I'm going to be playing Pulsewave, New York's largest monthly chipmusic event next weekend with my pals Minusbaby of 8bitpeoples and Active Knowledge of Boston 8-Bit. If you're in the area, holla at yer boy/albatross.
And if you can't make it, you'd better be in Boston the following week for PAX East -- I'll be joined by Disasterpeace, Br1ghtPr1mate, A_Rival, Active Knowledge and more for two days of chip concerts and panels in the Jamspace room. Be there or be square(wave).
Flowers, chocolates and poetry are all well and good, but nothing says ‘I love you’ quite like a bouquet of award-winning indie games. Fortunately for all you shortchanged cassanovas out there, the Indie Love Bundle is here with an affordable package of quality independent titles guaranteed to amplify the affections of your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day. Or to be enjoyed by yourself whilst stomping on rose petals and angrily expressing your disdain for the Hallmark card company.
The bundle gives you six amazing indie titles for PC, Mac and Linux: Robotic puzzle adventure Machinarium, serene biophysics engine Osmos, gravity-shifting platformer And Yet It Moves, side-scrolling action RPG Aztaka, abstract audiovisual reverie Auditorium and ambient space simulator Eufloria are all included. And of course, the best part is that you get all of this for only $20. It’s an absolute steal, but just like an alarmingly high percentage of marriages, it won’t last forever — You’ll only be able to snag the bundle up until the clock strikes midnight next week on February 19th, so get moving. Whether you’re lovestruck or loveless this year, don’t pass up this amazing opportunity to experience some of the most important independent games of the past few years.
As you’ve probably gathered from my previous post, Alexandria’s Music and Gaming Festival kicks off it’s eigth installment tonight with a spectacular New Year’s Eve concert at the Hilton Alexandria. To commemorate the birth of the year 2010 (who will be forced out of the womb with the sound of a massive guitar chord), we present to you this very special music-album, featuring eleven artists that will be performing at this year’s MAGFest, including tracks from Temp Sound Solutions, The OneUps, Metroid Metal, Armcannon and Smash Bros. Attendees: Feast your ears on the sounds that will be rocking your world for the next four days. And if you can’t make it MAGFest, get a taste of why you should do everything in your power to be here next year.
Thanks to Animal Style for providing the fancy cover art!
1. Smash Bros - Actraiservania (Y. Koshiro/M. Adachi, T. Kudou)
2. Metroid Metal - Space Pirates (H. Tanaka)
3. Armcannon - Dr. Wily (M. Matsumae, T. Tateishi, Y. Sakaguchi)
4. The OneUps - Terra (Nobuo Uematsu)
5. Rare Candy - Undersea Palace / Schala’s Theme / The Day The World Revived (Y. Mitsuda)
6. Select Start - Mega Man III Title (Y. Fujita)
7. Inverse Phase - Ky #reload Korean (Shin Hae Chul)
8. Zen Albatross - Ellery (J. Kopstein)
9. Animal Style - Hadron Collider (J. Mariano)
10. Temp Sound Solutions - Area 88 / Castlevania (M. Matsumae / K. Yamashita, K. Matsubara)
11. The Megas - The Annihilation of Monsteropolis (Y. Fujita)
If you were planning on spending another New Year’s Eve trolling NeoGAF while downing leftover egg nog, please first reconsider your life, then head down to Alexandria, Virginia to celebrate the earliest days of 2010 surrounded by rad videogames, loud music and swell folks.
Now in its 8th year, MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival) is an annual gathering of videogame composers, chip musicians, artists, remixers, gamers and fans. The Fest kicks off on New Years Eve and goes non-stop until January 4th. So after running myself ragged last week at Blip Festival, the next logical step is obviously to jump on a Mega Bus and head to Virginia for four more days of alcoholism, hearing loss and sleep deprivation.
I won’t be alone, though — My pals from the Destructoid community will have a considerable presence at the Fest, traveling in packs from Maryland, New York, Boston and New Jersey. Somehow, amid all of this madness, I’ll be playing two live shows and running an LSDJ/chipmusic workshop. That’s of course in addition to all of the other fabulous concerts, panels and special events occurring throughout the weekend.
Put simply, MAGFest is the ideal setting for what promises to be a truly epic NARP.
And NARP we shall. Be sure to check the MAGFest website for more details, and definitely consider showing up for a night or two if you live in the nearby area. As a 2-year MAGveteran, I can assure you that good times will be had.
Everyone knows that the holidays are meant to be a time for selflessness, love and celebration. And no one embodies the spirit of the season quite like the international chipmusic community, who year after year gift the general public with a giant Santa-sack of free music. Therefore, in keeping with tradition, I present to you four holiday-themed albums from a variety of chipmusicians that are sure to liven your holiday festivities with 8-bit cheer.
NEW ARRIVALS:
1. Rush Coil - ‘8-bit Christmas’
The newest addition to the internet’s growing library of 8-bit holiday albums, 8-bit Christmas features holiday favorites like ‘Carol of the Bells,’ ‘What Child Is This’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne’ done over in the style of vintage console soundchips… with a couple of interesting twists, of course. The album is streaming for free on Rush Coil’s website, and for a mere $4, you can download the whole thing in crystal-clear, DRM-free MP3 format. What’s more, all the proceeds from the album’s sales are being donated to Child’s Play, the children’s charity organization started by Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade.
