In the midst of a secret chiptune show at MAGFest X, Brendan Becker aka Inverse Phase fired his 8-bit cylinders for the crowd and brought along copies of his Shuttle Scuttle OST. The video game score was conceived for a space shooter developed in the style of NES titles of yore. This made it perfect for Brendan’s compelling chip work, which ties everything into a beautifully nostalgic package. The soundtrack is available now on his Bandcamp page, and the game itself can be found as an iOS title at shuttlescuttle.com.

So in all my inane ramblings that pop up around the internet, I have neglected you, my loyal readership. For that I apologize, and give you this as a gift. It’s the latest album from good friend and better rapper, B-Type. Worded Words, and released for free or best offer over at his official bandcamp page.

There are songs about Godzilla, robots, and Pokemon. If you gave me this album when I was twelve, I would have thought this was the greatest series of songs ever. Well I am a bit older than ten now, but strangely, I still spend a lot of time thinking about Godzilla, robots, and Pokemon. Which means this album is still awesome. Right now.

As for the beats, It feels like you are trapped inside a giant eighties era arcade machine, the cabinet’s demo droning catchy riffs with an abundance of bass. There’s a good mix of original and remixed tunes, giving the album less restraint. B’s lines maneuver through a variety of styles over those tracks, showing off a growing versatility in his rhyming arsenal.

To get a feel for the album, I would have to suggest Top Percentage, with the track’s swaggering beat, and Pokemon themed rhymes. Don’t listen to him about not evolving your Pokemon though. My reasoning for this can be saved for a very lengthy article on the topic some other day. Just remember to evolve ALL your Pokemon.

The other song I recommend is the nerd heavy Song of Time, although, skip over to the end of the album and check out the latter version, Song of Time (Projekt Zero Pre-Emptive Remix). Though both good tracks, with plenty of great bars from a who’s who kind of list of nerdcore. Unfortunately, the original track suffers from having heard this song remixed too many times (Final Fantasy Syndrome I call it). Besides, the best version of Song of Time is already this one. Perhaps this is why ProjektZero, which I am sure he will explain later, chose to remix it into a lo-fi dungeon crawling epic.

So go grab a copy, and give it a listen, and if the economy has been good to you, perhaps shoot him change for a cup of coffee. Unless…you don’t accept my apology that is…

It feels like yesterday that I had the pleasure of meeting Shael Riley and Ty Guenley, the masterminds behind the 8-bit indie rock band Shael Riley and the Double Ice Backfire and their newly-released album Ultimate Songs from the Pit. They had been visiting NYC to get the album mastered a year ago, thus bringing Shael and Ty in proximity to me and each other. This came not long after the Backfire’s success in funding the mastering through a Kickstarter, which gained nearly twice as much monetary pledges as the initial goal. The cash certainly didn’t go to waste: even songs from the band’s previous EP Songs from the Pit feel refreshed and immediate due to Drew Lavyne’s mastering and Ty’s mixing.

Although the process of finalizing and mass-duplicating the CD was long, Shael and Ty were hardly at rest in their music making. As incentive for the Kickstarter, the band recorded cover versions of songs commissioned by those who made large pledges; one such cover, a remake of Shael’s Castlevania homage “Juese Belmont” was posted at OverClocked ReMix. The Double Ice Backfire also contributed to albums that covered “Weird Al” Yankovic and They Might Be Giants. My favorite song from Ultimate Songs from the Pit, “Hobby Model” almost seems like a cover itself, with its refrain resembling that of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman”.

Genius loves company, and so the album has a fair number of guests. Fellow chip rocker Brian Mazzaferri of I Fight Dragons shares lead vocal duties on “Bootstraps” while Schaffer the Darklord drops lines into “Publishing Rights”. Additional rhyme-spitting comes courtesy of Mega Ran on “Area Dolls” and Billy the Fridge in “Rarest of Elements”. Ricky Henry, the ‘third-ice’ in the band’s live shows, was responsible for the album artwork. Ultimate Songs from the Pit is available now at Bandcamp for streaming and as a paid download, with the lead track “How to Fire a Gun” as a free single.

