DJ Cutman

Chip Music, Game Music, Reviews

Meow Meow & Bow Wow (Review)

October 2, 2014 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Meow Meow & Bow Wow (Review) Share this Meow Meow & Bow Wow (Review)

The Legend of Zelda series plays host to a lot of great game music. A number of different composers have contributed to the franchise including Koji Kondo, Akito Nakatsuka, and Toru Minegishi, just to name a few. The first handheld Zelda title Link’s Awakening featured a few themes from Kondo, but primarily had its music written by Minako Hamano and Kozue Ishikawa. The two composers wrote some fun and memorable tunes that have stuck with many Zelda fans, so it shouldn’t be surprising that their work has inspired a remix album of the Link’s Awakening soundtrack.

The Meow Meow & Bow Wow remix album is a collaboration between DJ Cutman and Spamtron. The album’s title comes from the two chain chomp characters in the Link’s Awakening game. These two artists have worked together before on albums like Bagu and The Riverman. They each have a style that complements the other and their efforts have led to some great remixes. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening has some great material to be covered. How do these two remix artists approach this classic videogame soundtrack? Read on to find out. (more…)
Chip Music, Game Music

GameChops Offers Two $10 VGM Remix Bundles This Weekend

April 3, 2014 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on GameChops Offers Two $10 VGM Remix Bundles This Weekend Share this

The folks over at GameChops and Loudr are promoting a special deal starting now until the end of this weekend. To celebrate the two year anniversary of the GameChops label, you can pick up two different videogame music bundles, featuring various albums from the GameChops catalog. Each $10 bundle contains 5 albums of videogame remixes.

There is an EDM Bundle, which features the albums Club Needlemouse (Sonic the Hedgehog), VLAD (Castlevania), NESteryears (Nintendo Classics), Boss Beats (Mega Man), and Triple Triad: Booster Pack (Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII). The second bundle is a Chillout Electronica Bundle, which contains the KK and Friends (Animal Crossing), Ridge Racer Arrange, Hydrocity (Sonic the Hedgehog), Goombette (Super Mario RPG), and MeowMeow and BowWow (Zelda: Link’s Awakening) albums.

Each bundle features music by some great remix artists. These artists include Ben Briggs, Joshua Morse, DJ Cutman, ABSRDST, VLAD, and many more. There’s something for any fan of EDM and Electronica VGM remixes. Both the EDM Bundle and the Chillout Bundle can be found on Loudr and will be available through April 6th. Grab these while you can.
Game Music

MAGFest 12 Concert Line-up Announced

November 16, 2013 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on MAGFest 12 Concert Line-up Announced Share this MAGFest 12 Concert Line-up Announced

Clear your calenders for the first weekend of 2014 and get ready to rock out to some phenomenal videogame music! The twelfth annual Music and Game Festival, also known as MAGFest 12, has released the performance roster for three of its upcoming videogame music concerts. The event will be taking place in National Harbor, Maryland and will run from January 2, 2014 through January 5, 2014. Two of these concerts are chiptune showcases, which will be held on Friday and Saturday afternoon. The Friday night concert will be what is known as an Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Battle concert. A total of six different DJs from the VGM community will be participating to perform their repertoire for this EDM Battle. The line-up for the upcoming concerts include some new acts and a number of returning artists.

The MAGFest 12 performance roster is as follows:

Friday Chiptune Showcase (12 PM – 2 PM)

– Trey Frey
– Chipocrite
– A_Rival
– Danimal Cannon

Friday Night EDM Battle (10 PM – 2 AM)

– bLiNd
– Benjamin Briggs
– DJ Cutman
– Grimecraft
– Totentaz
– Flexstyle

Saturday Chiptune Showcase (12 PM – 2 PM)

– Awesome Force
– Auxide
– Rainbow Dragon Eyes
– Cheap Dinosaurs

More information and updates on MAGFest events, tickets, hotels, special guests, and performers is available on the official MAGFest website at http://www.magfest.org/. A handful of us from Original Sound Version will be attending MAGFest 12 to cover the events and concerts as well. It’s looking like a great line-up for this concert series. Hope to see you there.
Game Music, Indie Music, Reviews