This collection of holiday chiptune jams was assembled over the course of 24 days by artists on 8bitcollective.com, a community-based chipmusic media sharing site. It features some pretty hilarious permutations of holiday classics that certainly warrant downing a couple glasses of egg nog prior to listening. Stealthily slip a few of these tracks into your relatives’ holiday playlists during that boring family gathering and see what happens.
Last year’s lo-bit holiday hit is still going strong. Assembled by arrangement artist Doctor Octoroc, 8-bit Jesus re-imagines 9 holiday favorites using the compositional styles of classic videogame composers. With insane mash-ups like ‘Carol of the Belmonts’ and ‘We Three Konami,’ this one’s sure to please holiday party-goers for years to come.
Old-school 8bitpeoples! This album represents one of the earlier compilations of the artists on the 8bitpeoples netlabel. Hally, Bit Shifter, Nullsleep, Goto80, Yerzmyey, Vim, Paul Slocum and Dma-Sc deliver eight heavily-stylized jams that float and sparkle like the winter snow.
If you’ve kept your ear to the pavement lately, you may have heard the quickening rumble of low-frequency square waves that heralds the coming of Blip Festival, the world’s largest and longest running festival for 8-bit music and art. The festival, which kicks off tonight at The Bell House in Brooklyn, has already flooded New York City with droves of musicians, artists and enthusiasts from around the world. Those of us who have been involved in this sort of thing for a while are in a state of unyielding excitement, counting down the hours until the first act kicks off three days of lo-fi festivities. But to the uninitiated, the whole idea of ‘chipmusic’ and its associated culture might be a bit overwhelming, and perhaps a tad confusing as well.
Fear not, for within this article I will attempt to demystify the culture surrounding the Blip Festival, as well as clear up some common misconceptions about chipmusic and its practitioners. If this will be your first Blip Festival, I urge you to read on… and also be aware that you’re in for one heck of a weekend.
Videogame Systems, NOT Videogame Music
So, what is ‘chipmusic,’ really? Videogame music? Videogame remixes? Well, not quite. In it’s purest form, chipmusic, or ‘chiptune’ as it is sometimes called, is original music that is composed and performed using obsolete videogame and computer hardware. Although nostalgia for the ‘golden age’ of videogames has certainly played a large role in the scene’s growth, chipmusic itself actually has very little to do with games. It’s easy to immediately associate the two, seeing as how the audible timbres and visual iconography of the game consoles is instantly recognizable to those of us who grew up with them. But in the same way that the first percussion instruments were once tribal drums used to pay tribute to the sun, these consoles, rather than merely remaining mired in the dregs of nostalgia, have been re-purposed to create new, original works.
So, this is some new ironic fad, right?
No. But there are a number of legitimate reasons why artists choose to make use of this outdated tech. First off, it’s unique. Systems like the Commodore64, Game Boy and NES represent a transient phase of computer audio where sound was produced entirely through software synthesis generated by the microchips inside the console. That is to say, all the sound being heard is coming from the processors and sound chips of this hardware. Naturally, this produces certain limitations when creating music, which leads me to the next reason: It’s challenging. Artists throughout history have discovered again and again that limitations and restrictions create the potential for a more meaningful and intriguing product. Go ahead and grab someone in the audio production biz off the street, take away the convenience of today’s Digital Audio Workstations and give him a Game Boy with 4 channels of audio 4-bit audio and see what happens. Not as easy as it looks eh, Timbaland? But despite this self-inflicted hardship that chipmusicians revel in, mastery of this minimalist approach to music can yield truly astounding and diverse results. Suddenly, it’s not videogame music anymore — It’s a unique and evolving form of musical expression. And that’s what’s so exciting about Blip Festival: Being able to see and hear all the varying ways that different artists have made use of this incredibly limited hardware.
We are all here to have fun!
I may have discussed a lot of artsy-fartsy concepts and technical mumbo-jumbo in the above paragraphs, but the bottom line is that Blip Festival is a celebration. The chipmusic community often gets a bad rap, commonly perceived as an insular group of music snobs who want to preserve their precious little niche culture and keep you from ruining it. While I can’t speak for all of my peers, I’d like to shut down this notion right here and now. Blip Festival is not a gathering of hoity-toity scenesters. It’s a celebration of unique and deliberate choices in the production of music and art, and most importantly, we want to share it with you. So if you’ll be experiencing live chipmusic for the first time tonight, don’t be intimidated — Ask questions, socialize, drink copious amounts of alcohol (21+ ONLY) and discover what chipmusic is all about. After all, like most festivals, Blip Fest is all about love.
And square waves. And duty cycles.
Enjoy your time at Blip Festival 2009! See you there!
Oh, hi there. My name's Zen.
I make stuff using pixels, Game Boys and ancient spirit magick. I like to write about videogames, art, airships, bleeps, bloops and other swell things. I think we're going to get along just fine.
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Name: Zen
Level: 24
Job Class: Digital Media Artist (I make stuff with computers)
Location: Broke-LAN, New York City
Abilities: Exploding high-fives, web programming, resistance to the growth of facial hair
Weapons: Game Boy, laptop
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Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press living the dream since March 16, 2006
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