Much of South America seems to have the same infatuation with Nintendo that their North American counterparts have (In fact, the spread of Nintendo and video games in general through South America is something I would like to know more about. If anyone cares to enlighten me, well, my email is on the right.) This proliferation of video games has lead to several great bands rising from the continent. The Brazilian band 8 Bit Instrumental is the first of these bands that I had the pleasure of hearing, and I am glad to say that they have been creating some very diverse content over the last several years.

The vibrant live sounds of 8 Bit Instrumental first reached my ears with the debut of the groups fourth release, Beat the 8 Super Robots with 8 Bit Instrumental, a collection of songs from the illustrious Mega Man II released back in 2008. Within forty-five minutes they turned Mega Man into disco, funk, dance, and more. The live instruments and strong recordings made this album an instant favorite of mine. I credit this collection of arrangements, especially the closing track, Vacation in Miranda’s Beach? (Ending Theme), with introducing me to both 8 Bit Instrumental, as well as the standard of VGM that is Mega Man II. That album got plenty of plays, but when their next release hit the internet at the tail end of ’08, I was quickly smitten with the direction they took this time around.

The group went in a more stripped down, and serene style for much of their follow up album, The Number of the Bit. That brings us to this article’s track, an acoustic, rhythmic rendition of Frog’s theme from Chrono Trigger. I could imagine watching a band performing this arrangement while I bet on a race or chug beers (I mean sodas) at the Millenial Fair itself. That same upbeat style is felt on several more Chrono Trigger pieces, as well as in tributes to Zelda, Bomberman, and to greatest effect in several rearrangements of music from Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka’s Super Metroid soundtrack. (As an aside, I believe very few renditions of music by Hip Tanaka are done justice. Just remember, I consider Metroid Metal to have set the gold standard. If only there were a world where Grant Henry created Mother Metal, just to hear him recreate more Hip Tanaka songs. Sigh…) Though this album carries a more cohesive sound, a variety of styles that 8 Bit Instrumental has control over is still on display. Several tracks travel a great musical distance, as genres blend into arrangements of Alex Kidd and a powerful rendition of the title theme to the aforementioned game Chrono Trigger.

Yasunori Mitsuda found himself in the hospital during his time composing for Chrono Trigger. After toiling away as a sound engineer and programmer, Square handed composing duties of a brand new series to Mitsuda. Like that, Yasunori was composing his first game alongside such names as Yuji Horii and Akira Toriyama of Dragon Quest fame. With artists as well known as these (at least in Japan), it could rattle the nerves of even a seasoned musician. Mitsuda poured himself into his work regardless, and proved to have a highly perfectionist nature as he worked intensely throughout the games creation. By the time Chrono Trigger neared the final leg of production, Mitsuda found himself diagnosed with stomach ulcers and confined to a hospital bed. This led to renowned Square composer Nobuo Uematsu stepping in to finish a remaining ten compositions to round out Chrono Trigger’s epic soundtrack. A soundtrack that would end up spanning three discs in its initial CD release.

I don’t expect every musician to put themselves in the hospital when they make a new album, but I would imagine it takes a similarly focused artist to ably rearrange the themes of the Super Nintendo classic Chrono Trigger. 8 Bit Instrumental is such a group of artists. A clear, thoughtful musicianship can be heard throughout this and their other albums. I’m also glad to say, that when I was researching The Number of the Bit, it would seem the album has gotten some cover art that may not have been there when the album was released. I mention this, because it is some nice album art that fits the music quite well I think.

Their longtime site seems to be down as of this writing, creating another broken link throughout the archives. Lucky for you, 8 Bit Instrumental have a new bandcamp page. You can plunder four of their full length albums for free there. Sadly, it seems like a few of the lesser known albums and EPs are not to be seen. The largest travesty of the groups site being down is the loss of a handful of straightforward rock renditions of classic Pokemon Red/Blue music for an upcoming (at the time) fan remake of the classic games. As an aside, 8 Bit Instrumental also has a side project known as Chiptots, a band surprisingly different from the one performing the vibrant sounds of Yasunori Mitsuda’s classic debut, but I’ll have to save their chiptune inspired sounds for a future article.

