Week #52| Trey Frey - Resolve

Finding someone to end a year so full of quality tracks was always going to be a struggle. Never shying from a challenge, it was Trey Frey whom took it on. Trey has always has a special place in the hearts of Alex and I; the very first release we ever put out in this scene was one of Trey's EPs on Pxl-Bot, so his involvement to end the year has a sentimental value to it as well. And he doesn't let his legacy down one bit either, do yourself a favour and spin it here.

And with that the year is out! We'd like to give huge thanks to all the artists involved this year (too many to name here [there were 52 of them after all]). We'd also like to give a massive shout-out to everyone who has followed the project, supported it, enquired about it or even simply listened.

It is also with a heavy heart we make our final thank you: and this thank you is directed at a Mr. Victor Arce, aka Love Through Cannibalism. Sometime near the end of 2012 Victor agreed to help us out with WeeklyTreats on the art-front, and we had no idea how crucial he'd be to our success. If it weren't for his talent, perseverance, punctuality, dedication and emotional support, this year would not have gone as well as it did, if it had 'gone' at all. We're extremely sad to say he'll be leaving the project as artist this year, but we can assure you, it won't be the last we'll be working together (ho-ho-secrecy). Thank you again our Spanish Prince, we owe you more than you could know <3 xo xo xo <3

So, other than Trey Frey's interview, that's it for 2013! But, (and as if I have to tell you), we start it ALL again this Friday, launching with a track by Ubiktune's overlord C-jeff as well as the launching of the new WeeklyTreats site! So, dry those tears and get ready for an even bigger year than this was!!!!

WT: What was your first introduction to the chiptune scene?

Trey Frey: Around 2007-08 I was starting to get into electronic music after getting bored with the hardcore/punk music I had been into at the time. A friend introduced me to a band called Slagsmalsklubben, a Swedish electronic group comprised of several members playing live synthesizers, etc. I immediately fell in love with the warm analog sound that early synths could produce. Something about simple wave forms especially struck a chord in me. Naturally I spent many hours surfing the internet looking for similar artists to listen to, and came across a YouTube video of the chip musician Maru playing on a street in Japan. (I believe it's the first video that comes up on YouTube when you search "Gameboy music").  Upon seeing this I immediately decided "this is something I have to do." I purchased LSDj and a flash cart in the winter of 2009, and 'the rest is history.'

WT: Could you talk us through your two full lengths, what inspired their creation and what went into creating them?

TF: My first full length was mainly inspired by the thought "hey I have enough songs to put on a cd now," so I did. I knew very little about audio recording at the time and it definitely shows on the record. I still do enjoy some of the songs on it though! By the time I completed my second album in 2011, I knew a bit more about LSDj but still not very much about audio recording. Also, my second album was a lot more emotionally driven than my first. I had dealt with quite a lot of mental turmoil during the time that I wrote the majority of the songs, and I look at the album as kind of a "recovery" album. Hence the title of one of the tracks: "Recover." 

Something I would like to note about my first two releases is that I am going to be releasing a remastered compilation album of my favourite songs from Trey Frey I and II soon. So be on the lookout for that in the near future! 

WT: You’ve gained a reputation for being a master programmer with LSDJ. Is there a certain way you approach composition or programming that you think gives you an edge over others?

TF: I can't really say that I have an advantageous approach to composition/programming, as I rarely speak about that aspect with any of my fellow LSDj users/musicians. All I know for sure is that I have put in countless hours to achieve the sound that I currently have. As with almost anything, (especially music related) time put in will yield results. 

WT: What single piece of advice would you give budding LSDJ programmers?

TF: Practice and Patience. 

WT: You’re bringing out your first full length in over two years soon. What has gone into its creation, and could you tell us more about it?

TF: The majority of 2012 was a relatively uneventful year for me in terms of creating new music. I rarely had time to write for the Trey Frey project and was exploring other music making methods, and almost decided to give up writing music with Gameboys altogether. However, this past summer I experienced a major influx of creativity and this time period is when the majority of my upcoming album's songs were written. My album "Refresh" will be released February 11th, 2014, and it is going to be released on The Base Bit Recordings music label. 

WT: You also play live often, what have been some of the more notable appearances?

TF: Last December I had the opportunity to play at Pulsewave in New York City with Bit Shifter, which was one of best experiences I have had as a chip musician. It was great to finally meet him in person and speak with someone who has been a long time inspiration to me. In the fall of this year I was invited to play the 8static Festival in Philadelphia, which was a three day long event featuring acts from all over the world. I debuted many of the new tracks from my upcoming release and was extremely well received by the crowd. I also got to meet and see Chibi-Tech play, which was incredible. (I have played in Philadelphia many times now, and I must say that the people there involved in the chip music scene are some of the best on Earth). In the summer of 2012 I played a small scale music festival boasting about 4,000+ attendees called "Big Dub Candy Mountain" which took place in rural Pennsylvania. I was the only chip music act in a fest predominated by dubstep and electro. Despite this, I was very well received and believe I turned quite a number of people onto chip music. I'm of the opinion that the majority of people already love chip, they just may not know it yet! 

WT: What set-ups do you use live?

TF: My current set up is 4 Nintendo Gameboy DMGs running into a Vestax VMC 004fx DJ mixer that I use for mixing and the occasional added effect. 

WT: What lies in the future for Trey Frey?

TF: There are a lot of awesome things coming in 2014! After my album is completed and released, I plan on working on several remixes and collaborations that I have planned out to be released as singles. Also, myself and The Base Bit Recordings label are planning a United States tour for the Spring/Summer of 2014. 

Week #51| Jay Tholen - Oh, Come On

Merry Christmas!~~~~~
The penultimate week of 2013, and Jay Tholen is keep things festive with this outstanding piece, taking time out from creating Dropsy to give us this track. Grab it here!

Also! This week we're extremely excited to be launching uCollective's competition to be voted onto next year's WeeklyTreats! More information and entry forms can be found HERE.  

Happy Holidays! xoxo

WT: What was your first introduction to the chiptune scene?

