Free Music Archive - True Chip Till Death Blog

TCTD 2011 FMA Favorites

2011-12-20T11:30:17-05:00

Another year is closing on the crushing behemoth that is the Free Music Archive, and to celebrate TCTD has made this mix of some of the best tracks posted throughout the year on the FMA blog.

Book ended by two great Christmas tracks from The 8bits of Christmas, this twenty-two track comp features all varieties of chip music from sickly funk to robust zx spectrum noise, to dudes yelling, to people rocking guitars.

Hope it meets you in the funkiest of holiday spirits, and stay tuned for more in 2012!

Fuldataxman - Ralp's raw, awe-inspiring LSDJ techno

2011-12-14T20:35:45-05:00

Gearing up for the end of the year is tough, the days are growing shorter, the todo list is getting longer, and whats worse 80% of the music you hear has added a sleigh bell track and called it Christmas music. The only cure for your seasonal blues, obviously, is raw LSDJ techno from the awe inspiring Ralp.

FMA fans may remember his amazing set from the Blip Festival posted here a few months ago and now he is back with Fuldatax, on the eclectic Lowtoy Netlabel. Rock it loud and hard to drown out the XMAS DEMONS, and check back here in seven for a roundup mix of the best chip the Free Music Archive has to offer. See ya!

Blastpacks

2011-11-01T11:26:23-04:00

After the harrowing horror of last weeks horrorchip, and still coming down from the Blip Festival Tokyo (there are tons of videos online from this btw), I felt like it was time to take it down a notch and enjoy a peacfull all saints day with some Hental Porn Techno from the amazing Blasterhead.

This Kilbots EP was released by Monotonik after a tiny CD-R run, and is super fun for you to enjoyment. Enjoy greatly, and see you back here in 7 for more chip music from the FMA.

The Voluptuous Horror of Micro Black

2011-10-25T10:54:03-04:00

Perhaps the only thing more terrifying than unchecked corporate greed, perhaps, is a 19 track chiptune horror compilation.

Microhorror Compilation Vol.2, was organized by Dr. Von Pnok, whom you might remeber from the amazing Bleep or Die compilation we featured a while back.

The tracks run the gamut from smooth Carpenter-esque horrortracks to perky spooktacles, and nearly everything in between. Of particular note are the songs from Albino Ghost Monkey, Flashbob, Je Deviens Dj en Trois Jours, Mattisso, TristEndo, and yours truly, so nab it and rock it on your 300000w PA for all the boils and ghouls trick-or-treating your neighborhood this weekend, and we’ll catch you back here in seven days for some more arp-y chooness.

The Voluptuous Horror of Micro Black

2011-10-25T11:07:34-04:00

Perhaps the only thing more terrifying than unchecked corporate greed is a 19 track chiptune horror compilation.

Microhorror Compilation Vol.2 was organized by Dr. Von Pnok, whom you might remeber from the amazing Bleep or Die compilation we featured a while back.

The tracks run the gamut from smooth Carpenter-esque horrortracks to perky spooktacles, and nearly everything in between. Of particular note are the songs from Albino Ghost Monkey, Flashbob, Je Deviens Dj en Trois Jours, Mattisso,, TristEndo, and yours truly, so nab it and rock it on your 300000w PA for all the boils and ghouls trick-or-treating your neighborhood this weekend, and we’ll catch you back here in seven days for some more arp-y chooness.

Big in Japan: Blip Festival Tokyo [mix]

2011-10-18T11:10:01-04:00

FMA favorite The Blip Festival comes to Tokyo this weekend, and to celebrate we have posted a mix of some of the FMA performers who will be at the festival.

The Full lineup includes:
Bit Shifter [US] , Cheapshot [UK], The C-Men [NL], cTrix [AU], Hizimi [JP], Je Deviens DJ En 3 Jours [FR], Kplecraft [JP], Manabn [JP], M7Kenji [JP], NO CARRIER [US], Nordloef [SE], noteNdo [US], Nullsleep [US], Omodaka[JP], Role Model [SE], Sexy Synthesizer [JP], Virt [US], Xinon [JP]

You can find more music from these artists here.

