The Tank’s night of crush-worthy electronic music returns for a second date! A wild-at-heart, all animal line-up will make you sway wistfully to their blissful beats– Animal Style with his guitar and Game Boy and VBlank with his mastery of eclectic visuals from lo-fi to hi-fi will be coming up from Philadelphia to join NYC’s own Data Dog and the fearsome sparrow for the bimonthly music series.
Animal Style is on the artsier, R&D tip of this whole chiptunes scene. Don’t get me wrong, he’s got a good beat and you can dance to it, but he’s also pushing the envelope with things like popularizing the 8-bit fuzz pedal and developing his own Game Boy foot controller, as well as his release Game Boy Madrigals, a full album of chipmusic made with the 2-3 voice constraints of the traditional Renaissance song form.
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Data Dog are reminiscent of Her Space Holiday with a double dose of Marc Bianchi’s vocals or a minimal cuddlegaze dance act fronted by the ghost of Eliot Smith. They’re cute and sexy, in a tragic, save-me-from-myself kind of way that girls with cardigans and glasses fetishes will likely use as the soundtrack for shy grad-school dorm room make-out sessions with their doctoral candidate TAs.
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the fearsome sparrow, who apparently got together in San Diego, have fittingly moved east where their brand of melancholy, girl-meets-boy idm has two seasons in which to fit, Autumn AND Winter, instead of 365 days of sunshine. Liz Godoy’s sweet, plaintive soprano and Brenden Beu’s charmingly unsure tenor are enough to make you fall head over heels through your headphones, while glitched out, skittish electronic textures keep things from becoming cloyingly sweet.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the definitive (ok, and only) documentary on the New York chiptunes scene and The Blip Festival (so far) can be watched, in its entirety, here.
Congratulations to 2 Player Productions and we’re looking forward to that demo scene doc at which you’ve hinted!
A few of my favorite tracks from artists featured in the film:
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Spontaneous Devotion — Random from “Bad Joke EP”* (if you are still wondering what this whole “chiptunes” thing is about, this is the answer– this recording is a gorgeous piece of electronic music, whether you think you like lo-bit music or not.)
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Disorder (Joy Division Cover) — Glomag (this song is one of my favorite things ever to listen to on a sunny morning after some hardcore rain– it has that cinematic, end of movie hopefulness and the lyrics take on a whole different meaning in this version than the original.)
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Nautilus — The Depreciation Guild from their album In Her Gentle Jaws (the Catherine Wheel of chipmusic– beautiful washes of guitars, dreamy rock songs, and… game systems? Definitely worth a listen and cued up in anticipation of sweater weather in my Autumn play list.)
I’m starting to get really excited about tomorrow, and having some wicked electro mp3s from Mr. Manic drop in my inbox, I decided I should share them with the good people of Resonator. If you were too lazy to get over to his MySpace to check out his tracks, then hopefully this will convince you that tomorrow night is NOT TO BE MISSED.
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Mr. Manic will be rockin’ asses at The Tank’s 808 ‘08 party TOMORROW NIGHT at DCTV. Click the flier below for more details.
It’s got to be the most auspicious date in electronic music, and parties all around the world are springing up to celebrate. Obviously, if you can be, the place to be is the 808 State party in London, which includes I-F, Arthur Baker, and DMX Krew. But if you’re not fortunate enough to be partying with the old school, there’s some pretty great new school options over here in the US.
As for me, I’ll be throwing down at The Tank for their 808 ‘08 Party. Scion of the alien-obsessed Detroit techno-godfathers and Arthur “Planet Rock” Baker himself, psychedelic electro master Mr. Manic will be laying down some of the most infectious, bizarre ass-shaking bass lines this side of 1982. Definitely check out his MySpace– I highly recommend “Biohazard Disco Ball.”
Up and coming synthpoppers Last Year’s Model, who dress like Kraftwerk and sound like the bastard child of the Buzzcocks and A-Ha are using the date to officially release their album, Tuesday release dates be damned.
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Also pushing their new record will be Burnkit 2600, long-time circuit-benders who have recently taken in a member of 8bit-rock band Seed A.I.– if you missed them the last time they rocked the DCTV garage, you definitely want to make it out to this.