I used to download chiptunes from MODArchives to use in my terrible games when I was active in the Klik community as a wee 13 year old. From there, I got into tracking and the rest is history.

WT: You’ve got a huge back catalogue of releases, could you talk us through some of your favourites and why?

Oh man, that's a really difficult question. There are like 25 releases now, and I think they were all pretty necessary for my growth as an artist, even if I'm embarrassed by some of them now. My favourites are The Low Drone of Earth, Epidemic Deluxe, and Control Me. Low Drone is my most recent album, and I feel like it works well as a cohesive work. Epidemic Deluxe is a revamped version of an album I released in 2008. I think the Zombie association is holding it back a bit, but musically I feel it has a few of my strongest tracks. Control Me is close to my heart because I worked tirelessly on it. So many hours put into recording that one.

WT: What influences you musically?

Lots of stuff! Prog rock, krautrock, rap, shoegaze, and many of the sonic elements from dub/roots reggae. I love how Lee "Scratch" Perry did things.

WT: Also, what influences you lyrically?

It's no secret that the majority of my lyrics have to do with God and/or concepts surrounding Him. Save for a few of my goofier light-hearted tracks, most of them are making some kind of theological statement in one way or another.

WT: For those who don’t know, could you tell us a bit about Dropsy, the influences behind it and its current status?

Dropsy is an open world adventure game where you play as a clumsy, childlike clown who embarks on a surreal adventure to clear his name following a deadly fire. The gameplay is some weird combination of elements from Myst and more traditional adventure games like Monkey Island. Aesthetically, it's pretty heavily influenced by Earthbound - though that may not be evident by looking at it. It looks a little strange initially, but there's an undercurrent of pure joy that I'm hoping will weave throughout the entire experience. My programmer, Justin, is currently working on getting world building tools ready while I work out puzzles and background art.

WT: Do the influences going into the music for Dropsy match those of your ‘standard’ chip output?

I'd say yes, though there's definitely more of an FM flavour here. Also, Chris Schlarb is composing the bulk of the OST, so there will be way more properly recorded 'real life' instruments involved.

WT: What instruments and software do you make use of when composing?

I have a whole slew of jacked up keyboards and guitar pedals that I slap together in various ways to generate sounds with. Though any Moog or Mellotron sounds you hear are generally 100% software, as I'm too poor to afford either. My three primary software tools are Ableton, Famitracker, and Modplug Tracker. I don't use MPT as much these days, but it's still around if I need it.

WT: Linking to Dropsy, another big part of what you do is art. What influences this side of your life, what do you use to create and how important is visual art to your creative expression?

Colours! I love studying colour theory and subverting expectations. Shoving as many hues as possible into a piece is tons of fun. This probably relates to the way I record music as well, because I tend to pack the spectrum full of audio in spite of my better judgment. While I love pixel art, don't like the process. I get bored easily while pixelling.

WT: Could you talk to us a bit more about what went into your WeeklyTreat specifically?

Christmas cheer! Well, it opens up with an FM trumpet riff, followed by a small sample from an Amon Duul II song and a voice sample from some 60's Jesus Music record. Eventually "Oh Come Let Us Adore Him" pops in, and comes back at the end as a round. I just had as much fun as I could recording it, and I hope that comes through.

WT: What lies in the future for Jay Tholen and Dropsy?

Good things, I hope! The entire next year will be involve trying to survive while finishing the game, so I probably won't be putting out much new music until 2015.

Week #50| Alex Mauer - kittensaw

Only three weeks left of this year's WeeklyTreats!! To show you amid all the hype for next year we're not forgetting this year, we thought the final three weeks should be as a big as possible, and as such we're starting our final trio with chip veteran/legend/master/all-round-lovely-bloke, Alex Mauer. Grab the track here!: (Also, remember to like WeeklyTreats on Facebook for up-to-the-date news on next year!!!)

WT: What was your introduction to the chiptune community?

Alex Mauer: I have told the story about how I was introduced to chip music... so I'll give you one about my introduction to the social, "real life" aspect of chip.  In 2005 I stumbled onto a message board for Gameboy music where I met Dino Lionetti (from Cheap Dinosaurs).  We both lived in Philly, so we met up IRL and hit it off... Not long later, I was selling my midiNES to a guy I knew online... Joey Mariano (Animal Style).  We also met up in person in a Sam Ash parking lot and made the exchange.  About a year later we all got together to perform an early Philly chip show w/ Don Miller (No-Carrier) on visuals... that's where I met Don for the first time.  Before all that, I had never met anyone in real life who was making chip music.

WT: How is Motivational Growth doing since we last spoke, and any new soundtrack work that you’re allowed to speak about?

AM: MG has been on a film festival run for a while now... thanks to the tireless efforts of Imagos Films.  The biggest news I have is we now have Canadian film distribution for 2014!  Other soundtrack news:  I just finished doing a short film score for Atomic Cheesecake called "Horn Quest".  It's all NES stuff... the film is basically a live action cartoon.  Next big news:  I'm scoring a film with Imagos in 2014 called "Depth".

WT: Could you tell us a bit more about your WeeklyTreat, what influenced and went into it, how it was recorded etc?

AM: The weekly treats track is actually my "Hello, world." track for Goat Tracker v2... before this I had been using Goat Tracker v1 for C64 music.  I made this song right before I started my work on Motivational Growth... and it does have a related sound and mood.  Goat Tracker 2 might be the deepest tracker I have ever used... it definitely takes a lot of work to get into it... and you need to keep using it or else you will start to forget how certain things work.

WT: Has the scene changed for the better or deteriorated in your opinion since your involvement with it began?

AM: The scene has changed for both better and worse.  Now, there are so many fans, artists, and events... it's hard to be a known entity compared to in 2005.  But there are so many fans, artists, and events... there are more friends to be made, and more minds to blow... or at least try ;)

WT: What advice, as a veteran of the scene, would you give to newcomers?