References.
 1. Chris Kohler, Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave
the World an Extra Life (Brady Games, 2004) p. 146-150
 2. 8 Bit Instrumental artist page at VGMdb.
vgmdb.net/artist/2689 Last accessed 7 October 2011.
 3. 8 Bit Instrumental artist page at bandcamp.
8bitinstrumental.bandcamp.com Last accessed 7 October 2011.

The forums at OverClocked ReMix recently released Rockin’ Sockin’ Cinder Blockin’, a tribute EP of the Concrete Man theme from Mega Man 9. Directed by DarkeSword, the release features many regulars in the arrangement community such as Flexstyle, Sir NutS, Rexy, Neblix and The Coop. The idea of putting together an EP came about the day after OC ReMix released the Mega Man 9 album Back in Blue; due to an oversight, Concrete Man was left out of that release. With an initial deadline of a week, remixers were free to submit their takes on Concrete Man for evaluation to be included in the new EP. The result is impressive and a testament to the talent of the community under DarkeSword’s guiding hand.

Jimmy Hinson, also known in the video game music community as Big Giant Circles, just released his original debut album Impostor Nostalgia. The release features over 75 minutes of retro and VGM-inspired tunes, fusing modern-day electronic music with chip sounds of yesteryear. Impostor Nostalgia includes a wealth of guest appearances from big names such as Alexander Brandon, C418, Disasterpiece, Josh Whelchel, Pongball, Souleye and zircon. This album has been long in the making, and it certainly shows in the quality of the work.

Today OC ReMix released Back in Blue, a Mega Man 9 remix album. The release was directed by Dustin “k-wix” Kulwicki and features 14 artists producing 18 arrangements. It is OCR’s seventh album this year, 27th overall, and their first release dedicated to an individual Mega Man title. As can be expected, the album features several heavyweights from the community such as bLiNd, Cyril the Wolf, DarkeSword, Joshua Morse, Mazedude, Rexy and Sixto Sounds. 2011 has been a great year for video game arrangement projects so far, thanks in part to the high quality standard that OCR is known for.

Click to enlarge

Later this month in Rosemead, California, Game Music 4 All will be having a brand new Retro Gaming Night! What is Retro Gaming Night? It’s simply a night of video games, friends, music, and more video games! If you like any of the aforementioned things, then be sure to come on down.

Two televisions will have plenty of classic games to have a go at. There will also be loads of delicious pizza, hot dogs, and more, available fresh from the ovens of Rose City Pizza. We’ll even have an arcade cabinet on free play. All of this will be punctuated by a performance from chiptune artist DJ Derp.

Just show up, eat some pizza, and play some video games, rock out. Simple as that.

Retro Gaming Night @ Rose City Pizza (Inside Rosemead Plaza)
3588 Rosemead Blvd.
Rosemead, CA 91770

Spetember 29th, 2011
7PM – 9PM
Free – All Ages

Nario recently released an original chiptune EP titled More of Me. It is the followup to his 2009 album Most of Me and covers a diverse selection of genre influences such as rock, electro pop, dance and industrial. The wide array of styles is presented through Nario’s distinctive 8-bit soundbed and his ear for harmonic structure. The EP is available through the skrow!media label and on Bandcamp, as well as a physical CD with bonus tracks.

Pterodactyl Squad have just released the Superhero EP by 16-year old Russian artist, R-Sunset. If you like an F-Zero-esque mix of electronica and electric guitar head on over to the Squad and download this release for free!

Inspired by a love of Sega Mega Drive and Marvel comics, R-Sunset took the theme of superheroes as a basis for this EP. Electronica and electric guitar; pulsating beats and calm, chilled-out sequences; retro samples and glimpses of sounds of the future. The various contrasts here reflect the internal struggle between human and superhuman which every superhero must face.

1. Beginning
2. Retrospect
3. Aerowave
4. Stage 4
5. Sunny Avenue
6. City In Danger

Superhero EP release page