This weeks FMA article is about the wonderful worldly Bud Melvin. An excerpt:
I once read an interview with a sci-fi writer who said that you can only take so many liberties with your audience. You could have a story with dragons, one with telepathy, or a story with time travel, but combining the three takes an enhanced level of skill than does merely using the one alone. Perhaps the most skillful, time traveling, telepathic dragon in the modern chip music scene is one Bud Melvin.
Read the article, and then download his early release 657,644, in its highest quality web release ever. Also Bud Melvin has a new release “Popular Music”, available on vinyl and free download.
Many wonderful releases flood the webz over the weekend. First is two great releases from 8bitpeoples:
Can you dig it?
TCTD’s own 8GB has released his all new EP “Pravda“. 4 hard hitting screeds of alien commie chip agitprop enforce the new old tech chip style. From his release:
“Those who lack discipline will be given some. 8GB’s Pravda (The Truth) continues their globe-trotting persuasion that has only one end: World Audiovisual Domination! 8GB’s open-minded approach to chip music twists the barriers of hardware limitations and attacks various oldschool platforms at the same time, while delivering the goods to shake booties all around and convert many chip non-believers to their regime. The Truth is out there, but the question remains: Smozhezh ti’ vi’derzhat’ pravdu?”
Then 8BP dares to up the ante with a secret collab between Coova and Bud Melvin. How they came to meet, is explained on the release page:
!!!!!! - B. Leo
“After meeting in New York at the first Blip Festival, the scheme was hatched. The most unlikely of collaborations, between two of chip music’s most enigmatic individuals, would be conducted in secrecy over the next year. Delicately woven Game Boy loops conspire with hypnotic banjo patterns. Layers of guitar dance over uncanny vocals. This is the EP you might have once heard, far-off in the static between two AM radio stations.
And finally the weekend saw the release of Two 8bit novices:
“What kind of music do you make when the coder has used almost all the computing power, the designer had his/her go, and there is not even enough CPU-power left to play sounds? You make zero cycle music!”
4bit Synths
4bitsynth is a MIDI-controlled digital synthesizer that uses the Atmel AVR ATMega48. Inspired by the NES, the sound is 4-bit. The digital output is put through an R-2R resistor ladder to get the analog waveform.
Oh my god! Its here for all the beans! Let’s DO IT!
The Best Artist is an incredibly subjective category. Being proficient on multiple levels is good, being synonymous with a style, or simply executing at a high level, all important things. Here are the innovators, the dominators, and the taste makers that are 2008’s Best Artists.
A multidimensional talent equally at home in art as in music, minusbaby had one of his most fruitful years with his various releases in music, art directing the Blip Festival, and taking his live performance to the next level. Always interesting, and ever moving, he could be a candidate in this category for years to come.
gwEm
As a coder of Maxymiser and a tireless advocate for his platform, gwEm has justification enough to be here. But he is also an awesome musician and live performer who seems equally at home in the club as he would be behind a podium waxing philosophically about chip, and the worlds view thereof.
Mr. Melvin is one of those talented multi instrumentalists who has the ability to excel at whatever genre he is involved in, and we are lucky to have him in our scene. At times funny, profane, and groundbreaking, his style is laid back and deceptively simple at times, but still waters run deep. Able to blend many styles in his own unique voice, and a amazing live performer, Bud is one of my personal favorites, and one everyone should have at least a passing familiarity with.
goto80 is also one of the best voices in the scene, especially for his firm connection to chips demoscenes roots. As a musician, performer, or blogger, his style is a breath of fresh air, even on works that are now seemingly older than most musicians in the scene. Able to bend and break the rules of chip composition with ease, he is perhaps most consistently inventive and fun musicians in the scene.
No artist is better on his own platform (just ask him!) than stu. Atari Solo was a soliloquy to the decimation of expectations for the poor little atari sound chip and his live show straddled the line between absolution and obliteration. One of the most exciting and accomplished composers in the scene shows signs of only getting better going into 2009.
Getting this list down to five worthy tracks was a nearly futile effort. First there was the impossibly hubristic act of saying that only five songs where good enough to be considered, then the consideration of what effect time had on older tracks and will have on younger ones. But then I just let go and picked the songs that “I” liked and said damn the torpedoes. And now, with surely a great flurry of controversy, here are the nominees for Best Track.
8bit What – Bud Melvin w/ gwEm
Dis tracks are great when done right, and this tracks deliberate dismantling of a certain Best Label nominees vetting process is wickedly funny and well executed with next level sound design, catchy hooks and lyrics and an over all high quality we’ve come to expect from both these artists seperately, and now together.
In a year of “me too” dance beats, and hackneyed use of basic chip sound design, this track from Huoratron was a breath of fresh air. Yes the gameboy is heavily processed, but the spirit of its use is still intact and the track shows excellence on all measurable levels of ass kicking.
Long considered one of the Ambassadors of the US chip scene, this track may be Nullsleep’s magnum opus. A great blend of complexity and simplicity the track performs the rare feat of making you forget the device being used, and focus soley on the song.
Animal Style – DMG Guitar
Animal Style – DMG Guitar
An even more difficult effort for chipspotters is this track which rocks both Animal Styles compositional skill and his guitar abilities. A live powerhouse, the track has withstood repeated listenings and still kicks my ass every time I hear it.
Cheap Dinosaurs – Hot Plate
Having come late to the Chromelodeon party, One definiatly does not have to settle for this solo project. This krush groove esque synth jam seemlsly blends chip sounds and enhanced synthesis into an organic brew that foretells of a stunning chip future, where the composition is never overshadowed by the platform, and the artist is always amazing without an “for a chipmusican” qualifier.
This weeks FMA article is about the wonderful worldly Bud Melvin. An excerpt:
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