AM: If you want to get music jobs... it will take you a really long time to find one... and it will probably be by luck.  So the best way to prepare is to just get as good as you possibly can at making music (It does matter more than your image!)

WT: Any changes in the future or Alex Mauer?

AM: Yes.... not everyone knows this about me but I have done a lot of synth music... I even released some of it only to "delete it from the internet" later.  I am working on fixing some of that old material and doing some new stuff... and I'll be submitting it to Telefuture.

Week #49| Maxo - Chalktopia ~Chipmix~

First up this week... a HUGE announcement! We are massively excited to announce to you that WeeklyTreats WILL be returning in 2014, but in a newer, more exciting and far bigger way!! First up, we have a dedicated site now (which will be launching in full force VERY soon), Facebook and Twitter pages and, most importantly, a new way of giving you weekly treats. This year, each calender month will be taken over by a different curator (label, festival, blog or community) that we, the WeeklyTreats team, have hand picked, and they will be choosing the artists for their month. Even more exciting than that simple fact? We can also announce that January will be curated by none other than progjazz label legends UBIKTUNE! So, bookmark the site, follow us on twitter and Facebook, and get ready for an even BIGGER year than last (and trust me, we have far more waiting up our sleeves.... ;) ). 

As for this week's WeeklyTreat: I'm inexplainably excited to be introducing to you one of my personal all time favourite chip artists, the fantastically talent Maxo. Bringing us a re-wroking of one our favourite tracks from his Level Music series, Maxo is, as usual, flaunting the insanly high levels of talent he posses. Grab the track here!

WT: What was your first introduction to the chiptune scene?

Maxo: I've always loved 8bit music, ever since I've owned a Game Boy, but playing shows with Anamanaguchi and Starscream (now Infinity Shred) with my band in high-school really introduced me to the DIY chip-scene.

WT: Who influences you musically?

M: I grew up around a lot of prog rock and jazz fusion records, so many of my influences reflect those styles.  I really try and listen to a wide variety of music, so at this point influence can come from almost anywhere.   I always try and keep up with video game music however, so that's one thing that remains constant!

WT: What soft- and hardware do you use to create your music?

M: Currently I use Logic Pro 9 and Famitracker (through Wine), running on a pretty new iMac.  I've been using Logic for about 5 years now, but I only recently started using Famitracker (I love it).  In terms of hardware, I use a 49-key MIDI keyboard, and an mbox if I decide on recording live instruments.

WT: You’re back-catalogue is huge, could you walk us through a standard compositional process and how you can create so much high quality music please?

M: I love writing, so I try to do it a lot, but I can always write more efficiently when I have a concept to work around.  That's why there are so many Level Music tracks!  In terms of quality, I try to make music that I personally enjoy first and foremost.  It took me several years to get to the point where I was satisfied with the quality of my writing, but most often just the thrill of having created something is gratification enough.

WT: You’ve also been moving towards using Famitracker, what has caused this shift? Do you prefer it to your old ways of working?

M: I originally started making 'fakebit' music because I wanted chip-y sounds without having to contend with tracking software (it seemed insurmountable at the time).  But recently I had decided what a stupid reason that was, so I bit the bullet and went for it.  It's hard to say which I prefer.  I'm still experiencing the "new gadget" charm of Famitracker, but I've been using it in tandem with Logic so both are equally important to my writing process.

WT: Could you tell us a bit more about the background for ‘Fakebit 2010’, how it was created, and how it came to be on Ubiktune?

M: Fakebit 2010 was a compilation record (as is More Fakebit), essentially putting most of my fakebit material I'd written for 8bitcollective on one release.  I got in touch with Dmitry (C-jeff) of Ubiktune, who had heard some of the material on 8bc, and pitched a release to him!  I've appeared on several amazing Ubiktune compilations since then, it's really an incredible community!

WT: You also do a series of releases called ‘Level Music’. What prompted these, are there any specific influences to their creation and how does the process of their creation differ to that of your more ‘standard’ releases?

M: As soon as I was made aware of the existence of 16bit soundfonts, I jumped on it.  There's a pretty wide variety of them on the internet, but I got my first several (Kirby's Dream Land 3, F-Zero, Super Mario Kart, Secret of Mana) from Dave Harris's website. Working with these sounds really inspired me to emulate video game music, more so than any other type of sound I had worked with before then.  The 16bit era is probably my favourite era of video game music, so I fell in love with the idea of writing massive amounts of music in that style.  Again, the concept is what drove and continues to drive me.

WT: Could you explain a bit more about what went into your WeeklyTreat and its background?

M: I got into the habit of posting Level Music tracks on 8bitcollective, and the track that got by far the most love was Chalktopia (off of Level Music 6).  Normally, I wouldn't use that as the only excuse to make a remix, but I thought that the tune would lend itself very well to NES sounds.  I'm really happy with the result!  It's definitely the longest track I've made in Famitracker as of yet, so it was also an important learning experience.  

WT: Do you play live often, and if so, what set ups do you use? Also, how do you decide which songs to play from such a prolific back-catalogue?

M: I didn't for a long time, but recently I've been trying to play out.  My setup is pretty bare bones right now, I use a backing track on a laptop and I shred on a MIDI keyboard over it through Logic.  This is certainly subject to change however!  Choosing songs is a little tricky.  A year or so back, I chose a handful of my favourite tunes that I knew I could perform well for a senior recital (took a really long time), and I guess I ended up running with those.  I try and throw in new material when I have it though, so you can definitely expect to hear the Chalktopia remix next time I play!

WT: What lies in the future for Maxo?

M: Some cool stuff I probably shouldn't say too much about, but I'll just leave out the specifics: I've got an exciting live band collaboration coming up with some rising artists in the Jazz scene, a collab release with two sweet trap artists, one or more remixes of friends' tunes, and I'm working on music for two cool indie games a friend of mine is developing!  Of course, I'm gonna try and continue to release Level Music on the side, so look forward to that as well! 

