Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Pixalated Sapiens: Bright Primate and Their Chip Tune Riffs

My friend Matt, a.k.a. Nom Star introduced me to the world of chiptunes
sometime last year. To a wannabe cool guy like me, it sounded
intellectually lame. I’ve been exposed to some glitch art and other
videogame based art for awhile (that's right, I've lumped all 

other glitch art into viddy game art) and was thinking Cory Arcangel with
midi-files
stuff you could get into if you saw the world
pixelated or thought you leveled up every time you ate or drank. I
thought, this would be the sounds of nerds-ville. . . and it is—I’m not
going to lie, it’s pretty nerdy, in a good way.

For those who are unfamiliar with Chiptunes or Chipmusic, here’s wiki’s
description:
      Chiptunes: . . . synthesized electronic music often produced with the
      sound chips of vintage computers and video game consoles, as well as
      with other methods such as emulation,” (Wikipedia).

My opinion on it was rather crude, and then this happened:

Sunday, July 17th, 2011, I temporarily broke my birthday anniversary of 

weekend-solo-drinking to see Nom Star at The Elbo Room in Chicago. I thank him for the chipped out happy
birthday song. I came in drunk and not so much in the mood for music.
Thus, I spent most of my time there checking out the very few girls and
having shots and beer. Then this attractive duo enter the stage and
what I got was a face full of MIDI jive, served by Boston-based sound
artists, BR1GHT PR1MATE: Lydia Marsala and James Therrien, using a
Gameboy as a beat maker and with Lydia’s lush vocals it’s hard not to get
your body moving to 8bit sound clouds swirling around your cerebellum.
Soundwaves grow like quartz from digital harmonics and synthesized
guitar tones. Yeah, these guys are like, “Wow!”

.......Illustration to come..... by week-end....







Check them out:
BR1GHT PR1MATE
:
http://brightprimate.tk/

Also, check out my first taste of chiptunes, hence a bit of ear magic, Nom Star:
https://8bc.org/members/NOM+STAR/

This event was held at:
The Elbo Room, 2871 N Lincoln Ave. 60657 Chicago, IL, 07-17-2011.
 
The awesome line-up that was:
Bright Primate
Nom Star
Saskrotch
Evironmental Sound Collapse

Monday, September 12, 2011

TCHEM: TELEVISION




Tim Michel: As a word-smith and jam-maker, one wonders where he gets the time to dish out prolific and tasty sound sauce so often. This is TELEVISION:


"Long Nights by David Scheier. Ink on Paper, 2011, response to TCHEM's song of the same title."

Synth child TCHEM channel surfs some high fructose sound to deliver a space cruising soundtrack.  Fittingly electric acid shoe-gaze guitar riffs sinking into the sponge of your ears: “Self Image” and “Going Inside.” While other beats are minimal lucid day dreams, “Close is Far,” and “Television.” TCHEM serves a plate of two minute comets, and digital star dust—futuristic and delightfully simple.





Check Timothy Michel's site out for free downloads, up coming events, writing's, and all that other stuff.