Bad Jubies,” and Mud Water, a theater project incorporating turf dancers, ballet dancers, and spoken word artists. An EP of his music for the production appeared that year, as did the compilation Singles.
In 2017, Vreeland collaborated with several like-minded artists as Lexi & the Cheap Disaster on Ram Son, the original soundtrack for the game River City Ransom: Underground, and worked with pianist David Peacock on Disasters for Piano, a collection of piano interpretations of some of Vreeland’s definitive tracks. He reunited with Mitchell to score 2018′s comedic neo-noir Under the Silver Lake, and provided the music for J.C. Chandor’s film Triple Frontier and the game Crimson Tooth in 2019. Disasterpeace returned in 2021 with scores for the sci-fi platforming game Solar Ash and Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, the feature film based on the character created by Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer Camp in a series of short films and books. In 2022, Vreeland scored the slasher film Bodies Bodies Bodies as well as the soothing game Paradise Marsh. That year also saw the release of Hyper Light Fragments, a collection of additional tracks from Hyper Light Drifter. ~ Heather Phares