MAGFest.org has been redesigned and relaunched for your personal viewing pleasure. Make sure to check out the updated guest list for MAGFest 2009, which will be Jan 1-4, 2009 at the Hilton Mark Center in Alexandria, VA. You can visit the site for more info. And don’t forget to preregister or volunteer to staff.

See you there!

Nice work! In his writeup for Joshua Morse’s latest remix, OCR head guy David “djpretzel” Lloyd officially announced his engagement to the lovely Anna. Congratulations!

This just in from The Megas, they’re heading toward the Northeastern United States on tour in the near future. Here’s a quote from their MySpace bulletin about the tour:

Sorry for the delay folks, been busy playing pokemon red. yes. the original.  now, without further ado, and in no particular order, free shit for may 12 2008

KANEEL – LA PINK NOTE (AGAIN BECAUSE KANEEL DIDN’T SEE IT LAST TIME)
seriously folks, give kaneel some time on your speakers, you won’t be
disappointed.  he’s been doing the netlabel thing for a while and has
been released on some of the heavy hitters in the scene (this release still on petite&jolie =) ).

Nine Inch Nails – The Slip
Reznor released his new album for free (actually for free, no graded
sales gimmick), under a creative commons license.  A bit weak in the
production department, but for 2 months of work and for free it’s not
bad, considering the source.

sociopath recordings:
SRmp3 083 Horion – No Fear Restriction
Dark and filled with heavy IDM and DnB elements, this is actually pretty good considering it’s on sociopath.  thumbs up

SRmp3 082 Eraplee Noisewall Orchestra – Sigma God Metal
thumbs down… this really is mostly a wall of noise… but hey, it’s hard to stand out in breakcore

SRmp3 081 Rekombinacja – Notoryczni Wyznawcy Ewidentnych Uproszczen
Mutant breakcore that is probably a little too self indulgent, but not nearly as harsh on the ears as Sigma God Metal

SRmp3 080 Skodvolt – Rhubarb Wrecker
Glitch/IDM influenced, with a few samples from movies or something, not wholly unenjoyable but definitely not for the breakcore beginner.

Testtube:
tube’|122 Entia Non – Lilt
Lilt sounds more like incidental music from a film than it does anything else, complete with the sound effects.  a very stripped down and ambient feel, very reminiscent of blade runner. thumbs up!

tube’|121 Mother – Self Deprivation
this is a bit more experimental than Lilt, but the ambient soundscapes are very well done, although the melodies that play on top of them sound like the hallucinations one would have if they actually were in a self deprivation chamber.  Very dark feel, but not as accessable as other test tube releases.

abYssa:
Y.033 Margrave Reudiger – Back to Mono
This is some interesting soundwork, done with non musical samples, but they’re used in a way to create interesting textures.  May not be entertaining for people who are into traditional music, though.

Catita!
L’homme Manete – Gaming Sessions
Some capcom inspired chiptunes!

PoniRepublic:
Joiejoiejoie – Green! EP
Yes!  Belgium based Joiejoiejoie returns with the latest offering from Poni, and his acoustic sound is cleaner this time around and this is an excellent followup to 2006.  Definitely worth downloading.

Planetarium:
lab121 Sick to the Back Teeth – An Evening With…
Overly indulgent and totally unskilled prog guitar wankery… unless you really want it to complete your archive, i’d advise a skip.  double thumbs down.

No Type:
NT111 Camp – Doubts
Minimalist dance music, but instead of using traditional dance instruments it uses interesting samples

NT110 The Twombley Spiders – And The Whiskey-Fueled Sparrow
Some very nicely done pop influenced electronic music.  Definitley worth checking out

Trastienda:
trastienda040 Waiting Room – La Estulticia del Cognicidio
spanish indie rock or something!  i can’t really tell based on the lyrical content because it’s not in english!  but i love it!

trastienda039 Holgado – Peepshow
with a track titled “silvia saint y tu” how can you go wrong?  totally hot release, even though i can’t understand it

(note, trastienda038 folder – inside was also released on tonmagnet.de, a german netlabel, in the middle of april, a few months after trastienda. the lyrics are in english and the sound is somwhere between veruca salt and foo fighters, so pick it up too.)

kahvi collective:
kahvi #244a-244f Crackle Creations – Eros
if it’s on kahvi i probably don’t have to tell you that it’s good.

