British chip musician Matthew Applegate, otherwise known as Pixelh8, graciously participated in a brief, six-question interview with me today, through which he manifests his continually evolving style and outlook on the remarkable world of 8-bit music.
1. Though you got started with chip music pretty modestly with a bottle of milk spilled into an old Nintendo, you’re now an internationally-recognized chip musician with three full studio albums and a fourth in the works. What has been the driving force behind your constantly evolving style, which is usually quite structured but also very unique?“I have always simply wanted to do interesting things, I learned early on I didn’t want to be a famous musician on a major label, I wanted to have freedom above everything else. Freedom to sometimes to not make music and teach, to do workshops to study, get back to music when I was ready, not when a company wanted a new product. All of my heroes have evolved over their careers Aphex twin, Schoenberg, John Cage I think you have to eventually or you run the risk of boring yourself and the listeners if you don’t. I love chip tune music, I want it to stay and that is why I am prepared to evolve it, instead of serving up another album that sounds a lot like my old one.”
Read the full interview here.