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Holding the night together will be Resonator’s own Hacks, DJing a rare electro and synthpop set for your dancing enjoyment. A truly fun and eclectic line up, this promises to be the best of the NYC 808 parties.
If you happen to be a little further south, however, Philadelphia’s interpreting all those 8s as bits. Bleeping up a storm in Liberty Lands Park will be a huge number of 8bit badasses– Nullsleep, 8GB, Animal Style, minusbaby, Cheap Dinosaurs, and Auto da Fe.
New York’s only monthly chiptune series returns, this time at The Tank’s new venue at DCTV! If you had been to a show over the last two months at The Tank, you know that there was some serious crap (no pun intended) going down, and it’s definitely a pleasure to be in a space that has that new venue smell (at least, new to us). If you attended the mind-and-circuit bending festivities of Bent Festival 2008, then you’ve already been to DCTV and know that you’re going to have room to breathe and room to dance– but know that the organizers of this month’s Pulsewave are taking full advantage of the increase in space.
This is a super-special Pulsewave because my little brother is coming to town for his first chiptune show EVER! Ok, ok, it’s actually extra special because we have a new venue AND because Damian and the crew from This Spartan Life will be MCing and presenting machinima videos live for a multimedia, game reappropriation extravaganza.
On hand to provide beats will be the one and only Neil Voss (he wrote some tunes for a couple of games you might have played called Tetrisphere and The New Tetris) making a very rare live appearance– see him now while you still can!
Unicorn Dream Attack, the most adorably named chip-artist of all time (sorry, Girljoy, he’s just barely got you beat) is coming in from Minneapolis to lay down some of his patented Love Bits.
I’m particularly fond of his cover of The Pixies’ “Monkey Gone to Heaven,” even though I can take or leave the original.
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And finally, the man who flipped all the breakers and had us jumping around in the dark to the music still banging in our ears when he killed the power… The one, the only, 8GB!
Pic by silvertje http://www.annehelmond.nl/
To keep with the cover theme, here’s the 8GB Z80 version of Kraftwerk’s “Die Roboter.”
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And to give you a better, though by no means completely representative idea of the stompers that this guy puts on live, I’ll throw in an original. Take the intensity of this and turn it up to +80 and you MIGHT have an idea of how hard you’ll dance on Saturday night.
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My two favorite bands from Australia named after things you have or do on your computer are coming to the States for a dual headlining tour guaranteed to knock your SOCKS OFF.
Tickets are now on sale at ticketbastard, so get ‘em while they’re still available, because this is the dance party you are going to kick yourself if you miss. Resonator is going to have a lot of coverage of these guys coming at you in the lead up to Hacks and me attending the NYC shows, so stay tuned!
Dates:
SAT 9/13 - Monolith Festival - Denver, CO
MON 9/15 – The Record Bar - Kansas City, MO
TUES 9/16 - Fine Line Music Cafe- Minneaplis, MN
WED 9/17 - Metro - Chicago, IL
FRI 9/19 Sound Academy - Toronto, Ontario
SAT 9/20 - Club Soda - Montreal, Quebec
SUN 9/21 - Webster Hall - New York City, NY
MON 9/22 - Webster Hall - New York City, NY
TUE 9/23 - Paradise - Boston, MA
THURS 9/25 – The Trocadero Theater - Philadelphia, PA
FRI 9/26 9:30 Club - Washington D.C.
SAT 9/27 Masquerade - Atlanta, GA
MON 9/29 - Emo’s Alternative Lounge - Austin, TX
TUES 9/30 - Granada Theater - Dallas, TX
FRI 10/3 – The Glass House - Pomona, CA
SUN 10/5 - Mezzanine - San Francisco, CA
TUES 10/7 - Hawthorne Theater - Portland, OR
WED 10/8 - Showbox At The Market - Seattle, WA
THURS 10/9 - Commodore Ballroom - Vancouver, B.C.
Oh, hai guise… Ok, ok, ok. First of all, I’m not going to do the usual “…trixie shows up and apologizes for not posting for three months” thing because, honestly, I’ve been busy working on my life long dream of being the female, short, blonde, American version of Tony Wilson, and that’s why you haven’t seen me in awhile. I’m still working hard bringing people new music, I’ve just kind of limited my scope to the “live” and “NYC” part of that job. You guys wouldn’t believe how hard it is to jump on to Res and write a post after sending ten thousand emails to coordinate people playing shows or after a successful show with a few beers in my stress-related-ulcerated stomach.
