Emi Evans’s full name is Rebecca Emiko Evans, who is notable for her involvement in the production of esteemed video game music like NieR. Her first involvement in video game music can be traced back to when she was requested to work on an arrange album of a Nintendo DS game known as Etrian Odyssey 2.
Emi Evans started playing the Cello at the young age of eight, and initially actually thought of becoming part of an orchestra. It was during this time that she composed songs, sung, and played the piano. It was only when she became fifteen that she was scouted by a Japanese producer and began considering pursuing a career singing. One of the most distinguishing features about Emi Evans if her well-versed background. Though her mother tongue is English, she is well-versed in a myriad of languages, composing songs that incorporate elements of German, French, Gaelic, and Japanese. This powerful multilingual base came to serve an important role in her work with the NieR project. For the NieR project Emi Evans was asked to produce songs of a very special kind. Inventing languages of her own through the mixing and molding of all the languages she has used is but one of the few arduous tasks she faced during her time with the NieR project. Since NieR takes place in an apocalyptic earth thousands of years in the future, Emi Evans was tasked with attempting to conceive how the modern languages of our world would sound after hundreds of years of drifting.
NieR’s primary composer, Keiichi Okabe is a member of MoNACA—an organization that specializes in producing music that serves highly specific needs such as video game scenarios. This brings us to one of the reasons Emi Evan’s work is so special: making music that serves a clear and distinct purpose.
Going back to the soundtrack “Grandma” for example… when Emi Evans was tasked with producing lyrics for this piece she was given clear instructions by Mr. Okabe on the criteria it needed to satisfy. She was told that at some point in the game, a powerful boss is fought. The tactics of this particular boss is to distract and weaken you by making you remember some of your saddest and most painful memories. Producing music that caters to such a niche and specific scenario is what enables it to express and convey powerful emotions in my opinion. It is weaving meaning and purpose into the raw auditory form of the song to give it a soul. Such a process is one of the reasons NieR music is so special.
Universe Building 