If you’re having trouble sleeping lately, a new official Shovel Knight album may help with that. Titled Prescription for Sleep: Shovel Knight, the album contains quiet jazzy piano and saxophone remixes of 11 songs from Shovel Knight. Additionally, it also brings three songs each from both the Plague of Shadows and King of Cards expansions and another two songs from Spector of Tourment. Add an original track to this, and that’s 20 light jazzy tunes to help you sleep. If that sounds like the exact sort of sleeping medication you need, then you can pick this album up starting on December 6th, 2019. However, if you want a preview of the album, then three tracks are currently available to listen to on Bandcamp.
The music is composed and played by musical group GENTLE LOVE which is made up of two people. One is saxophone player and game composer Norihiko Hibino, who has worked on the soundtracks for many popular games such as Metal Gear Solid 2, 3, and 4, the Bayonetta series, and recently did some remixes for Persona 4: Dancing All Night. The other half of the duo is the pianist Ayaki Sato, better known under her stage name of AYAKI, who worked on the soundtracks for the Etrian Odyssey series.
Album producer Jayson Napolitano commented the Norihiko and Shovel Knight composer Jake Kaufman have wanted to work on this album for a while, and that they were just waiting for King of Cards to finish development:
GENLTE LOVE’s Norihiko Hibino and Shovel Knight composer Jake Kaufman have a history of working together. They’ve developed a huge respect for one another over this time, and I wanted to give Hibino-san the opportunity to pay the ultimate tribute to Jake’s masterwork. We would have done it sooner, but we wanted to include every story expansion, so here we are! Please enjoy it, and know you’re getting a sneak peek at King of Cards before the game is even out!
This is the seventh album in the line of Prescription for Sleep video game-based music. Besides Shovel Knight, games like Undertale, Celeste, and Secret of Mana have all gotten albums devoted to remaking their soundtracks specifically to send you off into dreamland. There’s also a pair of albums focusing on random tracks from various games, and the genuinely hilarious but honestly wholesome Prescription for Sleep: Fight for Your Dreams, which remakes a variety of video game combat and boss themes into lullabies.
