Jake Kaufman
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Chip Music
Ubiktune Universe Grows New Stars
We’re only halfway through March of 2012, but Ubiktune has been busy making every month like Christmas with several new releases. 2011 was Ubiktune’s greatest year to date, but it seems they are already well on their way to eclipse their own success even further.
Currently Ubiktune has a slew of new artists showcasing their talents for the chiptune world to listen at large. Of the latest releases, beyond the fantastic releases of Shnabubula’s NES Jams, C-Jeff’s Preschtale and Jake “Virt” Kaufman’s FX4 (All of which Audun will take a closer look at later this week!), we’ve also been treated to a taste of nostalgic bliss with I Miss You – Earthbound 2012, and it’s interesting use of the Earthbound soundfont in the entire album’s creation to give an appropriate heartfelt and evoking feel with various well known artists graciously lending their talents. Maxo released his first completed album, FAKEBIT 2012, with interesting pop style and change-ups in rhythm and pace to give it a unique sound. (“Contexts From Last Night” sounds fairly reminiscent of Starlight Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog for you Sonic lovers). 7bit Date: Robot Love combines the “primitive” video game natures with a slight hip-hop and electronic jazz fusion that will make you find yourself tapping your foot to courtesy of Beek. If you’re looking for something that strays from traditional chiptune style, subPixel’s The Wave combines live instrumentation renditions and chiptune versions on the same EP for dual-listening experiences, showcasing the strength of the compositions in both live and electronic enviroments.
Check it all out on Ubiktune.com and hear for yourself, and check back here for the reviews of NES Jams, Preschtale and FX4!
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Chip Music, Featured, Game Music
GDC 2012: Chip Music Concert Recap & Photos
Every year, tens of thousands of game developers from around the globe descend on the Moscone Center in San Francisco to attend the Game Developers Conference (GDC). During the day, the week-long conference has devs attending seminars and discussions on game development. The nights, however, are host to some of the most amazing geek and game-related parties/concerts of the year. This year, that included a total of three chip music shows, and I was lucky to be able to catch some of them during my trip.
Hit the jump for a recap with photos!
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Game Music
Original SoundCAST: Episode #012 (Bundle-Mania)
Wow, did this ever turn into a mammoth project.
For episode 12, we reached out and interviewed *almost* every artist who appeared on the Indie Game Music Bundle 2. You know, that big awesome one that netted you a bunch of great music? Yeah. We decided to keep interest in the movement alive by talking to all of these guys about their current projects. Interesting note: with the exception of Africa (and technically Antarctica), these interviews have us reaching to every continent on earth. Countries represented include Chile, Canada, Sweden, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, and (of course) the USA. Of course, most of them are probably at GDC right now.
First, though, I have some apologies to make:
1) We wanted to have a special segment with Jake Kaufman in this episode. Due to scheduling, and the fact that this episode is already absurdly long, we’ve decided instead to make that its own episode. So, no Jake interview here, but it will happen, and Jayson will be a part of it.
2) I (Patrick) talk waaaay too much. The saddest thing of all is that this 3+ hour episode would have been nearly 4 hours if I hadn’t made edits to my own rambling. But even with the edits, you’ll notice. And for that, I apologize.
3) During the interview with Module, you will occasionally hear my voice echoing. It’s a feedback loop problem; partially my fault, and partially the fault of our international Skype call.Right-click and “Save As…” to download the episode. Below the link, you’ll find show notes. We didn’t name every individual song used throughout this super-duper megasode; just know that when you hear music below the talking, it’s either by the artist being interviewed or is being referenced by that artist, and music after each interview is always by the artist being interviewed.
Download: Original SoundCAST Episode #012
[0:00:00] Intro: music from Jake “virt” Kaufman (Mighty Switch Force, “Whoa I’m In Space Cuba!”)
