WT: What was your first introduction to the
scene?
ChasingBleEPs:
The first
time I had ever heard the term chiptune was during my 2nd year of Secondary
school. At the time I listened to allot of artists like Nick Drake,
Radicalface, Jose Gonzalez, stuff like that. I did not listen to any form
of electronic music.
It was my
friend Jack who brought up chiptune and introduced me to the genre. Jack had
been introduced to it by his brother (SkyPope), and after that day all I
listened to was Sabrepulse, Shirobon and Henry Homesweet. After a year I grew
tired of the same old songs so I went back to listening to other music. My
"chiptune phase" was over.....Or so I thought.
A few years
later I was watching the trailer for Two Player Production's Minecraft
Documentary. In this trailer there was a song "Tones Tones Tones" by
Falling For A Square. I instantly fell in love with that song and all of Falling
For A Square’s music. This led me to 8bc (Rest in peace beautiful prince) and I
found a whole load of artists, such as Kubbi, Smiletron and Space Town Savior.
Ever since then I've been in love with chiptune.
I didn't start making chiptune until summer 2010 or 2011 (I can't remember) I got alot of advice and help from Falling For A Square so without him I probably wouldn't be making music haha!
WT: Musically, which acts or artists influence,
from both the scene and from outside it?
CB: In the
scene I think that the artists who influenced me the most would be Bubu, Kubbi,
Trey Frey, Falling For A
Square, Electric Children and Infiniprism
to name a few. People like Bubu and Kubbi who I've become friends with have
helped me alot with my music. It was hard finding my place in the chip scene
since I jumped right into it with no previous musical experience, but with the
help of all my chiptune friends I'm doing pretty good (: I think I tried to be
like Trey Frey the most in my music. I've always been a huge fan of his music
and style.
Influences from non-chip artists? Melodically speaking I've been influenced heavily by the Legend of Zelda sound tracks, Bands like Biffy Clyro and Fall Out Boy.
WT: Your style is slowly shifting away from more
ambient music towards more dance oriented work, what prompted this shift?
CB: Well when I first started to make chiptune (on
famitracker) I wanted to make music similar to Shirobon and Sabrepulse but I
could never get my songs sounding right. I started to in the way of ambient and
slower songs because I was listening to nothing but Falling For A Square at the
time. When I started to make my release ‘Space Music’ I was really into
smiletron's music and it was pretty much all I would listen to. I always tried
to make similar stuff to his. I had owned LSDJ for about a year when Space Music
was released, I would only pick it up and use it every few months or so. it
wasn't until December 2012 I started getting pretty into LSDJ: This was due to
King Keytan creating a growl bass on my LSDJ. That doesn't sound like much but that really
did get me started in using LSDJ. So really, I had always intended to make
dance music I just didn't know how until recently.
Don't get me wrong, I’m still going to make ambient fakebit tunes. My most recent track, 'But I Could Be Wrong', takes heavy inspiration from smiletron.
WT: Could you tell us a bit about ‘The Owl’ EP
and how you created it?
CB: The Owl
EP was never planned. I met this guy Jim on the internet somewhere and he told
me about this music project he was working on called 12in12x12. Using
12in12x12 as a motivator I started working on some stuff. This was just going
to be a side project to my ChasingBleeps stuff (At the time I was working on a
split EP). The first song I wrote for 12in12x12 was 'Cold Dark Air' In that
song I used a vocal sample that I had cut up and then I used some other synths
and a sample of my glockenspiel I had recorded a while back. The vocal sample I
used is also in Breakbeat Heartbeat's song 'Hold On'.
Once I had finished all the songs for that months 12in12x12 I was just going to
release them to my second soundcloud, but at the last moment I decided to release it as an EP. I had no idea what to
call it, I also had a song that was un-named. I decided to call the song Owls
which then gave me the idea for The Owl EP. Not very creative I know, But I
still love it (:
WT: What went into your WeeklyTreat?
CB: The song I'm using, 'Incredible', is in my opinion my
best LSDJ song. It is made using one prosound gameboy and one LSDJ cart. I
added alot of techniques and subtleties to this song. I spent about 6 hours in
total spread over the end of August and the beginning of September.
I spent alot more time on this song than I usually would with my past work and I am very, very proud with the overall and hope people enjoy it (:
I spent alot more time on this song than I usually would with my past work and I am very, very proud with the overall and hope people enjoy it (:
WT: Do you play live often?
CB: I have played live three times now, twice at a gig
local electronic artists put on and once at 8bit nights in Glasgow. My
first experience playing live was terrifying haha. At
the time I was just starting to use LSDJ so I didn't have a full sets worth of
stuff. I made half the set on fl studio on my laptop and the rest on LSDJ. I
must say the laptop section of my set was terrible! My laptop would clip if it
was too loud and it was just a mess. Once I whipped out the LSDJ everything was
fine.
My second gig was at 8bit nights in Glasgow. For this gig I had made two ten minute long sets on my LSDJ: I only had one LSDJ
at the time. It was very enjoyable (: good vibes all around at that gig.
My third gig, which was pretty recent, went great! It was in the first place as my first gig. I love it! I was finally able to play properly using two LSDJ's Nothing went wrong....apart from when I tried to open a bottle of coke on stage and spilled it on my Gameboy. But I'm sure nobody noticed that! haha.
WT: Hailing from Scotland, in your opinion how
vibrant is its scene?
CB: The scene
here in Scotland is great. We have such wonderful people like Bubu, Therimin Hero,
King Keytan etc. I don't know alot of small chip gigs in Scotland but I
know of the yearly Ultrachip festival and up in Glasgow there is 8bit Nights
which is on during most months.
Also, where I live (Ayr) there is a nice little bunch of chiptune artists. I hope to spread the word of chiptune and expand the scene here in the future!
Also, where I live (Ayr) there is a nice little bunch of chiptune artists. I hope to spread the word of chiptune and expand the scene here in the future!
WT: What are your future plans for ChasingBleeps?
CB: My
future plans with ChasingBleeps hmmm? Well I'm going to release an album soon
(Hollow) after that I plan to do two split EP's then maybe a few years from now
I will create my final blow which will be a full 15 song LSDJ album. With that
I will incorporate orchestral sounds with 2x LSDJ. And after that I guess
I will start working on different genres. I will always make chiptune but I
plan to take it to its very edge!