| Landscape: | yes |
| Birth Name: | Daniel Rosenfeld |
| Birth Date: | 9 May 1989 |
| Birth Place: | Karl-Marx-Stadt, East Germany |
| Years Active: | 2006–present |
| Current Member Of: | Co-founder of Ivy Road |
| Discography: | C418 discography |
| Label: | Ghostly International[1] |
Daniel Rosenfeld (born 9 May 1989), better known as C418 (pronounced "see four eighteen"),[2] is a German musician, producer and sound engineer. He is best known as the former composer and sound designer for the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is a co-founder of independent video game developer Ivy Road with Davey Wreden and Karla Zimonja, which is developing Wanderstop.
He has also written and produced the theme for Beyond Stranger Things and the Steam release of Cookie Clicker. He has also DJed for American rock band Anamanaguchi.
Rosenfeld's music has received acclaim for its nostalgic value and relaxing quality. In August 2023, he was ranked at #1 on Billboard magazine's emerging artist's chart.[3] [4]
Rosenfeld was born in East Germany on 9 May 1989,[5] [6] the son of a Soviet-born father of German descent working as a goldsmith and a German mother. He learned to create music on early versions of Schism Tracker (a popular clone of Impulse Tracker) and Ableton Live in the early 2000s, both rudimentary tools at the time.[7] It was his brother, Harry Rosenfeld, who introduced him to music composition through Impulse Tracker, commenting that "even an idiot" can successfully create music with it.[5] [2] His brother was also known as C818, from which he chose the name C418, claiming that the name is "really cryptic and doesn't actually mean anything."[8] Rosenfeld has also stated that he was "mediocre at school," but learning basic music theory and English came easy to him.[5]
After being introduced to music production by his brother, Rosenfeld started releasing music on Bandcamp after Danny Baranowsky suggested releasing his music on the site.
In 2007, Rosenfeld started a blog known as "Blödsinn am Mittwoch" (English: "Silliness on Wednesday"),[9] where he posted a new song every week. This was around the same time when he became interested in game development and audio, which resulted in him joining the indie game development forum TIGSource, where he became involved with numerous smaller games and game developers.[5] (among them, Rosenfeld unofficially released the soundtracks of Zombie Dog in Crazyland and Mubbly Tower on his site and old blog). Later, Rosenfeld started making albums and releasing them on his blog and Bandcamp, as a hobby.[5]
His first release was the 2007 EP BPS, and shortly thereafter, in 2008, he challenged himself to make a studio album as quickly as possible, for fun, prioritizing quantity over quality, The Whatever Director's Cut was released on his blog as BAM #30 and on his Bandcamp, where it was available until it was removed in 2013, due to Rosenfeld's dislike of the album.[10]
Also in 2008, Rosenfeld released Mixes, a 25-minute medley containing remixes of songs previously posted on the blog, also were released the EP Sine, and his second studio album Zweitonegoismus, the album expressed his feelings working in an assembly line factory. Rosenfeld showed the album to his co-worker prior to releasing it, in which they asked "why the hell [he was] still working there".[11]
See also: Minecraft – Volume Alpha.
In early 2009, Rosenfeld began collaborating with the Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson through TIGSource.[5] Rosenfeld was responsible for the sound effects and music in Persson's work-in-progress video game Minecraft. The sound engine in the still early Java game was not very powerful, so Rosenfeld had to be creative in his approach to creating sound effects and music.
