Greetings and salutations, chippies and chappies. Contrary to what Aydan might have you think, I have no radical skateboard moves to teach you. However, I do have a few, as the kids say, “hella dank” tracks to talk about. Instead of beating around the bush with my standard sesquipedalian loquaciousness, I should actually get to reviewing the tracks, instead of derailing by – oh, wait. Let’s just… try that again.
41. The Dinky Dao – Plastic Eyes
The Dinky Dao is Weave of K.’s side project. You may know Weave of K. from Pterodactyl Squad, which you might remember from Kuma’s Quick Shots last month, among their quite respectable release list. ‘Plastic Eyes’ is a great calm-down track. You’ve got some vaguely nonsensical lyrics coupled with slow beats just complex enough to keep you listening for the changes. The song fades in and out of more of a trancey solid beat to a floatier, more relaxed rhythm reliably enough that the whole song feels almost like low-intensity interval training for your brain. Possibly I would suggest against listening to while driving at night, but it is definitely a good song to listen to to calm your road rage. Then again, there’s another song about road rage on this album…but we’ll get to that soon.
Weave of K. Pterodactyl Squad Page
42. WillRock – Sand Castle
This may be oversharing, but I’m always pleased as punch when OCRemix people end up on the roster. We’ve had quite a few by now, but it always makes me smile to know that folks from an established institution of nerd music are willing to get out and explore newer options like us. As to ‘Sand Castle,’ this song is epic – and I mean that more in a Beowulf sense than a circa 2012 nerd dialect way. There may be a distinct lack of Grendel-slaying here, but this song is definitely upbeat and the perfect soundtrack for punching people. As I often gravitate this way in my reviews, I have to point out the solid percussion in this track. It’s staccato enough that it pops out of the back of the track while not being too distracting. Not only does the listener continue to have a solid sense of tempo, but varying the song up by having parts void of percussion lets WillRock sneak in some song progression without having to drastically change anything else.
43. ko0x – Hobbes Adventure
There is a secret to success in chiptune, and I’m gonna bust it wide open for you right now.
1. Be European, particularly of Germanic or Netherlandic origin.
2. Be involved with the demoscene, or just really like .mod music.
3. Do Steps 1 and 2 in the late 90’s/early 00’s.
And that’s all you need! As it happens, ko0x nailed it, and ‘Hobbes Adventure’ knocks the proverbial ball out of the park here. I love how robust songs in OpenMPT can be, and this one is no exception. Everything from the quiet arpeggios in the background to the punchy drums to the hearty melody is executed with such precision that one may find oneself questioning why they aren’t making music like this already.
44. turtledove – Space Subway
It’s great when fantastic artists can effectively collaborate and pop out an amazing track. It’s even better when they do it twice, but landing a hat trick of slick tracks? Now…that’s just unheard of. There’s a reason we keep letting Fearofdark and stinkbug’s collabs into the compilations, and that’s because they blow us all out of the water. Boasting a 40 channel file in OpenMPT, ‘Space Subway’ is all the jazz funk you’d expect from stinkbug combined with that special knack Fearofdark has for pulling emotions out of even the most simple of melodies. With both of them already being champions of their particular flavor of chiptunes, this track is a slice of fried gold.
turtledove Soundcloud | FoD Bandcamp | FoD Website| stinkbug Soundcloud | stinkbug Website
45. b-knox – let me get over
My first thought when hearing this song was “When did Primus start doing chiptunes?” Seriously, this is song is like slapping the extra adapter on your copy of Sonic 3 so you can play as Les Claypool in the Carnival Night Zone. This is the song I started to reference in the first paragraph with regards to road rage. This song, despite being jaunty and comical with its pizzicato strings and bouncy whistling under the vocals, is a song about dealing with idiot drivers and the rage that builds as a result. I didn’t realize songs could be cathartic in this way. After having done a lot of traveling tonight and coming back to hear this song, I can guarantee the lyrics, at some points almost spat through gritted teeth, get across a feeling I know quite well but until now had only been able to express via high-beams and finger gestures.
And that’s all for today! We’re in the home stretch, one more wrap up post from El Presidente and we’re back to your regularly scheduled album reviews and interview chicanery. I apologize for all the $500 dollar words and the sports metaphors: if you’re dissatisfied with the linguistic content of this review and wish to refund your purchase, feel free to contact our returns department. They’re open for your convenience during the hours of 12:00AM and 12:01AM every February 29th.
Seats out!
