“Chip Music” (Used 69 times)

"WFMU-YOU GOT IT!" sung Anamanaguchi's Peter Berkman on their improvised WFMU jingle last Sunday for Beastin the Airwaves with Keili. The chiptune-punk quartet's 10-song set (including the jingle, plus a bonus Wavves cover!) of hyper-active and insanely tunes is now part of Anamanaguchi's FMA Profile.

Anamanaguchi integrate traditional rock instruments--drums, bass, and guitar--with the soundchips from early video game systems (in this case, a hacked NES from 1985) that make Chip Music unique. And with innovative releases like the immersive Dawn Metropolis and a new album in the works, they've taken the scene to new heights.

Once an underground phenomenon, chip's growing popularity could be tied in with nostalgia-fueled extended adolescence of today's Millennial Generation. Yet for the members of Anamanaguchi, video games were not the sole influence on their music as "a lot of influences come from stranger stuff," Peter Berkman said in a 2009 A.V. Club interview, "...just absurd stuff." And a simple listen to the range of chip-inspired music here on the FMA -- resources like True Chip Til Death, and the ever-expanding Blip Festival -- is enough proof to show that the genre of the new millennium will be infecting young minds well into the future.

There are certainly enough Anamanaguchi fans to sell out their upcoming shows at at Philadelphia's North Star Bar Thursday July 21 and the Music Hall of Williamsburg this Friday July 22. Get tickets while they are still available, and in the meantime, listen to this incredible live recording, engineered/mastered by Ernie Inradat here.

Blip Festival, the world's premier international chipmusic event, celebrated their 5th anniversary May 19-21 at Manhattan art & technology center Eyebeam. For the second year, WFMU was on-hand to stream live audio, and we had a blast!

Organized by The Tank and 8bitpeoples, Blip Festival brings together a range of incredible artists working within the realm of "chip", utlizing classic computing systems like the Game Boy, Amiga and Atari to produce music in an array of styles. Many of the performers incorporated other instruments into their set, including guitars, drums, Minusbaby even brought along band with clarinet, tuba, cavaquinho, mandolin, agogô, tamborim, pandeiro, and surdo! With daytime workshops at Eyebeam and afterparties at Babycastles, the Blip Festival is a multimedia experience. Every musician was paired with a visualist if they weren't providing their own, backed by three video screens.

We've kicked off the Blip11 Collection here on the FMA with a dozen sets by...

4mat  ::  cTrix  ::  exileFaker  ::  Henry Homesweet  ::  Minusbaby  ::  NNNNNNNNNN  ::  Tristan Perich   ::  Ralp  ::  Stagediver  ::  Ten Thousand Free Men & Their Families  ::  Ultrasyd  ::  Wet Mango

These are tracks that that want to be shared, and there are a bunch more on the way. You can subscribe to the RSS feed here if you'd like to know the minute new tracks appear...dig in and stay tuned!

>> Full FMA Blip11 Collection

"The final moult of the naiad is not to the full adult form, but to a winged subimago that physically resembles the adult, but which is usually sexually immature." (via Wikipedia)

The world's premier international chipmusic event event, the Blip Festival returns to NY May 19-21. WFMU will be there live streaming direct from Eyebeam to your home computer. We'll also compile another Blip Festival collection here at the FMA for all to share!

Produced by 8bitpeoples & The Tank, the Blip Festival celebrates the best and brightest from the realm of chipmusic and its related discilplines. This year, artists from all over the world will converge at Eyebeam, the leading not-for-profit art and technology center in the USA, for three days of arresting music and visual art utilizing former heavyweights of computing like the Commodore 64 and Amiga, the  Atari ST and 2600, the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy.

WFMU will once again be webcasting live from the Blip Festival! So if you’re not able to make it to Eyebeam in the flesh, you can surf on over to wfmu.org each night for the live stream, Accu-Playlist, photos and a realtime comments board. WFMU DJs Bennett4Senate, Marty McSorely, and Jason Sigal will be joined by special guest DJ XC3N from Montreal CISM | 89.3FM to host and DJ between sets both on the stream and in-person at Eyebeam.

Highlights from these performances will be available from the Free Music Archive, where you can also enjoy a vast collection of mp3s from the 2009 Blip Festival at the Bell House in Brooklyn! Below, True Chip Till Death's Peter Swimm (who is also a 2011 Blip Festival performer!) made a mix of highlights from artists who performed at the most recent NYC edition of the Blip Festival:

Check out blipfestival.org for more information, and this year's incredible lineup which includes musicians like Anamanaguchi, Bubblyfish, Tristan Perich, and Minusbaby paired with visual artists like visualicious, m7kenji, No Carrier, and Party Time! Hexcellent!, plus "Arcade After Parties" hosted by Babycastles and a whole lot more! See you at Eyebeam and/or surfin' the live stream!

Today's a fast one, with an upload from the recent 8bitpeoples release from Cheapshot, "zOMG!".

It's five tracks of Game Boy Dubstep goodness, a must-hear if you enjoyed Kupa on the FMA. You can also enjoy Cheapshot's exploration with other chip music platforms over on his Soundcloud. Happy Dubbin and see ya in seven!