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Friday, September 3, 2010

Chiptune just blows my mind

The album art to one of their newest singles: Aurora

          As many of you may know, The chiptune scene has finally started to come out in full force. Even big bands such as Devo have started to use it in their newest album (which is awesome by the way). However, straight up chiptune is still very uncommon and after listening to the stylings of Anamanaguchi, I'm seriously starting to wonder why.
          Anamanaguchi is a chiptune band from New York City that makes "Loud, fast music with a hacked NES from 1985". Using only sounds created by the NES' sound card, they have repeatedly made musical masterpieces such as Fast Turtle and Power Supply. Anamanaguchi employs live electric guitar, bass and drums on top of said synthesized music to create a fusion of digital and traditional sounds. The bands lead song writer Peter Berkman has stated that their inspiration comes not from video games, but more so from bands such as Weezer and the Beach boys.

          After the release of their EP, Power Supply, Anamanaguchi has moved on to much bigger things. So far they've had one full length album, Dawn Metropolis, and have appeared in the Wiiware videogame Bit.Trip Runner. More recently, They have been hired to create the music to the Scott Pilgrim -vs- The World video game which was released in August of this year

Anamanaguchi performing live. The hacked NES is visible on the right
side of the picture.
        Now on to the music itself! Normally when one thinks of chiptune, they think of the horrible choppy sounds from the classic games of the 80's. Anamanaguchi just blows that stereotype to smithereens. With beautiful harmonies, fantastic melodies and mind numbing combinations of solid guitars and chiptune sounds, Anamaguchi sets the bar really freaking high for other chiptune bands.
There really isn't much else to say though because words simply cant describe how geeky and amazing it is



Now get out there and listen to this band. You WILL NOT regret it

1 comment:

  1. "that stereotype smitherines" should be "that stereotype *to *smithereens"

    ReplyDelete