Folk Covers & Lofi Bones Two channels keeping my brain alive while agents do the work
If you’re both a gamer and an engineer running a swarm of Claude Code agents with subagents in parallel, with three Figma Make tabs open and Pencil generating UI variants in the background while Google Stitch spits out yet another iteration, then you may know the problem of original game OSTs being too memory-loaded. Lofi Girl is reliable, but I burned through that loop a lifetime ago. YouTube Music’s “Focus” playlists are the audio equivalent of beige office carpet.
What I want is the feeling of an old soundtrack without being dragged into memories of being 14. New skin on the bones I already love.
Two YouTube channels have been doing exactly this for me lately, and they deserve a shout-out:
Dryante Zan, or: the man with too many instruments
Dryante, the stage name of Dmitry Makarov, is a Russian folk multi-instrumentalist who covers OSTs of games such as Gothic, Witcher, Mass Effect, WoW, Baldur’s Gate, and Stronghold, using whatever strange, beautiful instrument the original mood demands. Tin whistle. Bouzouki. Mandolin. Flute. Guitar. Sometimes all in the same track, layered with the kind of patience that comes from actually caring.
His channel description gives him away: “I’m that guy who always cares about reflecting the mood existing in the original.” And he means it. These aren’t streaming-bait covers; they’re reinterpretations – same skeleton, different muscle: $game OST Remastered. Or Remake. Or Reforged.
The Stronghold playlist currently has six tracks that will give anyone who spent their teenage years building castles in 2001 a pure dopamine rush. Castle Jam. Two Mandolins. Minstrelosity. Sad Times. The Crusader entry, “Dar Meshq”, features vocals by Elza Shtolz and hits somewhere between a desert lament and a prayer.
If you only have time for one, make it Under an Old Tree. The interplay between flute and lute achieves something that the original synth version couldn’t: it makes the melancholy feel more authentic. It’s as if song was always supposed to sound this way, but Robert L. Euvino just couldn’t achieve this level of mastering in the tech-limited year of 2001.
Dryante’s whole channel is worth a slow afternoon. Bring tea.
Stronghold – Under an Old Tree – Cover by Dryante
bits & hits, or: the lofi channel that gives me chills
The other one is bits & hits, and the pitch is exactly what it says on the tin: chill lofi reinterpretations of game OSTs made specifically for focus and deep work. They have RPG and fantasy energy. No vocal samples, no rain-on-window stock loops, no aggressive trap drums under a Skyrim flute. Just the songs, reimagined in a format that won’t interfere with your prefrontal cortex.
They’ve covered the obvious giants – Skyrim, WoW, Fallout, Zelda, Diablo, LOTR, Minecraft, Halo – but the two mixes that have been on constant loop in my apartment recently are Age of Empires II but it’s lofi beats and Age of Mythology but it’s lofi beats.
Both AoE soundtracks already had a strange, almost meditative quality – bone flutes, hand drums, and modal scales. It’s the kind of music that feels older than the games themselves, and the lofi treatment doesn’t strip that out. It softens and slows them down, turning them into something you can leave running for four hours while you ship features. Nostalgia without the homesickness.
Age of Empires but it’s lofi beats
Why this type of music works for me
When you orchestrate agents instead of writing every line yourself, your brain shifts into a different mode – more like an architect than a bricklayer. You need music that holds the room together without demanding any of your attention but that also doesn’t anesthetize you. The original soundtracks are too emotional – awesome, but distracting. And frankly, most lofi is too generic. These remixes, however, strike the perfect balance – familiar enough to calm you down, yet different enough to not pull your focus.
I still play the originals. I still queue up Lofi Girl when nothing else works. But for the last few days, Dryante’s bouzouki and bits & hits’ AoE2 mix have been doing most of the heavy lifting behind every PR, UI iteration, and late-night Stitch session.
Different skin. Same bones. Exactly what I needed.
Hero Image: Frame capture from Age of Empires but it’s lofi beats by bits & hits.