Thank you Andrew! And thank you WeeklyTreats~ <3

Week #48| HunterQuinn- Final Selector

Jesus Fuck. One month left. Slowing down? NOPE. This week we've got a track from one of THE most underrated chipsters in the scene, so get the fuck ready!! Grab the track here!

WT: How did you first come in to contact with the chipscene?

HunterQuinn: Well this is going to sound pretty cliché, but the first introduction I had to the ‘chipscene’ was sabrepulse when I was a wee high school lad. Later the same fine gentleman who showed me said ‘first chip experience’ showed me “Reformat the Planet”. This fine gentleman was my long-time friend Andrew (who ended up becoming AndaruGO). He and I had spent a long time trying to find out how to make music that sounded reminiscent of old school systems like the Gameboy. He showed me this fine film and blew my mind. I’ve been changed ever since. Later I ended up finding out about Pxl-bot who released one of my first collections of chipmusic.

WT: Which artists influence you musically?

HQ: Well to be honest, most of my musical influences aren’t chip related. I mean; I still do have chip artists that I straight can’t go without. Bit Shifter, Nullsleep, Covox, Random, Condom, NNNNNNNNNN, BSK, Animal Style, Knife City, Kris Keyser, Glomag, Cheap Dinosaurs are the ones straight off the top of my head.

But in a world where most of my musical influences lie elsewhere in the musical spectrum, there are a plethora of artists outside of chipmusic that have left long lasting impressions on me. In highschool I was really into post hardcore and “screamo”, but not what Victory records did to screamo. I’m talking Circle Takes the Square, As the Sun Sets, Cursive and whatnot. Also The Minor Times and The Number Twelve Looks Like You. I was really into Dillinger Escape Plan’s ‘Calculating Infinity’ and ‘Irony is Dead Scene’. But at the same time I am also into (and have been almost forever) Skinny Puppy.

With that said, I’m still a sucker for things like Radiohead and Daft Punk. Also I’m really into old Michael Jackson right now-- the bass lines are unstoppable. Overall though I think that one of my biggest influences are the people that listen to my music. I learn from every skip I receive on bandcamp and nothing speaks like comments I get on soundcloud. Making music that I like is important, but if people don't give a shit about it then why the fuck am I making it?

WT: Could you tell us a bit about your recent release, ‘VanitySelector’ please?

Vanity Selector is a fevered attempt to create a release that transcends everything I have done up to this point-- incorporating everything I have learned and foreshadowing everything I hope to achieve in the future. I tried to take write something that wasn’t so reliant on the fact that my instrument was a Game boy and what came out was Vanity Selector.

WT: There was a year between ‘VanitySelector’, and your last release ‘Cyberphantom’. What goes in to such an extensive album-writing process?

HQ: A lot that went into the writing of this release was sitting in my wav channel. Living in it even-- for days at a time.  In reality this is me chain smoking/ pacing around my back yard/ consuming an adequate amount of booze in 5 hour sessions; all in the hope of editing a song down to what I feel is acceptable.

It’s honestly not such a bad time.

But in all honesty it was just rewriting everything I had over and over again to sound as full as I could make it and also making the song only playable in live mode.

WT: What inspired Cyberphantom’s creation?

HQ: Cyberphantom was part of a duel release that came out on bandcamp and noisechannel (cyberchamp was the noisechannel release). It was probably 17 songs all together, mostly unorganized ideas and things that I was more trying to do, not so much succeeding at. Then I started to write a release that a lot of people don't really know that much about called Bday Brodown. It came out on bandcamp the November after I released Cyberphantom. It was more of a short “Hey I’m still here” release showing what I had been up to musically.

But after the skip factory that happened on bandcamp I started to rethink what I wanted to write.

I Listened to a TON of Covox and Bitshifter and nnnnnnnnnn and started to think that I needed to sack up and write some serious music.  The way that the aforementioned musicians manipulated their devices really spoke to me and really pushed me to try to make my music have a purpose I guess? I don't know, it’s whatever really.

WT: How do you feel about playing live, and what set ups do you use?

HQ: I feel like playing live is the most important thing ANY musician can do to promote themselves and their scene. So performing as a chip musician is possibly even more important. Supporting the chip scene is super baller so whilst doing said supporting, one can actually give back to their scene. Shit’s crazy right?

I know.

But in all seriousness, playing live is what breathes fresh air into every community. Why not spread the love?

Moving on….. My set up is pretty simple. I run two DMG play it louds, one green and one clear, sprayed black. I run one with RCA out and the other with 3.5 out. Then I just run it through this super funny mid 90’s radio shack mixer I got from this basement I painted. (random I know).  Then I just run one song at a time and switch off Gameboys.

WT: What’s the backstory of the cartRAGE events?

HQ: AndaruGO was the dreamweaver who created cartRAGE. The whole idea is to bring interesting chip music to Cincinnati. A kind of showcase of what we think is progressive in the chip scene to turn the common music enthusiast’s head. We have had a lot of success and we have a new venue and artists booked for the end of December. Stayed tuned, it’s going to be one hell of a show.

WT: Could you tell us more about your WeeklyTreat?

HQ: Final Selector was originally supposed to be on Vanity Selector -- BUT in the recording process there were some technical difficulties. So the song didn’t make the cut and the album was released.

So here lies the story of this song though. I was listening to AndaruGO’s music one day and I was like “Man…. I really need to work on some lead lines…. I’m super slacking”. So I started this song and really tried to make a lead heavy fun experience to play live. It has a lot of on-the-spot soloing and muting and multiple track activations. It’s actually kind of made it hard to play at times but I actually enjoy playing it more because of that.

WT: What lies in the future for you?

HQ: Now that I have some free time I’m really going to focus on cartRAGE and also some projects I’ve been really neglecting. I’m going to be working on a cybergrind release and also maybe some other game boy/ guitar/ “brutal”/ post hardcore screamo thing.

Also expect some serious booty jams soon.

