Tag Archives: soundcloud

ALBUMS, EVENTS, GAME MUSIC, GAMING, MUSIC

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

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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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ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, GAMING, MUSIC

Friday Freakout: *BEAUTIFUL* new Vince Kaichan EP released!!!

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THIS HAS BEEN A CRAZY COUPLE OF CHIPWEEKS. For reasons that I can mention (such as the INSAAAANE 17.5 hour chipmusic broadcast of AWESOME that I co-hosted on Geekbeat LeRadio earlier this week) and reasons that I can’t quite yet (hint: pay close attention to ChipWIN channels in the coming days ;). There’ve been a handful of extraordinarily awesome, completely unheralded chip releases that have contributed to this craziness as well. And boy do I have a damn good example of one of these right here for you:

On Thin Air
by Vince Kaichan

The chippy badass Vince Kaichan, formerly known as VCMG, dropped a 4 track surprise EP of PURE WIN last Friday. It’s a beautiful collection of very lush, atmospheric, ethereal, yet still quite powerful, driving tracks, which all but tell a story without a single word. It’s the way the tracks are composed and sequenced that denote this flow of story; like different movements of a classical piece that interweave together with perfect synergy. The meat of it is definitely “Binary Lake” (LOVE THAT TRACK~~), but the surrounding tracks are not to be overlooked! They’re what set it up so perfectly after all.

The funniest thing about this album is that its existence is due to nothing more than an unfortunate (or maybe fortunate in this case?) accident. To quote Vince’s words from his Bandcamp page, “These tracks happened only because Vince Kaichan was stupid enough to crack his Gameboy screen, rendering him sans-DMG for four weeks.” This EP was crafted with SunVox v1.6.4, Tweakybeat for iPhone, and a Korg Monotron. While I hesitate to wish damage to a viable Gameboy, I’m a bit thankful it happened this time. ;3 Although hopefully enough of you buy this album to see that it gets repaired! ;)

I also find it noteworthy to mention that while I often find EPs tend to be either somewhat lacking or give just enough of a taste to do the job, On Thin Air satisfies just as well as the most well put together full album release. Miss it at your own loss.

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ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, EVENTS, GAMING, MUSIC

Friday Freakout: New EP by The J Arthur Keenes Band!!!

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Vocally lead chiptune is kicking ass lately. Obviously you’ve got Br1ght Pr1mate with their stellar release Night Animals just the other day; that album in of itself is enough for me to confidently make that claim. And now, you’ve also got THIS:

The World’s Smallest Violin
by The J Arthur Keenes Band

This EP comes at you with 5 extraordinarily solid tracks of powerfully lush, excellently composed eargasms. The fantastic mix of lead and harmony vox drive this release along quite wonderfully, but it doesn’t hurt that there’s a wildly varied assortment of different instruments throughout it; various and variously effected guitars and stringed instruments, brass, keys, accordion, drums & percussion toys, and, of course, a fair amount of chippy goodness. Honestly, this album is a great example of chiptune as an instrument, as that’s simply what it is here! Albeit a fantastically used instrument, of course. ;)

The wonderful atmosphere, energy, and just all around vibe created by the STELLAR mix is worth writing about as well. Wanna know how to mix a winning chipalbum? ASK THIS GUY. Seriously, just put on a good set of cans, hit play, close your eyes AND LISTEN TO THE SONIC JOY. This EP has very quickly become one of my favorite chip EPs of the year if not all time. There’s a special sort of magic, energy, FUN on this album that I can’t quite capture in words. And I’m damn rare to point out a particular song on an album and/or pick a favorite, but HOLY FURKIN ZOMBOCON BOTH “MONSTERS” AND “OKAY” ARE GETTING POINTED THE BEEJEEBUS RIGHT OUT~!!! The entire thing is great, but those first two snag me something fierce.

In summation, if you can’t enjoy this album, well… FUCK YOU. <3 

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ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, GAMING, MUSIC

Friday Freakout: New Br1ght Pr1mate album released!!!

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I ♥ Br1ght Pr1mate. So hard.  J-Prime & L-Primal simply know how to make quality chipmusic that tickles me right in my happy place(s). The fact that they’re one of the very first chipgroups I discovered and experienced live (at PAX East 2011 in the MAGFest Jamspace) doesn’t hurt. Then again neither does the fact that they release albums like this one:

Night Animals
by Br1ght Pr1mate

This brand spankin’ new 10 track collection of chiptastic, bombastic merriment & joy has quickly become one of my favorite things of 2012/this decade/EVAR. This shouldn’t be too surprising when you learn that the album has been in production for three damn years…!!!  :O In James’ own words, “It is what we set out to do as BRIGHT PRIMATE.” I suppose I can agree with that if what they intended was to be exceptional sources of creativity, positivity, and professionalism within the chipscene. Well, that and to make an EPICLY BADASS ALBUM, of course. ;)

Night animals is about half instrumental earjoys and half sultry Lydia vox-a-paloozas. Quite literally; the first half is vox driven, & the second half is mostly instrumental. While the instrumentals are wholly amazing and worthy of an EP all on their own merit, it’s the vocal tracks that really  make this album stand out among the crowd of instrumental chipalbums; they prove that vocal chip CAN  be done, and done WELL, regardless of the fact that not many chipartists seem to agree with said theory. Honestly, both the production value of the overall album in general and the extraordinarily high creativity level of ALL of the compositions makes for one of the best examples of what chiptune truly can be. To borrow a statement from James and Lydia, “Its been an effort of love and we believe that it represents another small step forward in the evolution of chip music from a basement hobbyists pursuit to what we all know it can become.” Damn well said. 

If nothing else, spend the extraordinarily deserved $5 on this release for the album art alone. 
SHIT IS SO GAL DARN STOOPID FURKIN CUUUUUUUUUUUUTE~ <3

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