Saturday, May 26, 2012

All Your Chips Are Belong To Us


Dj Cutman droppin that hot fire

I've always listened to a lot of different genres of music. My record collection was a mish-mash of RnB, rock, rap, and techno, and even country for a time, but my favorite was usually metal, post-hardcore, and progressive rock. One genre that always stayed with me was electronic music.


I've always been a big fan of EDM music. I think it started when I first heard The Crystal Method: Vegas that I realized how good electronica could be. Techno, Electro-House, Ambient, Drum n' Bass, Dubstep, all that shit. I would get hooked on a particular beat or the energy of a single song and play it over and over again. Like anyone else, my musical tastes have changed over time, for instance I like a little more jazz-fusion and indie style rock than I had before. But I keep coming back to the high energy, hypnotic beats, and bass that shakes your rib cage of electro. I listen to it on my way to a party, when I'm cleaning, at the gym, when I'm working, as I write this post...you get the idea.

Many sounds are produced using original hardware

While at PAX East 2012 this year I was walking to check out the main concert that was going on one night, when I started hearing this crazy dubstep beat pumping into the hallway. I turned heel and started following the sound. It led me to an innocuous wall with a Magfest sign pinned to the door. I walked inside and there was a large video screen showing some classic Castlevania gameplay on the NES, a small crowd of people dancing near the stage, and some guy dressed kinda like Megaman cranking these sick beats, jumping up and down, getting everyone hyped. It was chiptune music but with the harder edge of dubstep dropped on top. I've heard chiptune before, but not like this. It felt fresh and vibrant, it didn't hurt that the dj was obviously having a great time and making sure the crowd was pumped up. Dj Cutman definitely turned me on to a whole new level of music I didn't know existed. I hate getting bogged down in specific music categories, but some of these things are not like the other and need to be classified in a different subset. Chiptune seems too broad, videogame music is not quite right, and chiptune videogame music is just too long. Whatever its going to be called, I like it, I love it, I want some more of it.

Below you'll find links to some of the tracks that I love the most from a few different artists. If you like video games and/or EDM, I think you might enjoy these as much as I do.

Dj Cutman:
Live at Magfest X
Dj Cutman Website

Inverse Phase:
Station Report from the game Shuttle Scuttle
Inverse Phase Website

Here are some of the other songs/artists that have been in constant rotation on my stereo.
Krewella
Shreddie Mercury
PrototypeRaptor

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