In January 2010, fourth studio album A Cobblers Tee Thug, a collaborative work with Rosenfeld's friend Sohnemann was released.[12] Made in the few days they spent together in the New Year, and they challenged each other, for fun, to make a full-length LP together in those days.[13]
The album circle was released in March 2010, originally created in 2008, it was intended as the soundtrack for an unpublished indie game bearing the same name, created by an unknown developer.[14]
In August 2010, Rosenfeld released Life Changing Moments Seem Minor in Pictures. The album was recorded while Rosenfeld was still residing within Germany,[15] and at the time of releasing the album, Rosenfeld was requested to work for military services after quitting his job, in which he instead did other labour.[16] The album also contains the original soundtrack to Ezo, a game Rosenfeld independently developed for Ludum Dare.[17]
In 2011 a series of compilation albums with songs from various projects were released on Bandcamp for free, including Little Things,[18] I Forgot Something, Didn't I.[19] (a B-side to 72 Minutes of Fame), and Seven Years of Server Data.[20]
While still working on Minecraft as a freelance artist, Rosenfeld was not on staff at Mojang Studios,[21] the company behind Minecraft. Rosenfeld still owns the rights to all his music in the game,[22] and has released two albums featuring songs from the Minecraft soundtrack. The first soundtrack, Minecraft – Volume Alpha, was digitally released on 4 March 2011 on his Bandcamp page.
Later that year, when Minecraft became available to the general public as an early access title, it rapidly became popular. Rosenfeld, who up until that point had worked at an assembly line for a company in Stollberg, could now pursue music as his primary source of income.[5] [23] This inspired his 2011 studio album, 72 Minutes of Fame. The content of this album mostly revolves around this lifestyle-defining moment in Rosenfeld's life.[24] This album was the first of Rosenfeld's works to have a physical release. The Guardian has compared his compositions to those of Brian Eno and Erik Satie because of their minimalistic, ambient quality.
Almost half a year later, production on a documentary of the development of Minecraft started, titled . Rosenfeld was requested to create the soundtrack for this documentary, which was included on his 2012 album, One.[25] Vice called it a "gleeful and unobtrusive collection of short melodic instrumentals that skip around daintily like cute little bashful kittens, but with a dark self-deprecating humour lurking beneath".[26]
See also: Minecraft – Volume Beta.
On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second album of the official soundtrack for Minecraft, titled Minecraft - Volume Beta. Many of the new songs were being added into features of the game that were not present when the first batch of music was produced; i.e. the Nether or the End.[27] In 2020, the soundtrack was released in physical format with Ghostly International[28] and reprints of the Minecraft - Volume Alpha physical releases were also released. The Volume Beta releases consisted of a double CD edition of the album, a vinyl record which came in black and a red "fire" splatter color, and a limited edition of the vinyl pressed on a magenta translucent material[29] which was at first exclusive to Europe but was later re-pressed internationally.
Persson and Rosenfeld worked together again after Minecrafts success on the creation of a new game, titled 0x10c. The game was never released, with Persson halting production indefinitely in August 2013.
In 2014, Rosenfeld released an EP containing the music made for 0x10c. It was released digitally with little publicity; Rosenfeld only sent out a tweet saying that it was available.[30]
In 2015, Rosenfeld released 148, which much like 72 Minutes of Fame carried a significant amount of personal content, albeit slightly more hidden under lyrics and effects.[31]
Later that year, Minecraft - Volume Alpha soundtrack was released on a physical format on Ghostly International. This release consisted of a regular CD edition of the album, a vinyl edition which came with a code for a digital copy of the album, and a limited edition of the album pressed on green translucent vinyl.[32]
Daniel Rosenfeld first revealed the development of his third original soundtrack album for Minecraft in a 2015 interview with Fact Magazine, commenting, "I'll still work on Minecraft, so there'll probably be another album. In fact, it’s gonna be more ambient than the others, just as an experiment."[33] He also noted listeners' own applications of his previous works, remarking, "I’m interested in seeing how people use music as a sleep aid, so I think on the next album I might put a bonus track on there that’s just 15 minutes of complete ambience and see what people think."[33] Rosenfeld again expressed interest in composing an ambient bonus track for the album in a tweet posted in December of that year.[34]
Rosenfeld released 2 Years of Failure in 2016, a Bandcamp exclusive compilation album of music made for failed projects or songs that could not fit anywhere else.[35] Several songs in this album were made for an abandoned game Rosenfeld described as having a "...Japanese puzzle exchange..." vibe. This album also contains the original soundtrack for Crayon Physics. Most notably, this album contains C418's remix of the Stranger Things theme song, which had staggering popularity in 2018. It was the most played song on Rosenfeld's personal SoundCloud page until it was removed[36] along with several other tracks due to a lapsed SoundCloud Pro subscription.[37] Netflix would go on to use his version as the theme music for the aftershow Beyond Stranger Things.[38]
He released Dief in 2017.[39] The songs of this album were created and used as a soundtrack for an informative talk given at the Game Developers Conference 2017 by Teddy Dief.