[0:00:45] Josh Whelchel re: Game Music Bundle 2, Sharing Is Caring EP, current/upcoming projects
[0:27:15] Francisco Cerda re: Jamestown
[0:40:15] Jim Guthrie re: Sword & Sworcery, Children of the Clone
[0:50:00] Alec Holowka re: Aquaria, Alone In Dreams, other projects
[1:00:50] Kan Gao re: To The Moon
[1:13:43] Intermission re: our inability to schedule time with Tomas “Floex” Dvorak and Jake “virt” Kaufman; also, Pat reads answers from flashygoodness
[1:20:30] Module re: Shatter, Imagineering
[1:36:50] disasterpeace re: Cat Astro Phi, Passcode, Rise of the Obsidian, FEZ, tons of stuff
[1:52:00] David Saulesco re: Eternal Daughter and its 10th anniversary
[2:05:00] A_Rival re: 8-bit Pimp, TMNT EP, plans for 2012
[2:17:00] Inverse Phase re: Shuttle Scuttle, past/current/upcoming projects
[2:37:00] C-jeff re: Preschtale
[2:45:30] Romain Gauthier re: SQUIDS, Edge, life in Japan, and how to pronounce his name (hint: it’s like this Gotye)
[3:02:05] Octopus Project re: Thunderbeam
[3:13:37] Outro: a message from us -
Chip Music
FX4: virt’s Next FX Installment Drops March 1st on Ubiktune
February 26, 2012 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on FX4: virt’s Next FX Installment Drops March 1st on Ubiktune Share this
More goodness from virt and Ubiktune hot off their big wins in our OSVOSTOTY 2011 Awards. Jake Kaufman will be releasing the fourth installment in his popular FX series on March 1st on the Ubiktune label, with a pre-release listening party to take place beforehand on Noise Channel. TrueStar and virt will be talking about the album at length on the program before playing it live in its entirety and making it available to the public on Ubiktune and Bandcamp.
Oh, and you have to read this story setup for FX4, which is apparently a prequel to the events of FX3 (I never even knew these albums told a story… I just loved the music!):
“It concerns the loss of an experimental superweapon at sea, during a future war. Decades later it is recovered by a team of scientists, and restored to working condition. An aircraft which creates space-time anomalies, its use has unforeseen consequences, such as allowing a gay time-travelling vampire (FX3’s antihero) to cross into our universe. FX4 is written in FamiTracker using only 2A03 sounds, and contains 9 songs packed with loving detail.”
Sounds good to me! What do you think? Are you looking forward to the release of FX4 next week?
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Game Music
OSV Composer of the Year Award 2011: Jake Kaufman
While 2011 was an amazing year for game music, it seemingly came from every which direction with no single composer standing out at least in terms of quantity. Our 2010 pick came very easily, but this year was a little different as we all hunkered down to listen to each nominee’s two or three works released last year and finally came to a decision, and it’s one I’ve been waiting for a long time to write.
Hit the jump to find out why we’ve picked Jake Kaufman for our Composer of the Year 2011! (more…)
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Game Music
SoulCaster Gets Merchant’s Legendary Arrangements Remix Album
February 14, 2012 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on SoulCaster Gets Merchant’s Legendary Arrangements Remix Album Share this
You can call me a huge fan of MagicalTimeBean, the one-man studio behind SoulCaster and more recently, Escape Goat. I loved the retro soundtracks for the SoulCaster titles, and in addition to them being available for a name-your-own-price on Bandcamp, they’re also available alongside an exclusive six-track arrangement album through the Indie Royale Valentine’s Bundle.
Included are games Zeno Clash, Hoard, Lume, both SoulCaster titles (now on PC!) as well as their soundtracks and the remix album. As of right now, the remix album is exclusive to this bundle, featuring arrangements from some of my favorite artists including Neversoft’s Kyle Johnson, yogurtbox’s Surasshu, and Jake “virt” Kaufman among others. The remixes are all pretty solid, but I admit it’d be hard to screw up Ian Stocker’s original compositions. They’re that good.
Hit up the bundle on Indie Royale and let us know what you think of the remix album if you pick it up. Would you like to see it released separately?
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