Signing out.

~~~~~~~~~nextweek|announcement~~~~~~~~~

Week #47| Vegas Diamond - Vampires of Dirt

How have we made it this far? I have genuinely no idea. As the end draws scarily closer, we're trying our best not to slow down... luckily what we have planned these last six weeks are some of the strongest tracks and biggest names yet. Explosive end anyone? SO without any more overzealous self-patting; As a taster of what to expect on the upcoming release here on TWG, we're bringing you a track from the neo-hop dark-bient king Vegas Diamond!!! Grab it here.

WT: What was your first introduction to the chiptune scene?

Vegas Diamond: I've always been interested in making "lo-fi" or experimental music with lots of distortion and bitcrushers and what not. I used to play in a 2-piece (bass and drums) rock outfit and I was always busy experimenting with effects stompboxes and feedback. I don't recall when I discovered that making music on old hardware was a thing. I knew about demoscene music from cracks and hacks of popular games but I never really connected the dots. In 2005 I tried to make some sample-based hiphop in Milkytracker but failed miserably (I can provide the .XMs). I then quit making electronic music for a couple of years. Late 2011 I bought a nanoloop cart out of the blue and I just started tinkering and making simple tunes.

I guess what attracts me most about the Gameboy is the 4 channel workflow and trying to make a lot out of very little. In a DAW you have so many options that I get swamped and usually end up doing nothing musical at all. My involvement in the scene basically stems from me being a chiptune musician myself. I really didn't listen to a lot of chiptune before I started making my own music but I am VERY glad I discovered it. There's so much great music to listen to.

WT: Could you tell us a bit about your debut on LowToy, how this partnership started and what went in to creating the release?

VD: I made an EP worth of tracks in Nanoloop in August last year and I was looking for a label because I liked the idea of being on a label and having this sense of belonging. I picked Lowtoy because they seemed to have this experimental aesthetic going on. I just sent it in, had a really aggravating 3 weeks of waiting and then got an E-mail saying they accepted it, there was no prior contact really. When I listen to the EP now I'm amazed it got accepted. The songs aren't bad but they're all so rough, you can definitely hear they could've used some more polishing.

WT: What influences you musically?

VD: I have 2 big sources of inspiration. The first, and the one I use most, is when I read a book or see a movie and I try to put whatever I like about it into song. I know it's kind of cliché but it works! The other is when I listen to a song and hear something I want to replicate. This is usually not a sequence of notes but a more like a specific sound or a rhythm. I then build a song around this motif or rhythm and it invariably ends up being something completely different, unrelated to the original.

WT: You recently switched from nanoloop to LSDJ for compositions, what were your reasons behind this? Was one specifically restrictive to you?

VD: I was no longer happy with my nanoloop output and was stuck in a rut musically because, and this was my own fault, I kept doing the same things. It all sounded so similar but it wasn't heavy enough. I tried switching to LSDJ a couple of times but that was a huge turnoff because of the complexity. This summer I finally persevered and went through the motions, followed Danimal's & Andarugo's tutorials, tinkered a lot. Finally got it though! I don't want to pick sides or say nanoloop or lsdj is unequivocally better than the other but for me discovering how lsdj worked was a blessing. Looking back, I wished I switched earlier.

WT: What’s your stance on the purity of chiptune debate?

VD: When it comes to chiptune purity I think I am fairly conservative. I don't get why anyone would put themselves in this position of compromise and make modern dance music (or EDM) with some slight chiptune elements and try and market it to the chiptune community. We all know the scene is very small and I simply do not get why anyone would take part in it without adopting the thing that defines that scene, there are far more lucrative places to go. To clarify, I am not condemning music that is made in a DAW or that doesn't use the original chip, I don't care about that, although the music I don't consider chiptune invariably is made in a DAW.

WT: Do you play live often? If so, what set-ups do you use, and are there any key shows coming soon in the future?

VD: I think it comes to once or twice per month… There's busy months and months without gigs, you know how that goes. There's a show with Roccow and Jotie in Ghent next week, probably going to be a small gig in a small cosy venue but it's great to play out and meet old pals again. About setups: my nanoloop setup was very intricate, I hard panned all of my songs, the leads on L and all the rest on R and then used the inserts of my mixer to send the L through filters, chorus and delay. Ultimately this was a lot of hassle because I couldn't really play on a normal system. Nowadays my setup is simpler and now I can play with just my gameboy. Fo a typical gig, I'd use I have 2 prosounded gameboys, a Casio VL-1 through chorus and filter guitar stompboxes and a delay on aux send.

WT: What went, specifically, into creating your WeeklyTreat?

VD: I was taking a walk while singing a bassline from an older unreleased nanoloop song. When I came home I put the bassline into LSDJ and tried to make this hip-hop groove out of it, which turned out fairly well I think. I also started experimenting with doubling the pulse channels in the same octave to get phasing or chorus effects. I considered including on the EP but, while it is comparable in sound, it somehow didn't fit in next to the other tracks. 

WT: You have an EP coming out very soon, could you tell us a bit more about that please?

VD: The motivation for making another EP came from my switch to LSDJ. I switched in July this year and had a gig at BITGRID in October so I needed to come up with 45-60 minutes of material fairly quickly. There were a few good ideas in those 45 minutes and I started working on fleshing out some of them and that resulted in 4 tracks. The EP will release on The Waveform Generators on Nov. 30th and will have a sound that is similar to the Weeklytreat; lots of beats and hiphop mixed with experimental sounds. I'm also going to look into producing tapes because I like tapes.

WT: What  else lies in the future for Vegas Diamond?

VD: A lot I hope! I'm still looking for new gig opportunities. There's still a lot of tracks and snippets left over from Hyper. I'm going to try and make something that is a little more chilled out, a little less dance-floor oriented. I also bought a nice Yamaha keyboard from the 80's and I'm going to try and incorporate that to get some more non-chip elements in my music. I'm also still looking for a nice rapper to collaborate with so if you know anyone hit me up. 

