C418 - Cookie Clicker

Daniel Rosenfeld, aka C418, has enjoyed a reputation as a child prodigy since way back in 2006, when, still just seventeen, he began his musical career with "Circle", before achieving widespread recognition with the soundtrack to the hugely popular videogame “Minecraft“, which has since become a cult object for fans of electronic music and videogame music alike.

Today Daniel is a thirty-two-year-old man who perhaps hasn't quite managed to live up to the expectations that many, legitimately, placed on him. He's released plenty of LPs, including the recent “Dief” and “Excursions”, but nothing truly memorable enough to match the peaks of the two "Minecraft" discs.

His new work “Cookie Clicker” – another videogame soundtrack – shows potential that, once again, isn't fully realized. A twenty-two-minute EP split into five parts, three of which are simply variations on the theme of a single melody, the one found in the eight minutes of “Click”. The childlike, videogame-ish quality is a constant, as is the skill of this creative musician, capable of blending brisk breakbeat rhythms with ambient textures and engaging melodies, all elements that help make the music of the C418 project recognizable and distinctly his own.

That rapid succession of notes, reminiscent of a brief minimalist pattern by Terry Riley, is joined by a keyboard backdrop that resurfaces in “Grandmapocalypse” with the addition of a series of low synth notes that give the opening melody a whole new character. After a brief ambient interlude (“Ascend”), we return to the initial pattern in “Click Forever”, a loop of notes building into a dizzying crescendo that recalls the classics of “Minecraft” even more strongly, particularly the famous “Moog City”: lovely stuff, it's just a shame it's only two minutes long.

Engaging in several moments but far too brief, “Cookie Clicker” once again reveals a talent that still doesn't seem to be pushed to its full potential.

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11/11/2021