In a 2017 tweet, the musician confirmed his third Minecraft soundtrack album's existence and said that it was set for future release, but that work on it at that point was "still far from done". Rosenfeld additionally stated that the record would be longer than the previous two albums combined, which in total clocks in at over 3 hours and 18 minutes.[40] Rosenfeld additionally confirmed on Twitter that the third album will not be called "Minecraft - Volume Gamma", deviating from the Greek Alphabet naming convention used in the previous two Minecraft albums he composed.[41] After the "Update Aquatic" Minecraft update of 2018, three new songs were added to the game as underwater music.[42] These songs – "Dragon Fish", "Shuniji", "Axolotl" – were released by Rosenfeld respectively on 9 August, 10 November, and 12 December 2018, on Spotify as singles. All of them are to be included in the third album. Of the work Rosenfeld did on the third volume, he commented, "When I started making a third minecraft album, I didn't expect it to have this much work involved. I think I'm seeing the end of the tunnel?"[43]
On 20 July 2018, Rosenfeld announced a studio album, Excursions, with the release of its lead single, "Beton".[44] Its second single, "Thunderbird", was released on 20 August 2018.[45] The album was released on 7 September 2018.[46] Multiple tracks on Excursions are named after cafes in Austin, Texas, where Rosenfeld currently lives as of 2017.
Excursions was released on CD and a limited vinyl LP by Driftless Recordings in January 2019[47] and reprinted in 2021 for CD and Vinyl.[48]
In 2020, after the announcement of the addition of Steve to the game, his work was not included in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for various undisclosed reasons, though one explanation given was it being too calm for fighting.[49] Tracks other composers made for Minecraft Legacy Console Edition, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Earth were added instead.
On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with Anthony Fantano whether or not the third volume of the soundtrack was still in production. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something—I consider it finished—but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know."[50]
In May 2021, Rosenfeld released Branching Out.[51] The EP contains the soundtrack to Branch, a video conferencing software by Dayton Mills.[52]
On 16 June 2021, Rosenfeld announced on Twitter that his album from 11 years prior, Life Changing Moments Seem Minor in Pictures would be remastered and released onto major streaming platforms. The album prior to the re-release was only available on Bandcamp.[53]
In July 2021, Rosenfeld, along with Davey Wreden, Karla Zimonja and Annapurna Interactive announced the launch of Ivy Road, a game studio founded by the trio.[54] [55] The studio revealed they were working on a then-untitled game, which Rosenfeld composed the music for.
Following the announcement of the launch of Ivy Road, in August 2021 Rosenfeld announced that he had worked on a soundtrack for the Steam release of the 2013 game Cookie Clicker.[56] [57] In September 2021, Rosenfeld released the soundtrack.[58]
On 13 March 2022, Rosenfeld performed a DJ set with Anamanaguchi for their Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game Soundtrack tour.[59] [60]
In August 2022, Northway Games released I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. Rosenfeld and other fellow musical artists collaborated in composing the soundtrack to the game. His contribution was the piece "Quiet."[61]
In June 2024, Annapurna and Ivy Road announced their game as Wanderstop, a tea brewing simulator, which was given a 2024 release date.[62] [63]
See main article: C418 discography.
| Year | Title | Director | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Paul Owens | Documentary[64] | |
| 2017 | Beyond Stranger Things | Michael Dempsey | Television series |