Week #46| EGR - ANON (Faith In The Faceless)

As we get frigheningly close to the end of the year (6 Fridays after this!?!?), we thought it was about time we paid our dues to one of our 'bezza m8s' and absolute all-round legend, Arnie Holder. Get your ears the fuck ready: grab the track here!

WT: What was your first introduction to the chiptune scene?

EGR: The first time I listened to music that I knew had been made using video game sounds and hardware was when someone started linking Saskrotch and Sabrepulse chipbreak tracks on ihatebreakcore.com where I used to spend an enormous amount of time.  I loved that stuff and started looking around for more but the easily discoverable cutesy chiptune that I found didn't hold my attention at all and I pretty much forgot about it.  Later I got into circuitbending and started seeing links to modded Gameboys and whatnot and began searching around for music made with such things.  This time I dug a bit deeper and found a lot of high quality chiptune that I actually enjoyed beyond the simple novelty or "tech demo" surface.  That would have probably been mostly 8bp stuff, Unicorn Dream Attack, and contemporaries.  I really haven't been involved with chip for all that long, 2008 is when I signed up on 8BC so I guess that would have been my "official" chip love date. :P

WT: What attracted you to chipthrash and the eventual setting up of your label, Datathrash Recordings?

EGR: After soaking myself in all the 8bp releases and the occasional great track from 8BC I started drifting back to the music styles that had gotten me into electronic music in the first place; digital hardcore, breakcore, noise, etc.  I wanted my love of chiptune to be compatible with my love of electronic hardcore so I started blogging about every track or album I could find that fit into those styles.  I called the blog "Datathrash" and I spent ridiculous amounts of time googling every permutation on chiptune+hardcore+amiga+gameboy+... that you can imagine!  That's how I found shitbird, Kool Skull, and Wizwars and their new music they were calling "chipthrash".  It was perfect timing.  I started contacting them and we all just sort of joined forces under the chipthrash banner.  After a while I wanted to do a compilation of my favourite hardcore chip tracks that I had been blogging about.  I had no plans at all to start a label but as the compilation came together and the chipthrash guys started finishing albums it just organically happened.  The push that finally made Datathrash Recordings a thing was Timeheater's return for the Pulsewave anniversary.  I asked him for a track for "Mixtape 1" and he gave me his full set recording to release.  That was more than three years ago.  O_O  Bizarre.

WT: Could you tell us a bit about Datathrash? How is it managed, who works there and what do you do?

EGR: Datathrash Recordings is a highly curated and specialized netlabel for lo-fi electronic hardcore and experimental music with a focus on the chipscene.  We don't publicly ask for demos and we turn away almost as many artists as we accept.  Datathrash is purely an expression of our taste in music.  Chad and I have recently drafted AndaruGO and environmental sound collapse into the management team and they bring a vast and sorely needed artistic background to the table, both visual and musical.  New potential releases make the rounds to all the team members and anyone can veto.  That rarely happens; if an album makes it past one of us then it's pretty much in.  At this point I think we all know what is a proper Datathrash release and what isn't.  Evidently the general chip public does too since the amount of unrelated demo material has dropped off dramatically since the first year or so.  ...all of that sounds far more organized than it really is haha; cyberpunks trying to be orderly is kind of a joke. ;)

WT: You’ve also recently released music under the alias Abandoned On Fire, what went into creating this album?

EGR: The first Abandoned On Fire album, HYMNAL, was a significant milestone for me.  This was the first time I felt I was able to create something interesting, consistent, and expressive.  There's a lot of self-reflection and personal emotions in that album but I don't expect anyone to be able to decipher them and that's fine.  When I listen to it there's a series of memories that I go through, I hope other people can attach some meaning to all that noise as well.

As for the writing, that was done in 2 or 3 long spurts over the course of this year.  I had been bouncing back and forth between lsdj and piggy tracker and taking ideas from one into the other.  When I started really focusing on kits in lsdj and using the sample synthesis ideas I'd gotten from piggy tracker, the album began to write itself.  I sent sav files to Chad at various stages and he ended up making a bare-bones track that fit perfectly with the rest of the album and that I could expand upon easily.  I had a lot of plans for adding in non-chip elements including my little modular synth and effects pedals but as I refined the tracks and started making some test recordings I realized I already had everything I needed.  HYMNAL is super raw even though it's very carefully produced.  The recording process went like this:  multitrack from my gbc, noise removal by Evil Wezil's inversion method, sum the channels in Reaper and add a few decibels to the low end while taking a couple decibels off the midrange.  That's it.  The recording levels were set so that when the channels were summed there would be no messing with the gain or normalizing or anything.  I'm very happy with how it came out!

WT: Who are your biggest influences musically?

EGR: I knew it would come to this... A typical musical diet for me consists of the most recent few Datathrash releases, a healthy dose of Paul Simon, random japanoise playlists on YouTube, and my collection of Atari Teenage Riot and Alec Empire vinyl.  I also idolize The Flaming Lips, The Beatles (after Rubber Soul), Violent Femmes, Led Zeppelin, and my teenage crush The Dead Milkmen (they never get old <3).  Artists that I knowingly try to emulate would be Lady Scraper, Divtech, ATR, CCDM and the Radiograffiti crew... actually I just try to rip off everything about Radiograffiti just enough to not get called out on it.  That goes for music, art, the label, etc.  Don't tell them I said that.  :P

For not-necessarily-music inspiration the work from Goto80, Nullsleep, Raquel Meyers, Jacob Remin, and all the projects and artists that surround them are the most fascinating art I've ever been exposed to.  Cutting-edge got nothin' on these peeps.

WT: What software and hardware do you use in creating work?

EGR: I've toyed around with most of the classic chiptune tools including amiga, C64, dos trackers, and midi synths.  For now I've settled into lsdj and piggy.  It lets me work with both chip and sample synthesis without having to reset my brain for different interfaces.  When the old keyboard tracker dudes say that once you can ignore the input method the music will start to flow they are totally right.  God bless Johan and Marc for the work they've done!  I would probably never have finished a single track if it weren't for the d-pad interface of lsdj and piggy.