If you cannot make it out to Tokyo this week, I've been told that there will be a full stream on their website, so check it out, and come back here next week for some spooky Halloween bleeps.

Pixel Protection Program

2011-10-11T09:35:47-04:00

Today's weekly chip music gem is from the criminally overlooked shoegaze NES'ers Noisewaves. The group is very different from their nearest "NES and a band" analog, Anamanaguchi, but share similarities with both them and the next biggest US band, Starscream. Check out their self titled EP debut for the unabashed Video Game music influenced Pterodactyl Squad, and see you in 7 to talk about the artists for Blip Festival Tokyo.

Beep Beats

2011-10-04T14:55:06-04:00

Apologies my little low-bit Lotharios, as TCTD has been away far too long with the updates. To sate your unquenchable thirsts, here is the amazing and stunning full length release from Mister Beep, A thousand furious bees

Made on one of the earliest 8-bit computers, the Spectrum (which we have covered before), is used here to crazy effect with single voice chips stacked and processed in ways impossible and improbable, and in great Mister Beep style, excessively documented. Check it out, and see you guys back here in seven for more bodacious arps.

TCTD Awards and the Blip Festival!

2011-05-17T13:03:55-04:00

Long time no talk muchachos, been gone a while, but I haven't a moment to spare. TCTD has been busily preparing for the awesome onslaught that is the 2011 Blip Festival and our own True Chip Till Death Awards. With the awesome news of the WFMU Stream, I thought it would be nice to go back and make a nice mix of both the 2009 stream archives on the FMA, and some of the FMA artists playing the 2011 version.

So enjoy the mix, catch the stream, and see you soon for a lot more chip music on the FMA!

Roboter Revolution

2011-03-29T11:23:27-04:00

Hello again free music fans! This week's chip music pick is from old friends Da! Heard it Records artist Tom Woxom. We mentioned him briefly in our label profile last year, but his previous release Kickstart was a really great up tempo ode to the lo-fi sample based sound of the Amiga. His follow-up, Robot, is a much different affair. An expanded soundset finds c64, Game Boys and vocoders in the mix, and the tracks have taken on a much mellower, almost dubby vibe. Take a listen to some of the following songs, and then check out his other FMA selections!

On a side note, TCTD is taking a hiatus from the FMA to focus on coverage of the Blip Festival! WFMU will be sponsoring the live stream, so expect some additional posts from us later in May, until then, see ya!

From Russia With Arps

2011-03-24T13:08:32-04:00

As we all recover from our post SXSW hangovers, we are getting back to basics. Today's chip music release is Ugol Padeniyaby from the russian artist 2NRO8OT.

This ep from Archive.org is an excellent example of smooth but palatable Game Boy dance-ability. Play it while you try to find a semblance of a normal life again.

Until next time, keep it easy!

Chip Parties at SXSW!

2011-03-15T08:57:15-04:00

If you happen to be in Austin for SXSW, you probably aren't surpised that there are a numbr of chip music acts in town. What may surpise you is that one of the biggest shows is happening tonight! Datapop features a number of world traveling chip stars, some of who we have featured in this handy mixtape for sxsw performances:

Party Time! Hexellent has compiled a full list of the week's showcases, but also keep an eye out for live busking performances before they are broken up by the APD. Safe travels chipfans, and see you back here in seven!

Rolemusic and the Role of Visuals

2011-03-08T10:46:55-05:00

It may be less well know than it's musical counterpoint, but the role of game and 8bit computer derived visual elements have become an essential element of both the live and recorded chip music expereince. Pixel Artists and Motion Visualists like NO CARRIER, The C-men, Enso, and Sander Von Focus are jsut some of the dozens of impressive artists who along with chip musicians are able to recreate and transcend the classic multimedia experience of an 8bit game and present it for modern audiences. Yesterday on Enough Records we saw a release from Rolemusic named Straw Fields. The album, a 5-song EP of baroque 8bit tracks from the ZX Spectrum also features cover artwork from Spain's Raquel Meyers. Her artwork and motion graphics embrace glitchy minimalism with blocky monsters and barfy color schemes, and combined with the appropriate music it becomes a transcendent experience. Staring at the cover art while listening to Rolemusic medieval tunes is a good start, but also take a look at her video page and join us here in seven for some previews of chip music at SXSW.