Electrosound:
es43 Uniquetunes – Uniquetunes
this is seriously some of the best music i’ve ever heard in my life.  The tone of the guitar is amazing, the saxaphones are full of soul, and the beats just keep it moving.  If you don’t download this, you [bold]are[/bold] going to hell.  even if it doesn’t exist.

Musica Excentrica:
exc013 Astrowind – Fresh Wind in the Valley of Dreams
some exceptional music, hands down.  ambient and relaxing, although excentrica is mostly known for being “non-entertaining”

Mimonot:
#11 Deathday-Birthday – Depressive Relax
some excellent ambient/downtempo idm featuring a healthy armament of the usual suspects (glitched drums, break beats, and synthesizers)

#10 Mora Inkognita – Mora
Mimonot has a penchant for offering some excellent music from the other side of the planet, it’s unfortunate that i am a monolinguist, and thus cannot wholly enjoy many of the releases which i’m telling you about.  Mora is a downtempo album that sits well next to the best of the west

ubiktune:
#004 nq – onomatopoeia
this is some outright bizarre music.  from far out in the left field, some experimental/glitch/noise zx spectrum music.  worth checking out if you’re into chiptunes!

Wardriver is very pleased to announce that we have finally release Songs to Giraffe by none other Wilbert ‘bustatunez’ roget II. This stunning 16 track album will have you humming it’s tunes for hours. Whether it be the amazing ‘Thread Ninja’ track, the truely epic BOSS THEME, or just simply just questioning the size of your genitals. You’re sure to be practicing your vibratto for weeks to come.

Stemage has just announced that he and others will start work on live sets of the music from Metroid Metal, a site that you, if you are a metroid fan, should go to and download every track immediately. Anyway, read on for the full story.
Source

“After stewing about a live incarnation of Metroid Metal for some years now, it’s official. MM Live is happening!

“The
buzz became a project just after Magfest of this year. Chunk and I
yapped about the possibilities of a live project the entire trip home
with poop happily sleeping in the backseat. After a few weeks of
conspiring, we’ve got the team together and you will have the
opportunity of seeing a live version of the Metroid Metal tunes in the
not-so-far future with the following lineup:

Chunkstyle – bass
Danimal Cannon – guitar
Kirby Pufocia – guitar
Stemage – guitar
Illzbury Flowboy (Blue Dot player) – drums

“(If
Prophet can figure out what the f**k a tubaphone actually is, and
constructs it in time for a show, you may see him on stage as well)

“While
there are no firm dates for the project, you will be guaranteed a
performance at the jamspace of next year’s Magfest. However, they
recently opened registration for bands at Magfest for next year, so we
might have a special surprise for you soon. I’ve also been in touch
with the boys who put together the roster for PAX for the last 3 years
or so. While PAX ’08 is out due to time constraints, PAX ’09 – while
not a guarantee – is QUITE the opportunity (all I’ll say).

“There
will also be other live opps for the MM project this year, but nothing
is in stone and can be announced just yet. We’re giving ourselves
breathing room for the sake of tightening up the material, and turning
the MM library into something that can translate well in the live
setting. We are all perfectionists, are working from a distance, and
want this to own like it needs to.

“So that’s it :] Of course
I’ll be posting about specific show opportunities as they arise. Just
know that the live project is official, several songs are already in
the bag, and there will be a stage with us on it in the not-so-distant
future.

“Fun!”

Fun indeed! Here’s hoping for a Metroid Metal set at MAGFest 7! m/

Hi, Garian filling in for OverCoat this week. Hope your harddrives are empty because I’ve got quite a few releases to tell you about.
Beat Is Murder: BIM13 Jupitter Goes Quattrocentro – Hills Go 400
This release is an interesting blend of acoustic and electronic instruments and the author’s voice. Highlights: Curves and Bends and Interlu.

Birdsong: birdsong026 Uncle Owen Aunt Beru – Earth is the Right Place for Love
Another blend of organic and artificial, offering a bit more of a raw sound than Hills Go 400. Highlights: Earth is the Right Place for Love, Tree of Secrets, and Your Words My Joy.