WT: Is there any specific differences to the aliases ‘Egr’ and ‘Abandoned On Fire’?

EGR: "egr" has been my forum name in various places for a long time and at least in the chipscene it's assumed that that is also your artist name.  So for most things that's what I've used.  When I started writing HYMNAL and felt that it was going to be something significant for me I wanted a different signifier that could be associated with music I was most serious about.  Abandoned On Fire is actually the name of the collaboration between Chad and I, we had planned on being a "band" for quite a while.  It just so happens that the first album under that name was mostly written by me.  The next one will be mostly by Chad with collaboration from me.  We'll probably continue in that mode for a while and both also be releasing singles and side projects under our individual names at the same time.

WT: What went into creating your WeeklyTreats in terms of influence and instrumentation?

EGR: "ANON (Faith In The Faceless)" was made in piggy tracker and is a tribute to the hackers of Anonymous.  I tried to make a track that sounded like classic amigacore which to me is the most aggressive music ever.  I wanted that brutal energy to blend with the challenging and inspiring words from Anonymous to form a "call to arms" sort of anthem.  Like "FUCK IT I'M NOT STANDING FOR THIS BULLSHIT LETS GO CHANGE SOMETHING POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!iii!!!&%*$@@".  I feel I have succeeded.  The track is really only made from one kickdrum sample (recorded from the game Pocket Music for GBC).  The three other samples are the Anonymous voice, a clip from "The Royal Tenenbaums", and a cell phone recording I made when the tornado warning sirens were going off outside my house last summer.

WT: This year you’ve taken over the organisation of BRKfest, could you tell us  a bit about how this occurred and what to expect this year?

EGR: I'm going to have to be tight lipped on this one, sorry.  I can say that it was as simple as Curtis (Solarbear) asking me if I would take his place alongside Andrew (AndaruGO) and me saying "Of course!".  Andrew and I are still planning and scheming and panicking and hoping.  BRKfest is in good hands, don't you worry about that!

WT: What lies in the future for yourself and Datathrash?

EGR: More music, more art, and more awesome.  For Datathrash specifically we're gearing up for wider and more legit distribution and some exciting physical releases.  Also, speaking of amigacore earlier, I've been working for a long time on a re-release of some overlooked material from back in the day.  Looks like that will finally be coming to fruition very soon!  NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER SURRENDER.

Week #45| Bear & Walrus- Cavalcades

As week 45 chimes and the final eight weeks begin, we're bringing you a track from a personal favourite of mine, Bear & Walrus! Also, this week is dedicated to Victor Arce aka Love Through Cannibalism aka the WeeklyTreat Art Grunt, as it's his birthday and he's an absolute legend. ~much love~~~~grab the track here!

WT: What was your first introductions to the chiptune scene?

Zachary: I somehow ended up working the door for some of the first 8static events in 2009. I was terrible about showing up reliably to work the door, but I loved the music. Up until that point we didn't realize there was a chip music scene... we had been using trackers and old hardware for years to get interesting sounds, but not really thinking anything of it. It was great to have a sort of click moment and discover this entire subculture. 

Chad: Zachary took me to an 8static in Philly one weekend I was visiting. I think it was Covox and Nullsleep. I'm a bit older than most the people in the scene so it was a little awkward. But I totally got into the sound and the technique.

Z: Yeah, we're notably older. Most people at 8static or Pulsewave are in their late teens, early twenties. I've had people at shows ask me if I was there to see my kid play.

WT: Where did the name ‘Bear & Walrus’ originate from?

C: I was watching the nature documentary Planet Earth. There is a scene where they follow a polar bear as it swims hundreds of miles to reach an island inhabited by walruses only to get gored to death and die. I feel like that sums up our music.

Z: I live in Philly, Chad lives in Baltimore. It's a pretty brutal battle to consistently release music that we both approve of, let alone work on the songs together .

WT: How do you work as a team? Who does what, and how do you get around the loci problems?

Z:  Over the past ten years of performing together we've built a fragile, tedious system by co-opting software development workflows. 

C: We use Subversion as a way to collaborate and track songs. It's an open source software versioning system, meant for building websites and applications, stuff like that. We use it to keep our recordings in sync. Our methods are as collaborative as they get. I generally do more of the melodies and Zachary the ambient textures, but over the years it's blurred and can be impossible to remember who did what to which song.

Z: We have a pretty big cache of instruments between the two of us. Half the time I'm not even sure what instruments Chad uses on a song, because I just see the files after he's added them to Subversion. So it could be a glockenspiel, modular synth, hand bell,  diatonic melodica... I really have no clue. It's just a waveform.

WT: What music influences your output?

Z: We both have more formal backgrounds -- classical, jazz -- but our tastes are all over the place. Lots of experimental music, lots of hip-hop, lots of improvisational music. 

C: All music, new music. I generally don't listen to music that is more than 2 years old unless I haven't heard it before.

Z: I try to listen to new music every day too. I think that sort of blend shows through in our output. A straightforward background with experimental leanings.

WT: Could you talk to us a bit about your past releases, the influences in them, what prompted their creation and which you enjoyed making the most?

C: Two of our albums, Lake Poems and Image Poems were both created in a month's time. There is a certain cohesiveness to those albums because of the time restraint we had. We've started to theme our work, which I think helps give focus to the projects. 

Z: Yeah, the driving motivation behind our first few albums was to capture the feeling of specific times... less about concise imagery, more painting with broad strokes. Trying to evoke certain feelings. Our most recent album, Words From The Woods, is the start of a new body of work where we try to capture a sense of place. That's part of a bigger series that we're slowly working on.

C: We did a series of four song EPs that were themed around summer months, romance, 17th century poetry... time and temporary things. Those were a lot of fun, both to record and design. We did wood carvings for the artwork, hand inked and letterpressed the CD cases, silkscreened the discs...

