Month: October 2008

  • sBACH “Track 5” Video

    A solo project from the guy involved in both Hella and The Advantage, sBach is all over the place musically, but this track is a great combo of the contentious prog/nintendocore/whatever sound and soaring square leads. As chiptune stars to spread into and becomes more organically connected stylistically, it’s going to be intersting to see what hybrid styles spring forth. In the meantime check their myspace for shows and tour dates.

    Thanks SHAWNPHASE!

  • Jellica’s “With Love from Grandma” out on Retinascan.

    Shirtless boy wonder and cat benamed gameboy model Jellica is the latest in a series of 3″ cd releases from Retinascan.

    Knitting optional
    Knitting optional

    From the site:

    After 8bitpeoples, Kittenrock is certainly one of the most loveable outlets for free chippy weirdness in the world of gameboy music. Thanks to Jellica, this will remain a place to be for the next couple of centuries.

    Nonetheless Retinascan also wants its piece of cake and has therefor set up this next chipstyle series with ten artists from 9 countries, where Jellica represents the home of fish and chips and the motherland of football, the Empire called United Kingdom.

    Besides, England is also the birthplace of warehouse parties, combat drinking and pop in general. Jellica embraces this all in a wonderful hysteric yet funny stylemix of everything that swapped over from the island in the last few years, including especially electro, drum’n’bass and breaks.

    The site has full length streaming of all the tracks, but at reduced quality from what you’d get on the cd-r. Standout tracks include the spacey driving beats on “Man QQQ”, the hard tech jamming on “Soft Pink” and that awesome basslines in Man One.

    Download Man QQQ.

  • From the Editor: Call for Political Chiptunes

    In honor of the clusterfuck that is the U.S. election process, I’d like to showcase political minded chip tracks on Tuesday November 4, 2008. If you would like to be included please submit a link to your track via our contact forum:

    Its like a Mario at a MOVEON.ORG Party.
    Its like a Mario at a MOVEON.ORG Party.

    Contact Us

    Thanks and be sure to Vote, if you are able.

  • Chibi-Tech Interviewed on Denpa No Sekai

    All around chip god and sex idol Chibi-Tech is profile on the Denpa No Sekai Blog. The interview is massively in-depth and well worth the read.

    Excerpt:

    Chiptune is slowly but surely getting recognized as a musical genre, though it remains solidly anchored in the gaming world that created it. I think the problem at this point is that it features no lyrical content or message. A Tokyo group called “DENPA PARTY” are throwing events and composing music under the “NO WAR” banner, clearly a political message (simple though it may be). If you started adding lyrics to your songs, what would they be like?

    The man, The Pixels
    The man, The Pixels

    Haha with all aside from synthesized vocal techniques, I honestly never thought of it this way. However, maybe that kind of deliverance can get certain problems with chiptune’s public perception off my chest!

    My problem is that the general public either thinks of chiptunes in two ways. One: Their first impressions are that chiptunes are not legitimate music in their own right simply due to their age — and often get dismissed as “crappy General MIDI sounds” not worthy of serious evaluation. Two: People exploit 8bit as some sort of retro-waxing of “a simpler time” without much real thought put into it. Emo-wanker groups are probably most well known for this. It honestly gets tiring to see a young kid yell out “Whoa that totally sounds like MEGAMAN MUSIC” without putting much thought to why I make this kind of music. It’s all a combination of misinformation and groups of people trying to stake their claim on its nostalgic factor.”

  • Gameboy Sync Devices roundup

    Little-Scale sent a link to his table of most of the sync options available for Gameboys running LSDJ or Nanoloop. Handy and informative.

    For new users its sometimes difficult to wade through everything just to get a simple answer, so this is quick and entertaining read.

    Link