Trash80 initiated his addiction to computer music in the summer of 1990 - about the same time his interest was sparked for the opposite sex. Coincidence? Probably not. The beauty of it was that he recognized this obvious connection early on and decided to use his love of composition to gain the interest of an unsuspecting female audience. In response to someone who once brought up this connection, Trash80 replied, “Its not about getting girls man, its about my love of music and getting dumped for it.”

Dive onto the dance floor with a hybrid heart of NES bleeps and heavy beats. Trash80 has made his way back from exile with his long over due second EP “Icarus” – A modern chip-rock-techno-electro dance excursion. Push, climb, bite, crawl your way though the super galactic interstellar network of consciousness to rediscover one of next year’s hottest releases to date.

zShare: Trash80 - Icarus
zShare: Trash80 - Sodium Sonest
zShare: Trash80 - Robot Sneakers

There currently seems to run a huge web discussion about unauthorized music-sampling and even worse music-plagiarism. Inchoated at mister “I have a finger in every pie” Timbaland across dozens of fewer noticed musician up to heavy blogged Crystal Castles - all of ‘em have to take a lot of flak because of their abyss of ignorance towards the work of other musican. I can only call it ignorance when anybody is making use of anyone others work without his knowledge or approval - nay to pass off this as his own work! Well, of course a lot of producers are using samples - but usually they’re authorized to or they go about it a bit skilfully and unobvious.

Because they get all my eager support I can give and because it’s most up to date, I want to come up with a theft of tunes of two of the first chip-tunes-artists I was ever listening to - Covox and Lo-Bat. These two guys have massively influenced the whole chip-tune scene and even beyond. And now these freaks of Crytal Castles are coming and screw up explicitly Lo-Bat’s track “My Little Droid Needs A Hand” by simply adding some beats and a geeky braying. All this without any agreement of Lo-Bat.

One time isn’t enough so they used some beats of a track by Covox for another track of their own. This is something I can’t approve of. And even Crystal Castles are now saying they want to ask Lo-Bat for his agreement, they didn’t something of that kind before the story got found out and passed off everything as their own at myspace.

More detailed informations about the facts of the case and its progress you can read about at:
Create Digital Music, ChipFlip, Gameboy Genius

And again we reset you to 8-bit-mode! This time with a sashay to Japan - the home country of beep, bleep, cheep, peep, blip and pule. At least with regards to chiptune music.

Xinon is rocking the peewee-grey-brick with such amazing trance blasts that will shake your body from head to feet and definitely keep you jumping nonstop. He has got that much Game Boys, if he would arrange ‘em in a pile, they would overtop the Empire State Building without effort. And this full force uses Xinon to bring you tunes with moody midnight breakdowns and strong pulses! These are heavy futuristic tracks that will earthquake every dancefloor - Grab ‘em!

Mediafire: Xinon - Vanishing Point
Mediafire: Xinon - Hellboy
Mediafire: Xinon - Attitude

I really don’t know why, but the past days my body seemed to outweigh hundred tons minimum and every move went to a challenge. Or I grew old rapidly and my operating system goes to waste?! My energy-level reaches an all-time low! I’m torched!
But this is not the crisis line and so I decided to come up with a, maybe weekly, special column about all kinds of chip-music, ’cause this high-voltage and full of energy stuff is what I need to charge my batteries and you’re invited to feed on as much as you want, too!

And now I want to introduce Yerzmyey from Poland to you. This boiiii started to create chiptune and micro music with his oldschool Timex Computer of 1984, in the early nineties. It’s incredible how “Dessert Eagle”, “Oldsmobile”, “Concorde”, “MicroPacer”, “Hulk”, “Mouton Rothschild” and “TNT” his tracks sound, if you envision that this Timex machine is not much bigger than a simple calculator. But thats one of the striking attributes of chip music - creating great sounds with low-tech-equipment. Yerzmyey - come to my town, tell me how your name is articulated proper and hit me as hard as you can.

zShare: Yerzmyey - Escape from the spaceship
zShare: Yerzmyey - Yerzmix part 4

In 2191, earth’s blissful existence was governed by a powerful master computer. Then one day, something went wrong with the master control program! Chaos ensued as people paniced! And Nova, lord of the ancient power-blade, was summoned to battle through the control center and restore the data base…

Of course Nova was victorious. And after this glorious battle, he decided to become a celebrated musician. So, Nova called his friend HC-Ivan in Sweden to apprise him of his bright idea and to get him on board. Powerblade was born.
This two Swedish boys, that grew up with too much videogames & eurodisco, don’t give a fuck about if they’re singing off-key or if anything isn’t in time. It’s all just because the fun of it and to score girls. Or I haven’t recognized the upper sense, yet. Whatever they may communicate to us - I really love those totally up the pole Swedes.

zShare: Powerblade - Lavve
zShare: Powerblade - Powerblade are on the go!
zShare: Powerblade - Crazy and Fun

Like you might know I’m totally into this “Nintendo GameBoy NES 8-Bit” thing. It’s one of this parts of my childhood I love to look back on and identify with. So it’s not really astonishing that I always prick my ears if anywhere the typical beep-beep-beep resounds.

The guys of 2 Player Productions now have finished a feature length documentary, which dives into the movement known as chiptunes - a vibrant underground scene based around creating new and original music by using old video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results.
The movie they’ve made, called “BLIP FESTIVAL: REFORMAT THE PLANET”, is an homage to the annual Blip Festival in New York City and its genesis as well as to the artists behind and of course to low-bit video game consoles.

This trailer gives a short impression about, what the audience at the South by Sothwest Film Festival in March will have to expect when the full documentary will receive its premiere. 2 Player Productions have announced a combination of film and performance which will mark the strongest push into popular media exposure, chip culture has ever experienced. I’m curious about and wish I could be present there, too.

The SXSW screening will be supplemented by a showcase performance of chip-musicians from all around the world. Some of ‘em you can find below and take with you if you like.

zShare: Bit Shifter - March Of The Nucleotides
zShare: Nullsleep - On Target
zShare: Random - Spontaneous Devotion