Z: It just felt appropriate for the project. As more and more music is released in a form that's primarily intangible, it seemed necessary to declare those songs as having a physical component, being something scarce and temporary. 

WT: What goes in to creating a standard ‘Bear & Walrus’ track?

C: Generally a track can go through five to twenty revisions. One of us will sketch out the beginnings of a song and then we pass it back and forth after that. Usually the end result is way different than how it started. Kind of like Photoshop tennis.

Z: It's a lot of back and forth. I have a work style that's really rapid, sloppy, trying lots of different things. Chad is more calculated and precise. Somehow those two styles strike a good balance.

WT: What went in to your WeeklyTreat in particular?

Z: This song started with some bad RadioShack brand audio cables. They kind of crackled if you didn't seat them in the mixer just right. So we were messing around and I sampled a bunch of those crackling noises and the song got built around that. Chad added in the piano melody and the chunky distorted part, which is just a straight pulse wave with 25% duty cycle. 

C: Most of our sounds are actually really simple like that, but then we treat them like we would any other instrument -- reverb, EQ, distortion, compression -- and they become something else. If you hear a crazy distorted instrument on one of our songs, it's not a guitar... it's probably a Game Boy. 

WT: Anything lying in the near future for ‘Bear & Walrus’?

Z: We're wrapping up an album now, we just shot a video for one of the songs. Instead of touring to support the album we're going to get right back to recording. The half life for an album is so short in the age of Soundcloud and Bandcamp. It seems better to focus our energies on making as much new music as possible.

C: Plus, between the two of us, we work like 8 jobs.

Z: Yeah. Real life gets in the way.

Week #44| Auxcide- Genesis

Week 44: And this week we've got Pxl-Bot Posterboy/ Chiptune's-Sweetheart Auxcide!! Epic space jams and pumpin' beats? Double-check. Grab the track here! 

WT: What was your first introduction to the chiptune scene?

Auxcide: I was never too big into scenes before I started posting on Chipmusic.org. I sort of fell into the new generation of chipartists like Vince Kaichan, Parallelis, Frostbyte, HunterQuinn, AndaruGO, etc. and they started friending me on Facebook and we made our own little collective. I didn't feel like I saw the scene until the first show I saw in San Francisco where trash80 play earlier this year. At that moment, I felt the scene. And then at BRKfest, I reallllly felt it.

WT: Where did the name ‘Auxcide’ originate?

A: "Auxcide" is a combination of the words "Auxiliary" (as in auxiliary input) and the prefix "-cide", like in "homicide" or "suicide". It came to mind as I was trying to develop a new artist name for a new direction my music was taking. I happened to look over at my stereo and saw the 'aux' button. I made it be like "sound death" and also liked the play on "oxide". One day I plan on putting out a Nitrous Auxcide EP.

WT: What artists, musically, influence your sound?

A: I draw from a lot of different sources: Björk, Knife Party, Noisia, Nullsleep, Anamanaguchi, Klaxons, Innerpartysystem, trash80, Nero, not to mention videogames such as MegaMan, and Final Fantasy. I try and get those memorable, catchy melodies with a strong beat reminiscent of techno or (good) dubstep.

WT: You are known for using three LSDJ as well as having a huge, layered sound, what prompted and influenced these decisions?

A: trash80. The entire reason why I got into the arduinoboy. I mainly got into LSDJ to use it in the ways that people weren't used to. First to control another Gameboy and then to control other hardware. I wanted to have this overwhelming soundscape made with actual hardware. Of course space and the universe played a big part in my sound too.

WT: Do you reject the ‘doing-more-with-less’ ethos of most chiptune programmers?

A: Absolutely not. I enjoy doing stuff with just 1 cart just as much as using 3. And there are sooo many artists that bring more life to the soundchip then I could do with 5. It's just a matter of preferences sometimes. Sometimes I’ll be in the mood for a certain sound, other times I won't.

WT: What set up do you use when playing live?

A: When I play live I almost always use my full setup minus a full keyboard. The main equipment I use is: 3 Gameboy advance SPs, an arduinoboy, korg microkorg, arturia minibrute, korg es-1 mkII, korg kaoss pad 3, korg kaoss pad 4, and a korg mini kp. It's a lot to lug around but I wouldn't be the same without it.

WT: What has been the release you most enjoyed creating thus far and why?

A: [ Dimensions ] was the most inspirational work I had done. It was an experiment in exploring my new MiniBrute and using my arduinoboy in a fuller capacity. The way those songs came together was so effortless I couldn't believe it. Everyone wonders how long it took to program those songs but it was surprisingly fast. It's like they were in my head and I was just speaking them. But my other 2 releases were amazing in their own reasons, as well. of Atoms and Stardust was my early explorations in turning melodies I wrote on piano into tracked music. And the remix album for that was interesting in taking something I had created and building it again from different perspectives.

WT: What spurred the choice to also feature LSDJ mixes of the tracks on [ Dimensions ]?

A: Those songs used so much stuff to create a big sound but I wanted to show that the Gameboys’ soundchips could create their own type of atmosphere. I think the addition made the EP fit together quite well. It also helped with the whole "different dimensions" motif.

WT: What went in to creating your WeeklyTreat?

A: "Genesis" was originally a song I had written to be played at BRKfest one night. It was made in the same style as stuff from my [ Dimensions ] "era". . . and just as fluidly too. The main melody was all improvised in one shot and then input into the tracker. The main idea was composed during a piano session I had. That main arp and chords were the main drive to the creation process.

WT: What does the future hold for Auxcide?

A: Motherflippin'MAGfest, son. I also have 2 full albums in the works. The first one, "Blue Planet", I had started right after my first album, of Atoms and Stardust. It draws on some of my older 2xLSDJ styles but in a way I don't think I've ever conveyed before. Although it's more 2xLSDJ sound centred, most songs incorporate other hardware too. I've often told people how it is my magnum opus and how I’ll never be able to surpass its writing. The other is my newest workings in LSDJ. It is also a mixture of different mediums. But more importantly it is a mixture of different styles. Its working title is "Speck" and includes a lot of hard hitting dance tracks as well as a lot of chipartist, videogame, and electronic musician remixes. A big bowl of various things basically. I've also gotten a lot of requests for collabs and I'm hoping to do live shows in and around the PA area.