Toy Company is a series of 8bit/lo-fi techno music parties happening in Montreal organised by a few artists of the local chiptune scene. This comp is to help raise funds for future events.
Last October on my birthday, my roommate Mike Lerman (a.k.a. Fuckjazzforaminute, and the man at the wheel of Austin’s killer Datapop event series) handed me a giftwrapped object of the size and shape typical of what you’d expect from a standard CD jewel case. So far so good. But unwrapping it I realized that there was nothing typical or standard about it, AT ALL. The tracklist on the back of the CD had stuff in there like “Saskrotch: Paper Chase Init_” and “nordloef: Activation Theme” and “IAYD: Reformat The Planet.” OBVIOUS JOKE, right? A well-meant prank. Well Mike put it on to prove to me otherwise, and sure enough he had, in fact, who knows how long ago, hatched a secret plan to be revealed on my birthday, to enlist nearly two dozen people from the chip community, for some unfathomable reason, to cover songs from Information Chase, a saccharine and sophomoric EP I’d put out five years ago. And the tracklisting was like a who’s-who of the chipmusicians I respect and admire the most, like Random, cTrix, Bud Melvin, nordloef, Sievert, Henry Homesweet, little-scale, Saskrotch, and so on and so on. So it took some time for me to wrap my brain around it, but ultimately I came around to accepting that this thing was real. Five months later, I still am no closer to finding the words to express my awed gratitude, or the mixture of emotions I’ve been experiencing ever since. It’s POSSIBLE that when we got to Coova’s track on the comp (“Reformat The Planet”), that I MIGHT have shed a tear. But it was just watery eyes from allergies. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Friday 22nd October sees Public Life in Spitalfields, London host the best chipmusic line-up you’ll see in London this year. Cover charge is £5 and doors open at 8:00 – get there early, you won’t want to miss a minute of this.
Touchboy
Improvised 8bit tech house from Canada
Natty
New York 8bit dandy, kicking off his European tour with Touchboy
Sabrepulse
Nintendo junglestep that needs no introduction
gwEm
Atari rave STj B2B with Counter Reset and special guests
In 2010, Natty and Touchboy set out on their first excursion to Europe. Releasing this collection is an important part of that tour.
Natty and Touchboy have both given away music for free in the past and will continue to do so in the future, but selling this collection will help them recoup some of the cost of a largely self-funded tour.
The collection features over an hour and a half of brand new tracks, remixes, and live performances. If you’ve ever wanted to buy us each a beer – buy this instead. It’s more value than getting us drunk, trust me.
Comments