OK. First of all, I had nothing to do with this.
Last October on my birthday, my roommate Mike Lerman (a.k.a. Fuckjazzforaminute, and the man at the wheel of Austin’s killer Datapop event series) handed me a giftwrapped object of the size and shape typical of what you’d expect from a standard CD jewel case. So far so good. But unwrapping it I realized that there was nothing typical or standard about it, AT ALL. The tracklist on the back of the CD had stuff in there like “Saskrotch: Paper Chase Init_” and “nordloef: Activation Theme” and “IAYD: Reformat The Planet.” OBVIOUS JOKE, right? A well-meant prank. Well Mike put it on to prove to me otherwise, and sure enough he had, in fact, who knows how long ago, hatched a secret plan to be revealed on my birthday, to enlist nearly two dozen people from the chip community, for some unfathomable reason, to cover songs from Information Chase, a saccharine and sophomoric EP I’d put out five years ago. And the tracklisting was like a who’s-who of the chipmusicians I respect and admire the most, like Random, cTrix, Bud Melvin, nordloef, Sievert, Henry Homesweet, little-scale, Saskrotch, and so on and so on. So it took some time for me to wrap my brain around it, but ultimately I came around to accepting that this thing was real. Five months later, I still am no closer to finding the words to express my awed gratitude, or the mixture of emotions I’ve been experiencing ever since. It’s POSSIBLE that when we got to Coova’s track on the comp (“Reformat The Planet”), that I MIGHT have shed a tear. But it was just watery eyes from allergies. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Tracklisting after the jump
1. The J. Arthur Keenes Band: Chase Init_
2. Sievert: Happy Birthday Activation
3. exileFaker: Reformat The Planet (Double Hybrid Rainbow Version)
4. Henry Homesweet: Chase Init_ (Henry Homesweet Remix)
5. Coova: Reformat The Planet
6. TouchBoy: Hexadecimal Genome (Hex-A-Mind Remix)
7. Ten Thousand Free Men And Their Families: Hexadecimal Genome
8. little-scale: Chase Init_
9. The Squarewave Surfers: Reformater la Planète
10. Saskrotch: Paper Chase Init_
11. Maru303: Reformat The Electro (Reformat The Planet Remixxxxxxx)
12. Tonylight: Elkapot Part I
13. glomag & Corset Lore: Particle Charge
14. Random: Reformat The Planet (Random Version)
15. Albino Ghost Monkey: Activation Theme
16. Bud Melvin: Reformat The Back Porch
17. cTrix: Hexadecimal Genome
18. Natty: Reformanatee The Planetee
19. nordloef: Activation Theme
20. Fuckjazzforaminute: The Three Minute Information Chase
21. Magic Hammer: THVNDERCHASE
22. IAYD: Reformat The Planet
23. The Anomaly Quintet: The Information Saunter