Tag Archives: covers

Friday Freakout: The World Is Square debut album released!!!

I love Final Fantasy/Square-Enix music. It’s grandly fantastic, highly emotive, cinematic music goodness on an epic scale x 1,000,000! Whether it’s the earlier compositions from the NES & SNES games (easily  my favs) or those from the more technically superior consoles of today, the music remains completely magical. And so are the awesome, musically talented, badass nerds  who remix, rearrange, and play this excellently fun music live in various forms, fashions, and instrumental configurations; there’s nothing quite like rocking out, dancing, swaying, and just getting downright weird  to a live set of this sort of awesomeness. Speaking of getting weird, I think it’s time I STFU with this extra long intro & bring you the debut album from one group of said nerdy badasses:

No Phoenix Down
Can Save You Now
by
The World Is Square

This delightfully quirky, wonderfully weird  5 member Square-Enix tribute band brings it  with 13 toe-tapping, giant grin inducing folky earjoys. Their acoustic instrument driven arrangements are strikingly different than any other band within the VGM scene; they craft their lovely covers with nothing more than keys, a Glochenspiel (!!!), several string instruments (acoustic guitar, ukulele, mandolin, & bass) and various forms of percussion. It brings a simpler, more paired down sound to what are typically extraordinarily cinematic, grand soundscapes, yet it works in a way that I never would’ve imagined possible. They’re fast becoming one of my favorite VGM acts in the scene, and hell, I haven’t even seen ’em live yet!!! :O (will be fixing that the first damn chance I get~ <3 ).

According to Lauren from TWIS it’s a damn fun experience within the group as well. “I wish you all could have seen my face when we were adding stuff together like the vocals in ‘vamo’ or the snap tracks. Standing around a mic with some of your best buds trying not to laugh is far more difficult than i thought.” Lauren goes on to say, “I’m really happy with how it (the album) turned out and honestly so flattered and overwhelmed with the amount of support and love we’ve gotten from everyone. I would have been happy recording silly youtube videos in our living room forever but this has just been a total bonus.”

If you’d like to experience some of this funtasticness first hand, be sure to come hang out/party/get weird online with the band and a bunch of other awesome nutbars (myself included most likely ;D ) during The World Is Square Interview & Album Bash at 8bitx.com on Wednesday, Sept 12th at 9pm EST.  There’ll even be chances to snag some free download codes! For the full skinny, be sure to check out the Fb event here (and invite ALL the friends!!!  ;D ):

https://www.facebook.com/events/279825558790405/

In the meantime, go listen to their lovely album, and, of course, BUY THE HELL OUT OF IT OR TONBERRYS WILL CHOP OFF YOUR JUNK WITH THEIR SCARY, SCARY KNIVES & FEED ‘EM TO UMARO!!! <– Although quite honestly, this threat is wholly unnecessary. Once you listen to the album, you’re gonna wanna buy it. <3

Also, ZOMBOCOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNN~~~!!!!!!!!!!1111!1!1

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Friday Freakout: OFF TO NERDAPALOOZA, BIZNATCHES!!! \m|♥|m/

YUP.  As this scheduled write-up automatically releases, Dj Cutman, Obtuse from 8 Bit Power Hour, myself, and a WHOLE MEGAFURKCRAPTON of other awesometastic nerds are headin’ to Nerdapalooza.

RIGHT. FURKIN. NAAAAOOOOW.

 

What teh furk is Nerda?!?” you dare to ask?? CLICK HERE FOR ANSWERS. Although to sum it up quickly, IT’S A GIANT VGM/CHIPMUSIC/NERDCORE PARTY OF WIN. Just *SO MANY* awesome artists!!! TOO MANY TO LIST!!! (click HERE for a full schedule of the performers). In other words, YOU DON’T WANNA MISS THIS GOODNESS. You may even meet the hot nerdy chick/dude/asexual alien lifeform of your dreams at it, WHO KNOWS??? (met my gf there last year, and we’re still dating! ;D <3 -cue the, “DAWWWWWWWWWWW~” ;3 ). So get your damn tickets already (here or at the event) and GET YOUR ASSES DOWN TO ORLANDO, FLORIDA TO PARTY WITH US!!!

See ya there~<3

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

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!!

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