At PopMatters, a review of Blipfest 2008, the largest chiptune show of the year.
I’ve fiddled with the programming enough to know that this stuff doesn’t come easily. There’s a certain sameness to a lot of it on the surface—all lo-fi electronic music in 4/4 with house-derived “drum” sequences which rely on filtered white noise—but after taking in a couple of sets, the differences between the artists become more readily apparent. Bucket-headed spaz-dancer Sulumi’s restless melodies were a fantastic highlight, skipping across the room like so many chips of shale across a Mario 2-2 swimming level, but geek-chic Asian chick Bubblyfish had the most depth, with an enthralling opener which expertly transitioned from jovial Katamari plinks to ominous Metroid gloom over the course of ten minutes.
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In the Village Voice, Pazz and Jop 2008, the long-running annual music roundup in which I was invited to be a small blip myself.
Tags: annual wrap-up, audio technology, chiptune, concert review, electronica, music festival, music writing, nullsleep, PopMatters, Village VoiceCategories: Writing
[...] I have a small spot this week with the Village Voice for the 2009 “Pazz and Jop” music critics’ poll. [...]