The sound identity for the video game project Third World: The Bottom Dimension was created by music producer, sound designer and multidisciplinary artist LYZZA. Her bespoke soundtrack, released in celebration of the project’s tour to Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Brazil, reflects the game’s odd, unbalanced and dystopian nature. It features environmental soundtracks for each level, character foleys, and various sound effects. The game’s theme tune, narrative films, and cutscenes include unique vocals from Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Novíssimo Edgar and LYZZA herself. For Third World, LYZZA wanted to explore the beauty and madness she, as a Brazilian, associates with Brazil and Brazilian culture, embedding this into the game’s structure to create a playable understanding. Working from Gabriel Massan’s moodboards, references, notes, keywords and descriptions rather than finished levels, the sound design was inspired their shared feelings and poetics. LYZZA sees music as a way of connecting to her Brazilian culture, finding an unlikely muse in the mosquito – a persistent, uncomfortable presence in the environment. Sharing a love of experimental textures with Massan, LYZZA’s style, described as ‘contemporary anxiety pop’, LYZZA’s blends alt-pop, reggaeton, trance-influenced synths, and club beats with anxious pulsating electronic production to create transgressive soundscapes. LYZZA considers music production as a ‘gateway to liberation for marginalised identities’, creating a new kind of freedom. She aims to create sounds that don’t yet exist, encouraging us to explore and move in ways we haven’t before. Through her sound, LYZZA invites us to embrace worldbuilding, which she defines as finding connection and belonging by redefining the rules together.
