Jay Tholen’s increasingly eclectic body of work touches upon the chip music world in the same way a master chef touches upon a spice in a four course meal. The five tracks here in ‘Vainglory’, his first EP for Pause, dance effortlessly from melody to noise, from ecstatic joy to existential dread, in tessellations so subtle, so intricate, that at the end of its slight 20 minutes you will marvel at the distance you’ve sonically covered.
Why no blockquote? Copy written by yours truly. Yay!
Twelve tracks that share the same spiked stem; the Lune Rose. A record of songs not left to rot. Each track sounds slightly off-world, containing an internal battle between the cold harshness of space and the human warmth of meaningfulness, which drawn together form a delicate blossom.
Purchase (Bandcamp)
The Victory Rangers of Future City 20XX have worked together to vanquish every manner of threat to their beloved home planet – except each other! Now their super-star egos drive a feud that can only be settled with blood! Heavily influenced by NES music, and Mega Man games in specific, the soundtrack relies on simple waveforms and white-noise percussion to capture a retro feel with modern production. Written over the course of several months at the start of 2011.
Game Name: Ranger Wars
Developer: Nubbernaut Studios
Platform: XBLA (release date TBD)
Composer/Producer: Gavin Allen (monomer)
Ranger Wars OST by monomer
Artwork by Francis Coulombe
Music released with permission by authors of game and music.
Download MP3
Comes with .SGC file (NSF Equivalent)
The SN76489A PSG is a pure symmetrical squarewave generator, dark, icy-cold, and devoid of bass. Master usage of this soundchip is only achieved through expert manipulation. In parallel to Eat People 1 on the NES, System of a Master dives into a full variety of VGM styles played back on a Sega Master System via home-made flash cartridge. Themes include references to summers spent with cousins Jeannine and Matt(matador), UHF syndicated television, and comics drawn by Alex in the early 90s.
01 System of a Master
02 Darkside
03 Lotch Kotch Key
04 Hospital
05 Zaxxoff
06 Mid Air Collision
07 Judith Light
08 Bees & Bells
09 Sr. Ursula
10 Angel Delgado
11 Ashey
12 Boom Boom Room
13 Don’t Get Mad at Matador
14 Xuxa! Xuxa! Xuxa!
15 The Monk
16 Cat of the Dragons
Artwork by Alex Aguilar.
