Who is Primate?
James Primate, also known as James Therrien, was the one who wrote many of the songs for the indie game Rain World. He worked alongside many other composers such as Lydia Esrig to bring this soundtrack about. Prior to this, he worked on many other indie games such as Junk Jack and Gnomoria. He has a very different style of music compared to many other composers for games such as these. Rain World's soundtrack mainly consists of lofi and electronic music instead of the more traditional orchestral music that is found in the gaming industry. Rain World is a full blown ecosystem disguised as a game which presents many challenges when developing the music as literally anything can be happening within the game at any given moment. The music needs to evolve with the game, representing threats, various sub-areas, and the overall story of the game which deals with beings far beyond one's comprehension. Primate is able to masterfully deal with all of these challenges.
Primate also worked on the DLC for Rain World called Downpour. This expanded the story of the game and created a more clear narrative among incomprehensible gods and small slugcats. Primate is able to tell the story throughout the whole game (and its successive playthroughs) through the use of leitmotifs and layered tracks. The creation of over 160 unique tracks enables this style of storytelling as tracks are able to be layered over each other to represent various emotions and events that are occurring on the map. The ambiance in this game mainly comes from Primate's deep understanding of this very unique style of creating game music. Despite the small community around the game, its deep layers of story beats and music tracks have attracted a very dedicated player base that praise the game for its story, visuals, challenging platforming, and its music and ambiance.