Tag Archives: chip musicians

ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, GAMING, MUSIC

Friday Freakout: New Decktonic = BASSTASTIC!!!

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I like bass. A lot. Folk that know me even halfway decently are aware of this fact. Hell, I’ve played bass guitar for over 10 years now! BASS IS GOOD. Moves the body, causes babies to be made, makes the world go ’round. For any of you that feel similarly about the goodness that is bass, I’ve got a chipalbum with your name written all over it:

Stars by Decktonic

I’ve been a fan of Decktonic’s for nearly a year now. As long as I’ve been listening, dude’s been consistently laying down some tasty, bassy chipgrooves.  It was a complete no brainer to try and get a track from him for the first Chiptunes = WIN compilation, and awesomely enough he joined right in. \m/ It turned out that his kickass submission, Africa, was a track from this then unreleased album. From the very first listen through I knew right off that it was gonna be a killer release when it finally dropped. And I’m thrilled to say, I WAS DAMN RIGHT.  Stars is 10 tracks of TOTAL WIN in an amalgam of varying musical styles, all composed with KORG DS10+ and Nanoloop. More importantly, all composed with buttloads of bass. You feel this stuff right in your gut. Literally.  ;) In fact, do your bass loving self a favor when you listen to this album and take Decktonic’s advice: listen via some good cans and/or sound system with solid bass response so that you don’t miss out on any of the deep basstasticness. Honestly, if this album doesn’t get your foot tapping, head nodding, ass shaking, and feet moving, there’s no hope for you. Don’t be hopeless. EMBRACE THE BASS. <– NEW LIFE MOTTO. 8)

\m|♥|m/

ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, GAMING, MUSIC

Friday Freakout: New Stern Fucking Zeit = CHIPTASTICALLY BRUTAL \m||m/

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A lot of people tend to think that chiptunes are just a bunch of dancey dancey blipity bleep bloops. And to an extent it’s true (although some damn good dancey dancey blipity bleep bloops!!!). However, I know of at least two particular crazy German chiptuners who would reply to that line of linking with a solid, “F**K OFF!”, and they’d enforce it quite handily with their latest album:

Pathoscillator
by Stern Fucking Zeit

I’ve been a metalhand for at least a decade now,
long before I ever really got into chiptune. There’s something about the energy and the ferocity of metal that appeals to me even today (that and the badass  guitar solos, of course ;). So to discover an album that deftly blends both metal/hardcore/screamo stylings and chiptune (chipcore? chipmetal?) so damn well fills me full of \m||m/. Even if the entirety of it is completely devoid of any metal guitar!!!  :O Although the indescribably brutal LSDj riffage does the trick JUST as well, which is quite the claim, I know! The album itself is a fair mix of both instrumentals and punishingly metal vocally led tracks, all interwoven with the perfect mix of thrash and melodic work to really make it catch. Either way, there is nothing about this album that isn’t METUL AS FUCK; it hits me right in my wheelhouse with the power of 10,000 pixelated Henry Rollins. And man, what I’d give to catch one of SFZ’s undoubtedly extremely high energy live shows; a mosh pit at a chiptune concert just sounds AWESOME. At any rate, all that I’m really trying to say with this meandering write-up (TOO… MUCH… METAL!! CAN… NOT… FOCUS!!), if you dig both metal and chiptunes but haven’t found anything yet that scratches both of those itches at once, THIS ALBUM IS FOR YOU.

\m|♥|m/

ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, GAMING, MUSIC

Friday Freakout: Auxcide is Awesometastic!!!

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So just the other day  I was listening to the recently released goodness that is the Pxl-Bot compilation “One Year Later”; it has some stellar chipjams on it worth checking out, no doubt about it (just check out Pxl-Bot in general. IT RULES. ). One of the tracks that I kept returning to, however, was the first track, “Impact” by Auxcide. So I did me some googling of this yet unheard of (by me) West Coast chipper to see what else he had available. AND I FOUND THIS:

Of Atoms and Stardust
by Auxcide

I believe it was just last Friday that I mentioned how much I love pleasant surprises, and this definitely qualifies as another one of those!  Seriously, man, some LSDJx2 goodness right here if I’ve ever  heard it! Epic, spacey, chipsteppy, dancey, gloriously melodic goodness FOR. THE. WIN.  I love the flow, the progression, the energy  of the album (the sequencing is done excellently), and the inclusion of a bonus mp3 of the entire album in one track  for gapless playback really  shows that off (very cool little bonus!). Also, did I mention that Of Atoms and Stardust is his debut album (& it JUST released)???  :OOO -head asplodes- INORITE?!? Auxcide is simply another stellar example of some of the up and coming talent that’s bursting forth into the chiptune scene with a fury of a thousand angry comets (I HAVE FURY!!!!!). Again I say, there is no better time to be involved in chiptunes, as an artist and/or a fan, than right now. More and more crazy, awesome goodness to come, of that much I am certain. At any rate, give this awesometastic duder’s chipalbum of WIN a solid listen as soon as you get a chance (and send the dude some money! He deserves it!! ). OR THE ANGRY COMETS WILL COME FOR YOU.  Or not. But you would miss out on some awesome chipmusic and that’s almost as bad.

\m|♥|m/

ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, GAMING, MUSIC

Friday Freakout: Inverse Phase + NIN = OH HELLZ YEAH!!

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Chiptune covers of songs are f*cking awesome (like this Genesis one for instance). Personally, I get a real kick out of hearing some of my favorite songs, both old and new, transformed into Chiptunes. It’s a best of both worlds kinda thing. And when I’m in the mood for this niche within a niche, there’s one guy in particular that I always go to:

Brendan Becker
aka Inverse Phase

Whether it’s his collection of nerdy anthems on Retrocovered, a handful of various, awesome singles, or even his Guilty Gear chiptune cover album, the dude has some highly entertaining and very detail oriented covers absolutely worth checking out. Of course, if you want originals he’s got that happening too! Both the soundtracks for Shuttle Scuttle (Three-Stage FTW!!!) and Super Smash Land that he composed are excellent, and so are the original tracks in the Exclusives section of his bandcamp page.

But more importantly…

YES HE’S ABOUT TO RELEASE AN ALBUM FULL OF NINE INCH NAILS COVERS ON JUNE 14TH THAT HE’S BEEN WORKING ON FOR NEARLY A YEAR NOW!!!!  ZOMGWTFBBQ!!!!! 

I’ve always just been a casual NIN fan myself; more familiar with the singles than anything. That said, from the little bits that I’ve heard from this album (yes, I’ve got in on some early listens. I’M SPECIAL! WHAT OF IT?? ;3 ) he’s got me ready to wrestle a pack of Narwhals to own the sucker!! And I’m not the only one! His Kickstarter for the project collected over $3,600 in donations to make it happen, which is $1,000 over the initial goal set for the project. Quite  a vote of confidence from his fans! If you didn’t get in on that action, though, don’t you worry! You can still pre-order a copy of the album on his Bandcamp RIGHT HERE, either digital download ($6) or CD ($9). And you should. RIGHT DAMN NOW. Or Trent Reznor will teleport into your house via a magical flash drive and punch you in the genitals with a pixelated gauntlet of pain and angst. Or maybe not. But you would still miss out on the album and that would suck almost as badly, amirite? IAMRITE. ;)

Also, there will be  one of those crazy awesome listening parties for this chippy goodness on Areciboradio on the same date. Check out the details of that RIGHT HERE. In the meantime, stay tuned to IP’s Facebook & Twitter accounts and listen to Areciboradio for further details & chippy goodness!!

\m|♥|m/