By Peter Swimm, on February 10th, 2009  Following his release for Kittenrock, “this new EP has come out as a (comparatively) luxurious jewel-case 3” mini-CD, and IS NOW AVAILABLE AT RETINASCAN!!!!.
Tracklisting:
1. SPC Beatbox
2. Club For Broken Hearted Robots
3. Manor De Sex
4. Paradise
5. Firing Speed Rainbows
”Needless to say this will rock your next party if you decide to own this.” – Store @ Retinascan
Steve’s second EP and the debut release for S18 Records, ‘Firing Speed Rainbows’ continues from where his debut release for Kittenrock left off – taking the sound of cheap technology from the mid-90s and creating melodic electro with it. ‘SPC Beatbox’ turns drum sounds from the SNES into a body-popping beat, over which FM synths duel for surpremacy, while ‘Manor De Sex’ is a sleazy funk machine. The journey ends with the title track, fuelled by majestic synth strings and packed with soaring solos. Essentially, ‘Firing Speed Rainbows’ is the result of a tantalizing new approach to lo-fi music.
//////BUY IT HERE!!!!!!\\\\\\
www.s18records.com”
By Peter Swimm, on December 30th, 2008 In a time of great upheaval in the music industry, many mainstream labels struggle to find a role in the fast changing media landscape. This proves even more so for the extremely niche market that is modern chip. The best labels have in common a love of the music they release, firm quality control, and a strong ability to support and promote the artists on their roster.
The nominees are:
Kittenrock – This label celebrates excellence as well as diversity with a flood of great and interesting releases in 2008. Tracks from Silreq, My Two Robodads, and uberkin Stevens were marked not only by a strong experimental leaning, but also superb composition.
Retinascan – An anachronism and a sort of reaction against the glut of me too netlabels, Retinascan delivers hand made cd-rs chosen from some of the greats like Stu, Jellica, our own 8GB, and more. By making the runs short and the tracks great, they created a sort of unique excitement that gave a refreshing alternative to the free data flood that often overwhelms all but the most unique voices in the chip scene.
II – Running roughshod over our collective mp3 devices, this label hit the ground running with an great Linde release and did not let up all year long. Highlights included Animal Style, Disasterpeace’s Level, The Final Chromeledeon reissues, EvilWeezil, Alex Mauer and more. II not only releases great chip music, but music that often transcends many genres, and often of very high quality both in composition, sound design, and overall presentation
Shanshui – The unfortunate reality is most of the focus of the world is on on the western, Caucasian, and American edges of the genre. Shansui appears to be propping the entirety of the nascent Chinese chip community on their backs, organizing tours and releasing excellent records from the greats in theirs and the worldwide community. It seems a surety that if the community is to grow it must become far more diverse and this label is an exciting first step.
8bitpeoples – The venerable (and maybe even stately?) netlabel chugged along with another excellent year of releases. As well as showcasing some of chip’s top artists (in a more or less timely manner), they hosted another Blip Festival and served as an excellent ambassador to the outside world and media time and time again.
By Peter Swimm, on October 23rd, 2008 Retinascan keeps up with its crazy 3″ CD-r series, so I thought I’d do a rundown of whats been released so far.
 The Best.. etc 8gb‘s release sounds very good, even though he just has previews online. The pounding and techy drum programing and glitchy pulsewaves are crackhead addictive, so this sounds like a no brainer of a purchase. So far “Viking Line” might be my favorite chip song to flay alive my helpless victims. And “61b” is hard enough for the toughest of Techno Vikings. 8GB shows that a savvy ear can push the genre far enough you forget all about what hardware is doing what and just fucking dance.
 Stunning, and blinding. Another release is from Multifaros, the alter ego of young Swedish gameboy artist Bard Ericson. “Good Luck” is an mix of the Swedish hump style happy blip mania and really grungy almost rock like tones and how successful the blend came across was one of the biggest surprises for me. Following that with the mournful pause of “Legoman” and “Mr. Rai”, and closing out with the arcade funk of “Toffel” and the beautiful “Why Are You Floating” has added Ericson to my must listen list. Excellent stuff.
 Minimally invasive procedures. Finally is the first release in this series, Stu‘s “Atari Solo”. The release is simply a prolonged beat down of the Atari ST soundchip, especially the wife beating kick stomp of “Ready to Score” and the moaning lofi samples in “Fuck Machine”. Stu shows unwavering dedication to fucking shit up. The sound design alone would make this one of the top chip releases of the year, but Stu also has a number in tricks in store with amazing composition and intriguing mix choices. If you only get one (and hell they are cheap enough to get all three), you’d be hard pressed to ignore “Atari Solo”
I am unclear how many retinascan releases they intend to put out in this format, but this may be the hottest chip run of any label in years. Will be sure to keep an eye on it.
By Peter Swimm, on October 23rd, 2008 Shirtless boy wonder and cat benamed gameboy model Jellica is the latest in a series of 3″ cd releases from Retinascan.
 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.
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