As a side note, I hope you will support WFMU's Pledge Drive, especially DJ friends of the chip scene, Talk Cheap, Sound and Safe, Busy Doing Nothing, and so many more! Mas Love Wfmu!

One Cheap Chippie from Cheapshot

2011-03-01T10:22:09-05:00

Today's a fast one, with an upload from the recent 8bitpeoples release from Cheapshot, "zOMG!".

It's five tracks of Game Boy Dubstep goodness, a must-hear if you enjoyed Kupa on the FMA. You can also enjoy Cheapshot's exploration with other chip music platforms over on his Soundcloud. Happy Dubbin and see ya in seven!

It's like X at a Y

2011-02-22T09:02:54-05:00

Chipmusic has begun to grow older in internet years, as thousands more people become acquainted with it day by day through retro styled games, live shows, sarcastic youtube videos, and as chipmusic's reach grows, one begins to find that patterns and cliches haved crept into the vernacular about the scene. Perhaps the laziest, and most pervasive cliche is that of the "mario at a rave" idiom. The subject of hundreds of googles, and dozens of lazy college journalism flybys (I have to admit to making a joke one myself),the term itself is usually a key sign the article is heading south quickly.

If you can look at it in a THIS ISN'T YOUR PARENTS VIDEO GAME MUSIC, it can pretty funny but it can also be pretty dangerous in that it threatens to simplify an entire medium into one cranky half-joke. With this in mind, I was initially wary of the compilation from the readers over at Chipmusic.org called "Mario in an Elevator", and that was based soley on the title. Well dear readers, I was wrong.

Ostensibly a Chiptune Muzak comp, in a lot of ways it gives voice to the growing backlash within the community towards the high profile Blip Festival level histronics, and is a great example of chilled out and mellower takes on the medium. Faves in particular include tracks from scene veterans 8bitweapon and The J. Arthur Keenes Band perhaps the only criticism one could give it is in the packaging, with weak album art and a hasty release on Archive, and the fact that its way too short!

Do yourself a favor, and check out some choice selections, download the rest, and see you guys in seven for more of this stuff, at a rave. Maybe.

Freaky Modulations

2011-02-15T12:15:56-05:00

A niche within a niche, FM synthesis has played a huge part in game music, especially those machines that came from japan. Most of these machines were powered by Yamaha sound chips, similar in architecture to the DX-7 synthesizer which ruled the music world in the 80's (Think electric piano ballads and the bassline from Technotronic songs). The main appeal of this chip to developers is the advanced synthesis capabilties versus regular sound chips like Nintendo's 2a03 or even the C64's SID chip.

With power came a price, however, as these sounds were very hard to design. Since the majority of popular music used FM presets for their sounds, the public quickly grew fatigued of these sounds and their use in game consoles waned in favor of sample synthesis. During its golden age, however, FM game sound tracks were arguably the top of their genre and the best soundtracks from games like the Streets of Rage Series and the Sonic series have had a huge influence on the modern FM composers of the onlne Community Soundshock. To this end, they have put together a compilation of the best artists in their commmunity, appropriately titled FM FUNK MADDNESS.

18 tracks reveal a scene that at times is both traditionalist and visionary. Sample some of my favorite tracks below, then give the rest of the compilation a listen, and check us back here in seven for more chip music favorites.

The Munitionettes Load Up

2011-03-02T12:37:54-05:00

Regular readers of this column may get the impression that I am at a crossroads. Like many of you, I hunger for new and exciting sounds and as the chip music scene grows, my expectation is that the types of artists styles and songs will similarly grow. Of course, in a scene this young, such expectations may be too much, but ever now and then I find a group that renews my faith in the excitement and viability of the scene. Trawling through the Internet Archive, I found the recently released debut EP from Milwaukee Game Boy Rock duo, The Munitionettes, entitled Fast Jurassic.

