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Tag: gwEm
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This week on the FMA: gwEm
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gwEm interview at bedroom producers
Our first robot submission is a doozy, a great interview with gwEm at Bedroom Producers. An excerpt:bp: Your music arrangements are quite complex, and yet you’re a solo artist basically. How hard is it to prepare and setup your live act? Do you bring your own equpment everywhere you go?
gwEm: Good question. I’ve spent a long time refining this. I bring as much equipment as I can, but obviously sometimes its heavy and impractical to bring some things. In the minimum case I have a Steinberger GP guitar, which is a headless design, but still with a cool Flying V look. It fits into a suitcase. For a mixer, I have a Rolls Karaoke Mixer from USA. One problem is electricty – you never know which voltage and plugs will be available, so everything runs off battery. I usually ask for a microphone and stand, but I can bring it in the suitcase. The main parts of my tracks play from a Nintendo DS. I used to use a minidisc, but it was becoming unreliable. Now, in the ‘luxury’ case I take an 8 channel Behringer mixer, an Atari ST, a DS, a proper Flying V, and I bring my drummer and two microphones. He uses a Yamaha drum pad, but his luxury is a real drumkit. Oh, and i forgot my SansAmp pedal – it’s a sort of analogue guitar modeller – it sounds very nice, and its small. Plus there is no latency. I also bring a guitar tuner, and some cables :).
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Artist of the Year
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.
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Best Track
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.
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Merry XL Mas
8bitpeoples gave us quite a treat with two hot new records from Gwem and M-.-n. Grab em while they are hot!
We are taking the weekend off, so check back next week for the TCTD 2008 awards!