Look I know it's out of season, but this song has been stuck in my head since last December so maybe this'll finally exorcise it. Chip artist Rush Coil put out the album 8-Bit Christmas a few years back, and it's awesome- a bleep and burble burst through your favourite Christmas carols.
What Child Is This is a carol written in the mid 1800s by William Chatterton Dix, a hymn born of out of a near death experience later set to the traditional tune Greensleeves.
There's something about the music of Multifaros that makes me think of bubblegum. Not the genre mind you- actual bubblegum. It's in the sound I think, all plastic and glisten held together by twangs and wind.
The opening sub-bass tones of 'Bouncing' are round and rubbery bubbles that shift and burst to the sound of drums exhaling in reverse. Pingponging chip bleeps echo across the structure like a digital likembe while free wheeling guitars funk there way into the shape of squares and triangles.
Multifaros is the stage name of Swedish chip/bit/electronic/indie wizard Bård Ericson. Today's track 'Bouncing' is available on his 2010 EP Dreams. He has many more EPs and albums of his genre crossing musics available from his website.
Tugboat is a New York based drummer and electronica musician who, up until retiring from the genre two years ago, was one of the more prevalent and talented chiptune artists. For those who need a refresher, chiptune is a genre of music based upon using the soundboards of old video game consoles to create new pieces.
Our personal favourite track by Tugboat is Small Regrets, which can be found on his career spanning compilation album Man Of The Year available for free from CalmDownKidder Records.
The mood of Small Regrets undeniably wears its heart on its sleeve, but that's exactly what I find so awesome about it and more broadly what I find awesome about chiptune. It's music which has taken the sound of an entire generations collective childhood memories (specifically I suppose a generation of children who played video games in the eighties and early nineties) and creates new emotionally resonant compositions out of them. It melds and morphs the harsh electric squalls of archaic technology and gives them a new lease on life. It's a genre which is seeped through with nostalgia, both literally and figuratively, in every bleep.
Yet it also manages to be a fresh and attention grabbing sound. The viral popularity of free demake albums such as 8Bit Side of the Moon or Kind of Bloop have shown there is a wider public thirst for the style of music. Even radio friendly hits are getting in on the action! Most likely tied into the long running eighties aesthetic revival pop and rock music have been going through for the past ever, the use of chip sound boards has become more prevalent than ever before.
It's a rapidly growing genre with an enormous amount of diversity contained within it, and we want to help more people hear it. If you enjoyed today's song, check back each Tuesday for another dispatch from the land of chip.
