In all fairness, 8-bit and chiptune make for some serious crossover content – come on, literal building blocks of repurposed audio engines used to create technical, out-of-this-world music? Sign us up immediately. For anyone unaware, generally speaking, chiptune is music built from the same 8-bit hardware as early gaming consoles like the SNES and Commodore Amiga.
It’s a true millennial nexus when you think about it, as the genre (or aesthetic) incites both nostalgia for the past and ponderings of the future with every component… literally and figuratively. Luckily, these pixelated love letters to youth and possibility aren’t just soul-soothing – you don’t have to a thing about gaming to know that chiptune is fun as hell to listen to.
In fact, Sydney City Chiptune Ministries put out an astounding compilation today featuring a swath of favorite that chiptune so hard, they downright chipbreak, not unlike your favorite flavor of Doritos. Jokes aside, this even deeper sub-genre-of-a-subgenre is kind if a perfect fit for Fecking Bahamas, taking the low-resolution phenomena to new heights of complexity that stand shoulder to shoulder with prog and math rock. Check out the Chibreak Alliance compilation below:
Sydney City Chiptune Ministries have pulled in 20 songs and artists to highlight these aspects and more. With low-res and low-poly games on the rise, especially in indie circles, it’s safe to say that undergrounds all over the world are bound to buzz with these chirp-y, retro-futuristic soundscapes soon if they aren’t already. Chiptune Alliance is expertly curated as well, with a diverse scope that ranges from the industrial and grimey to transcendent and liminal.
If you’re already a fan of tech-y 4/4 stuff like CHON, Polyphia, or standards, many of these textures will feel familiar, so if you haven’t, you owe it to yourself to explore this slightly more authentic 8-bit experience. Not because those bands aren’t great or authentic, they absolutely are, but their respective video game aesthetics are more Smash Bros than Mega Man or Castlevania. Chiptune Alliance shows off a world that reverses the formula, using previous generations of video games and hardware as the backbone of their craft, and it just so happens that the results are wild enough to land on curious math rock and progressive radars. The more the merrier, we say!
(Thanks for playing! If you’re looking for more music, check out our Bandcamp compilations here. If you like us, or possibly even love us, donations are always appreciated at the Buy Me A Coffee page here.)