BUT… The “day job,” as they’re called because it’s what you DON’T want to do and not because of the time it takes place, has ended and I am doing the “making cool stuff happen” thing full time, so now I have the chance to come back to you guys with some really sick music. In the spirit of my new position at The Tank, NYC’s stronghold for 8-bit, here’s a whole slew of chip music that I’ve been enjoying this summer.
First off, trash80’s absolutely brilliant Icarus EP* has been the soundtrack to this summer– lush, sexy, sundrenched Balearic-bit for those who dream of an alternate reality Ibiza where Nullsleep and Bit Shifter hold court like Sasha and Steve Lawler once did at Space. Like all 8bitpeoples releases, it is free for download and sharing under Creative Commons, so follow that link and grab it.
Despite technical difficulties as a result of him overpowering the house system during his set at May’s Pulsewave, he kicked off my summer with an ear to ear smile stretched across my sweaty face. Here’s 2Player Productions’ rather disorienting video of “Missing You” from that night:
Though “Missing You” seems to be the universally sanctioned hit from the release, “Sodium Sonet” is actually my favorite.
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On the other side of the spectrum from trash80, I’ve been digging the 8bit + sparkling speedcore hybrid side project of industrial artist Aliceffekt. Called MALICE, it’s the sonic equivalent of grinding metal against metal to shoot dazzling sparks– one part hard and savage bass line to one part silver-filigreed synth lead, it’s definitely an exciting first entry into chiptunes and I’m looking forward to how this project progresses (as well as a super-secret OTHER side project of lush, melody-driven IDM that Resonator will probably be lucky enough to preview in the coming months).
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Malice - L
(Note: The ID3 tags for this release come up with a bunch of Japanese stuff, so you may not be able to find it in iTunes by typing “MALICE.” To preserve the integrity of what the artist wants, however, I didn’t change the ID3 tags. Go blame them.)
MALICE is also available for free here. I definitely recommend downloading the entire album, as each track is mixed into the other so it’s hard to really listen to one on its own without hearing the tail end/beginning of another.
And finally– Argentina’s 8GB is pure, full on, hands in the air dance-till-you-can’t-move insanity. If you missed his set at Pulsewave’s 2nd Birthday back in March where his set rocked so hard that he caused a black-out, here’s a sample of what you can expect when he returns this month! (More on that coming later in the week– look out for it, because it’s going to be BONKERS!)
It’s always sad when an artist lifts part of someone else’s track without acknowledging them, but when an “artist” steals all of his music (ALL OF IT) wholesale from other artists, gets signed with it to a label, and then tours on it, it’s downright disgusting. How utter asshole Laromlab managed to get away with passing off the great tracks of YM Rockerz for so long is appalling.
His former label, Mushpot Records, has pulled “his” record from sales and he’s been outed by CMJ, but it comes as quite a shock that I haven’t seen any information about this on too many other blogs, especially one of our favorites, Missingtoof, who posted some of his ripped off tracks just a few months ago and are normally so on top of stuff.
Laromlab has issued a deluded apology claiming that it takes guts to own up to doing something wrong, but the guy didn’t own up to anything. He was caught red handed and then lied again to a collaborator, claiming that the one track he used with Kentucky Prophet was actually his when it wasn’t.
Mushpot records has posted a list of the artists who ACTUALLY made the music. Might I recommend a little Crazy Q to start your weekend off right?
It almost feels absurd to write this, given the “Paul is Dead” hysteria of the ’60s, but it looks like recent divorce drama has finally done in the puppy-dog-eyed boy from Liverpool who couldn’t get enough love songs.
I know that we’ve made a pledge not to write about any RIAA artists, but I think that when a piece of pop music history dies, certain provisions have to be made.
I’m not even sure what else I can say about this right now.
My favorite band of the year is playing a very special, super intimate show tomorrow night at my favorite venue in the city, and you should be there. If you manage to spot me, I’ll even buy you a beer– since the Tank has the cheapest beer in Manhattan.
Details:
The Royal Chains
(With The Beards and Butterflies)
Thursday March 13, 2008
9pm doors / $6 / ALL AGES
New track, “Villainy,” from their live show a few weeks ago, to give you a little taste:
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