Kahvi Collective: kahvi243 hol baumann – human (sampler)
Free tracks from baumann’s new CD. Ambient electronic music with some interesting textures.

Creation-Centre.com: ctr-ak hula hooper – good morning good morning
A mostly acoustic set of songs with pop flair, hula hooper combines ambient vocals with tight composition. Highlight: Light.

Sociopath Recordings: SRmp3079 The Nailbomb Cults – Speedbooty Anthems Vol. 1
Breakcore mixes praising fine asses everywhere. Granted, breakcore is hard to get into because it’s ubiquitous to “bad internet music,” but there are always diamonds in the rough. Highlights: Nailbomb Tipsy Bootleg, Really Partial to the Larger Posterior.

dramacore: 046 muhmood – presence.[exe]
Ambience, rich sonic soundscapes. This is definitely top notch stuff. Highlight: Climate Wars

peppermill: pm008 VA – 52 Weeks
An incredible undertaking that suffered a few setbacks and delays, 52 Weeks is a project that sought to create an album in 1 year, with 52 different artists, in 4 different seasons. Started in December 06, the final project was recently released featuring a bevy of the netlabel scene’s veterans. Highly recommended.

planetarium records: lab121 biggiesmartypants – biggiegoodies
Some electronic music that reaches to both sides of the horizon, some tracks feature some rich sonic textures, while others are bare bones (if you can apply the term with electronic music).

pause: II17 Temp Sound Solutions – Xylox
Rerelease of the definitive TSS release, featuring a couple new cuts. Highlights: Octoped, To Have and to Hold series.

pause: II18 Chromelodeon – The Final Recordings
FUCK YES. (sorry but seriously need i say more?).

dtrashrecords: dtrash109 MataMachete – Tanin No Kao
Industrial/IDM Metal that sits somewhere between Circle of Dust and Sepultura. Highlight: Cabeça Dinossauro.

abYssa: y.032 porzellan – mountains cycles
Minimalist ambient electronic music that focuses more on creating interesting soundscapes than on melodic content. Highlights: Third Cycle, Fifth Cycle

Cyclene Records: CYC-027 non_descript – Wayndahnimuk
An experimental album with the recurring theme of Four (the title is an Ojibwe word for “four directions”). Very ambient and minimalistic, and nearly sounds like field recordings.

23 seconds: sec.014 Tim Chaplin – The ’80’s Girls EP
Lo-fi acoustic covers of a four hits from the 1980’s, which seems to be a popular thing to do these days!

petite&jolie: p&j#003 Kaneel – La Pink Note
This is some soft IDM with rich sonic textures. Kaneel knows what he’s doing, folks.

Weird Elements: we001 Lo Seen – Plastic Rooms
Debut release on Weird Elements, an experimental sister label to Share My Wings, Musica Excentrica, and Electrosound. Traversing the border between IDM and noise, Plastic Rooms
is a quaint release from a new label and worth checking out.

enoughrecords: enrmp163 bpolar – the orange basement
Very minimalist ambient music, focusing on the extreme side soundscaping.

enoughrecords: enrmp164 adamned.age – cendre
Some nice ambient/IDM, focusing on groove and sonic textures.

8bitpeoples: 8BP083 Animal Style – Open Air
In an attempt to bring a human soul to the robotic logic of being a Game Boy musician, Animal Style used an 8bit fuzz pedal to mask his guitar’s identity without robbing it of it’s personality.

8bitpeoples: 8BP084 Yerzmyey – FREAKuencies
This record was produced on a ZXSpectrum 48k clone, utilizing the AY chip. Some excellently crafted chiptunes, it’s pretty hard to comprehend that this is only 3 channels.

ElectroSound: es42 Abstracode – Cocaine Ways
Downtempo breaks with a very dark atmosphere accentuate the message of the release, while the vamping sounds similar to the technique used by Xerxes of Norway.

Poni Republic: Joiejoiejoie – 2006 EP
Joiejoiejoie is a belgium based lo-fi pop artist, who rereleased 2006 with Mexico based Poni Republic late last year, I’m sharing it with you now because exposure can be hard for netlabels due to the sheer volume of material that exists.

