True Chip Till Death

Tonight marks the first of two chip music packed shows at Austin's Datapop, a collab between the Alamo Drafthouse, and 8bitpeoples. While not a SXSW event, the two-day free showcase is a nice bridge between the techy interactive aspect of the first week of SXSW and its older rockier musical component. Featuring act such as Hally, Bit Shifter, Nullsleep and more, the showcase is but a taste of the various chip related parties and showcases throughout the week. Official SXSW highlights include the 8bit cumbia fueled nudity of Meneo, Pains of Being Pure at Heart affiliated Depreciation Guild,and synthbreak wunderkin Talk To Animals.

It is always interested to see which of these acts are the "bubble" acts that break through to the "next level" of "rock fame", but you can saunter into the showcases and tell all your friends that you where there first! To get you started, we uploaded this SXSW mix with tracks from FMA chip artist appearing at the events, so enjoy and see you in seven!

This week we are looking at a musician who has recently come back to chip music thanks to an invite to Blip Festival. More well known to electronic music fans as Khonner, he also released a chip music release for 8bitpeoples under the pseudonym I, Cactus. Owing as much to bands like Boards of Canada as lo-fi chip burbles, the release shows Khonners tracking prowess with easy going and precious beats, still holding up nearly 8 years after its initial release. Finally asked to play the 2009 Blip Festival has seemed to energize Khonner's involvement in the chip music scene, with a recent flurry of uploads to Chipmusic.org, produced on a Playstation Portable using the simple sample tracker littlegptracker.

Khonner is incredibly prolific, so you can stuff your pods with the tunes found here, or start crawling his discography. Until next time, enjoy Ruby Cactus, and see you in seven.