Boston Plays Indies (Concert Review)

October 22, 2013 | Michael Hoffmann | 1 Comment Share this Boston Plays Indies (Concert Review)

On September 14, the MIT campus hosted the second annual Boston Festival Indie Games. The one-day event featured games by local independent developers, talks by people from the game industry, and viewings of gaming documentaries. To end the event, a concert was held at the Middle East Downstairs, a small music venue just a few blocks away from the MIT campus. This concert, titled Boston Plays Indies, featured music by Deadbeatblast, Control Group, DJ Cutman, and the Video Game Orchestra. I had the chance to see the VGO (Video Game Orchestra) perform before and I was also familiar with the work of DJ Cutman, but I was not as familiar with either Deadbeatblast or Control Group. Having some idea of what to expect, I entered the club and took my seat for what ended up being a great evening of music.

Starting up the show was solo artist Deadbeatblast, a chiptune DJ from Toronto, Canada who’s setup consisted of two Nintendo Game Boys and a set of devices to mix and manage the audio being generated by the two handheld devices. All of the music was original work by the artist. No covers or remixes, but all of it created with the 8-bit sounds available to him on the Nintendo hardware. To describe the music as simply chiptune or 8-bit is too inaccurate and vague. Many of the pieces he performed had an aggressive and experimental sound, similar to what you would hear in industrial genre music. Even with this experimental vibe, Deadbeatblast’s tunes maintained a good steady dance beat that the audience could rock out too. A particular favorite of mine was “Hyperspace”, a piece that started with a simple pattern and steadily built up as he continued to stack more and more music elements into the mix. Pieces took sudden but brief shifts in tempo, incorporated improvised interruptions, and always kept me guessing as to where the music would go next. The performance was full of great rhythms, memorable moments, and some great chiptune sounds. He has definitely made a fan out of me. (more…)
Game Music, Indie Music

“Boston Plays Indies” at Boston FIG!

August 31, 2013 | Patrick Gann | 3 Comments Share this

The Boston Festival of Indie Games (aka “Boston FIG” or just “BFIG”) is going to have an awesome music concert this year. On September 14th at the venue “The Middle East Downstairs,” a cavalcade of awesome musicians will be performing –live– renditions of great indie game music. Performers include:

The Video Game Orchestra
DJ Cutman
Darren Korb (composer for Bastion!)
Control Group (a band featuring Darren Korb)
deadbeatblast (on visuals, etc)

I’d personally recommend anyone in and near Boston attend the entirety of BFIG. But if you can’t make the whole convention, be sure not to miss this exciting concert! We’re not sure what all will be covered at the show, but I would be surprised if we didn’t hear music from FEZ, Super Hexagon, Bastion (obviously), and many more…
Game Music, Music Production

Original SoundCAST: Episode #017 (DJ Cutman / Know Your MAG)

November 23, 2012 | Patrick Gann | Comments Off on Original SoundCAST: Episode #017 (DJ Cutman / Know Your MAG) Share this

One part remixer, one part business entrepreneur, all parts party animal, Chris Davidson aka “Dj CUTMAN” aka “Video Game DJ” (website / Twitter) is someone you need to know about. His career in game music started a few years ago, at a MAGFest event. Since then, he and his label “GameChops” have begun to proliferate the scene. And, with the help of the newly-formed Joypad Records, they’re doing it in a way that allows for proper licensing of the source material.

To learn more about that process, the label, and what Dj CUTMAN will be laying down at MAGFest 11, as well as his latest release (a free set called Pinball Wizardry), be sure to listen to this latest episode! For this one, the co-hosts are myself (Patrick) and Brenna Wilkes.

Download: Original SoundCAST Episode #017

Intro music: “I Am Error” from Bagu and the Riverman
Outro music: “I Know Nothing” from Bagu and the Riverman

PS – Happy Black Friday. Buy something from a GameChops artist and I’ll personally high-five you at MAGFest. Twice.