Did I miss a release? Know of a netlabel I don’t? EMAIL: garian NOSP@M thasauce DOT net =)

For those not in the know [people outside of Washington, really], there was a grand chiptune festival in Seattle the night of April 12th, well, it wasn’t too grand [lol, 30-40 people at the most?], but I did have a shitload of fun. Read on for the COMPLETE PACKAGE!

That’s pretty much the lineup there, minus Spamtron, Square Wail, and 486.

On my way there I almost missed it completely. Then I realized, “oh, holy shit, Chipfest is THAT MOTORCYCLE GARAGE RIGHT THERE!” Or, more accurately, the part of the garage that somebody lives in. Full of random doodads, pieces of art, some furniture, and old machinery that gave the whole place a very homely intimate atmosphere. Not that it mattered, most of the people were drinking and smoking away outside, and it was actually pretty warm so the garage door stayed open and we let the music blast its way outside. I only knew one artist really, MC Firedrill, but I had never met him or really listened to his music before Chipfest. I found him somehow and we talked a bit before the show, about his netlabel releases, particularly on 20kbps Recordings [see my Free Shit columns!]. I talked to some more people, like Kinoko [who is a pretty fun person!], dissed Spamtron a bit for not being able to come :3 and then the show commenced.

Fighter X started things off with some nice technical chips, and had a cool gameboy+kaoss pad+some other step sequencer thing setup. He played a few songs where the sequencer was the main focus, then moved on to pure gameboy for the last two or three songs, which were pretty great!

A short setup time and Rainbow Pawz came up next, a collaborative act between MC Firedrill and Kinoko, plus 2 laptops and some children’s toys, even, playing incredibly whacked out hardcore glitch techno. Kinoko gets crazier and crazier throughout the set, eventually leaving the table to get an apple, but instead chomps on her toy Casio keyboard instead. Eventually, Kinoko just interrupts everything by loading Alex the Allegator 4, which I guess was ok because the music was cute.

After some Alex the Allegator came Syphilis Sauna, who I conversed with quite a bit after the show. He abruptly interrupts the Alex 4 shenanigans with a wall of noise that overpowered even the tiniest subconscious thought, then went into a really fucked up remix of the Mario Bros. Underground music [see ‘i love italians’ on his myspace page], followed by more extremely dark and even more fucked up squarewave glitch, throwing in a phat twostep beat for a bit. I forget how it ended because it was so strange, but I think Kids Get Hit by Buses was next.

Kids Get Hit by Buses was… I dunno. It was the low point of the evening for me. I’m not a huge fan of the style, though they seemed to get the most riled crowd of the night, and the most people inside. Their music is kind of Mindless Self Indulgence-ey, which is probably what they were going for, and that’s probably why I didn’t like it lol.

Up next was Kinoko all by her lonesome, which was not OK with her apparently, as she eventually left the laptop running and started dancing with everyone. Same kind of crazy chipglitch as with Rainbow Pawz.

We all had a short break, where I talked with a fine gentleman named “Jeff” I think, who may or may not be reading this as I pimped ThaSauce to him [hell yeah reppin’ thasauce!].

Duke Midnight was next. Duke is a man with a gameboy, a guitar, and a Phil Collins. His set was mostly gameboy and some screaming, and during one of the songs, we all found a partner and slow-danced. And yeah, I slow-danced. With a GIRL! [Call me, Teresa! IF THAT IS YOUR REAL NAME!!!].

MC Firedrill was the coup de grâce of the night, with a lively and melodic chipglitch set that ended with him and his girlfriend singing a romantic duet, a cover of some pop song sung by japanese porn stars. A fitting end to a delightfully odd night that I will NEVAR FORGET.

It sadly had to end, but I got to talk to some interesting people, make a few new friends, and experience a truly unique thing. I saw the PLAY! concert just a couple months earlier, and this totally kicked its ass, even though they are almost two different things! It wasn’t quite at the MAGFest concert level, but it’s probably the best chiptune party you can have on the West Coast. This was the first annual Chipfest, which means there is probably going to be another one next year! I will definitely be looking forward to that! Or possibly playing in it? Seeing all these live bands play lately has made me want to try doing live stuff. We’ll see how that goes. I was really looking forward to seeing Spamtron play though. Maybe another time!