I guess you can call them a fourth generation chip rock band, listing influences such as Starscream and Death from Above 1979, but the EP exudes a pure rock sweat and swagger that belies their inexperienced recordings with impressive instrumentation and song writing chops. I will always be drawn to the sounds of square waves and distorted guitars, but even with that pro-rck bias this is one of my favorite chip music EP's I have heard in a while, and I am sure you will think so too. Check out a sampler of of their tracks below, and catch you here again in seven!

Cracking the code

2011-02-11T15:23:35-05:00

Here is a quick chip break, featuring the multidimensional chiptunage of Seattle's Truckasaurus. The band combines the Game Boy along with drums and other synth gear for a mellow electro groove that belies their wacky internet personna. It is always intersting to see how electronic performers maintain a level of live enegery with portions or the totaility of their performances seqeunced, so check out their track live on KEXP below, or their rad perfromance at Bumbershoot 2009 in the video above for evidence of live done right. See ya in seven!

Take This Chip and Shove It

2011-01-25T11:45:38-05:00

The road of a chip musician is tough and lonely one. People have just enough knowledge of electronic music production techniques to ask questions like "Why not use a plugin", "How did you circuit bend your Gameboy", or "You should remix the theme from Zelda, that song is ace!" All in all, there is a lot of technical and cultural baggage associated with the genre, so it is not unexpected to assume that artists will feel the need to come and go from the pressures of the scene.

A few weeks ago, Sycamore Drive uploaded his self titled EP to the FMA. The tracks are quality Game Boy instrumentals, so it was a shock to hear a few weeks later that he had decided to "quit the scene". If you are a regular of the online scene, particularly the forums you will see similar stories from time to time of lesser known acts and sometimes popular artists deciding to hang it up, and the reasons why are as varied as the artists themselves.

Sometimes they come back, for example chipbreak star Sabrepulse, who has quit (and rejoined) numerous times. The list also includes serveral artists who have "grown beyond" the chip scene, like David Sugar, Mark Denardo, Ceephax Acid Crew, Patric C. and more. In many ways this reminds me of the 80's american hardcore scene, where the first wave of innovators moved on to innovate their sounds in other way while the subsequent waves of fans and enthusiasts quickly codified the loose styles of the originators into a musical dogma.

Here's hoping that this does not become the case in the still young chip scene (even as it heads into its late teens). Checkout these tracks from Sycamore Drive, and see you guys in seven.

free like free, as in free

2011-01-11T14:19:49-05:00

Hola true bitlievers, and welcome to the TCTD release of the week 2011! Stan Lee intro now out of the way, we must delve back into the wonderful world of free chipmusic on the interwebs, and we have a gooden this week. During our hiatus there was a intersting post on the Chipflip blog (whose author Goto80 we have featured before), who brings up an intersting point about what free chipmusic means now, and what it meant in the 90's.

His point was that the origional hacker ethos of the chipscene was based on open source module exchange where the distribution method itself allows you to explode the source file in its origination software and see what samples the user created, and how the song was made. He then went on to write:

"But like Education of the Noobz says in his new release, ”open source” music has a long history as a sort of folk music. “Before professional games, before cracker intros and before demos, home computer users were peeking and poking around their machines’ memory in search for the addresses the soundchip would react to”. Flip through any computer magazine around 1980 and you will see BASIC-listings of pop-songs and classical music. They were open source by default, since they were distributed as code to be executed by the listener. Sort of like mod-files, and very much like previous hacker music as found in e.g HAKMEM and Creative Computing in the 1970s, or elsewhere in the 1960s."

Looking a little further, I found the artist he mentioned, Dragan Espenschied, had relased his newest project on the FMA over the break.

Dragan is a foudning member of the insane/hilarious/awesome folk duo Bodenständig 2000, and whose music can be found in many free music archives like MOD Archive and HVSC. The difference between those releases in the older file formats and the newer "Education" release is a degree of of real world production that you could never get in the raw files.

As a musician, I find source files interesting but perhaps the great majority of listeners simply want to hear the songs. Post what you think in the comments, and check out the release cuts below. See you guys again in seven!