The almost 20 year old tradition of a big German demoparty during the Easter-weekend continues, after Mekka Symposium and Breakpoint it is Revisions turn to gather almost 1000 alcoholized nerds from all over Europe to perform strange ceremonies. As usual, Razor 1911 was present and also competed in the 64kb intro category with an intro called “We accidently borrowed your votedisk” that coded by Rez with music by Dubmood. This time made by an old softsynth for 64kintros created by german demogroup farbrausch. Pretty impressing if you consider that it is all stuffed into 64kb we must say! Check it out on pouet.net here.

Meet Jason Scott – the guy who is literally an Internet historian. Apparently, what started out as a hobby, as a result of his own involvement with the BBS world, later became a full-time job as he managed to raise $25,000 on Kickstarter. The calling of his life is basically to collect as much (preferably obscure) information as he can for the future, both digital and physical. Text files. Cracktros. Shareware CDs. Floppy disks. Old issues of 2600 magazine with hardware projects that that came with the magazine at the time. He know has a container full of old goods, which, as he puts it, he doesn’t own, but is only preserving for the future.

So this post will just link to his sites. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to explore his works. I actually haven’t explored most of his sites yet, so this post is in part a reminder to myself.

I only found out about Jason today when watching his Defcon 18 presentation (part 1 2 3 4) called “You’re stealing it wrong – 30 years of inter-pirate battles”. It’s the story of how the piracy scene has evolved over the years, all the way from when IBM sold hardware and software as a bundle, to the days of Apple ][ cracking, BBSs sharing scanned images from Playboy, all the way to the internal politics of today's scene. It contains equal parts nostalgia and humor. (BTW, the videos were uploaded by ChRiStIaAn008 who's uploading talks from various security conferences. Highly recommended despite the ghawd-awful background image.)

BBS Documentary logo

These sites of his are listed at the end of his presentation:
bbsdocumentary.com is the website of Jason’s documentary about the BBS world.
textfiles.com contains various text files from BBSs and other places, sorted in 40 categories. Puts my own Gameboy file archive, that I’ve hardly started working on, to shame.
cd.textfiles.com contains a shit tonne of shareware CDs from the 90s for those may be interested.
getlamp.com is not a site where you can get a LAMP stack; rather, the name alludes to old text based games such as Zork, and Get Lamp is the name of a documentary about those. (Side note: For my Swedish reader, I recommend the classic text-based game Stugan!)
Archiveteam is a site dedicated to mirroring content.
Geociti.es is an effort to mirror as much as possible of Geocities after it was shut down.
Sockington is one of Jason’s two cats.
Welcome to Internet! A hearty welcome (cordial reception) , in case this is your first day online.

Quoting Martin Korth: “And you? Given the ability of free choice, full control over your mind and body, where would you click?”

There is a very data friendly post over at 8bit today about Datastorm2010, the oldschool platform demoparty organised by our friends in UpRough!.
Including the Fairlight demo with music by me & Zabutom. You should definitly check it out!

Gaspar Noe shows good form with the real opening credits for his movie enter the void.

NYC is an attempt to make the city feel foreign yet familiar, smashing together two culturally common models of space: the lo-fi overhead world maps of 1980s role-playing and adventure games, and the geographically accurate data that drives today’s web maps and GPS navigation.

http://8bitnyc.com/

The J. Arthur Keenes Band - Pamplemousse II 34

As the name suggests, The J. Arthur Keenes Band isn’t really a band. At least not by traditional definition, since it consists of one man only: 17 year old Dan McLay from Toronto, Canada. The music itself does however sound more “band like” (if that’s even a meaningful categorisation) than most other chipmusic. With guitars, vocals, and occasional melodies played by a melodica, glockenspiel or a Roland SH-09, along with the Game Boy providing drums, baselines, more melodies and beautifully programmed arpeggios, I would not criticise anyone for believing this was music performed by a full band, unless they had not been told otherwise. The traditional instruments are very well mixed together with the chip sounds, creating a lush, seductive texture. Perhaps it is sometimes a bit flat or cold sounding, though nothing your personal hi-fi can’t fix with some tiny EQ adjustments.

But what makes this release really stand out is not simply the well executed blend of chip- and non-chip instruments, because that has been done many times before by artists such as Tree Wave, David Sugar and The Depreciation Guild, but Dan McLay’s brilliance in composition and lyrics writing. It’s full of finesse, innovation and playfulness, but always with a certain sophistication and naturalness.

My favourite track on this four track EP, “Dispatch”, is so full of surprises, you can never guess what is waiting behind the next corner – only that it’ll be something good. It starts out with a distorted guitar arpeggio, and then kicks in with the Game Boy to a rocky part, which made me say “Wow!” out a loud the first time I heard it. A breakdown with a lone, slow arpeggio builds up to a heavier part with metal like guitar chords. It is followed by a guitar solo, and then the song makes a U-turn to a Caribbean like rhythm, only to be followed by a more straight up reggae beat with back beat chords and vocals. And the story doesn’t end there…

You may think it sounds like McLay lacks focus or a “red line” so to speak in his music writing. But the fact is – and this is perhaps what impresses me the most – that it all makes perfect sense when you’re listening to it. It couldn’t be any other way, I wouldn’t want it any other way. It grips you from the very first moment, and keeps you equally emotionally and intellectually stimulated all the way through.

During the Blip Festival weekend last December, I remember noticing myself quietly singing the opening lines of “Catfish Lagoon” many times: “This ain’t your home, your home”. Often someone nearby would start singing along. Or perhaps it was me singing along to someone else? I can’t really remember. The point is that The J. Arthur Keens Band had infected us with his catchy melodies and witty lyrics. And he will continue to do so, because after seeing him perform live and listening to this release over and over again, I do not think it is neither imprecise nor exaggerating to call him one of brightest rising stars in the contemporary chipmusic scene – and beyond.

Download “Pamplemousse” for free on Pause.

Xnutzi and Xnitzi, the spinof from the godzilla vs series by Bob Nimbe is back with episode 4. seems bob is going for something weekly! Tough luck for all non-swedes who can only enjoy coded vectorart with speechsynths and all that. Like a demo but still not. And alot of programmer related nerd-jokes. But who designed the new spacecraft bob? I would also like to mention that bob has because of popular demand uploaded alot of godzilla vs videos to youtube. Check it out, some real swedish demoscene history right there!

A brief history of the ST.

By ChrisTOS – This Article is taken with permission from Low Rez issue #2

I’ve received some questions about who is drawing Gem Tos, and now lately the robot cowboy on the backside of The Knife compilation, so I thought its time to write about pr0f / Comic Bakery.
First time I heard & saw Bob Nimbe aka pr0f, was on the demo party Icing 1999 in an ice hockey arena outside Gothenburg. He was on stage receiving a price, but there was confusion, since the speaker had a problem understanding who he was because of his southern Swedish accent, so he was going like “who are you? “poff”? no there are no “poff” on my list”. Well bob finally made himself clear and got his price. For a simple but lovely little animation called Ninja.

When you watch it, take notice of the sound, as you can hear that familiar and brutal late 90s demo party ambiance in the background aka “every visitors brings a minimum of 5kw of sound along” as they recorded the sound at the party. Or maybe they added that intentionally what do I know? =)

Anyway, since then, I have stumbled upon prof on practically every southern Swedish demo party I ever visited and always enjoyed his series of godzilla animations. godzilla visiting various Swedish demo parties to ravage rape and kill, or well, sit down on it, somehow it feels abit inspired by Tove Janssons character Morran, or I might just be tripping. Anyway i’ve always seen him as one of the most talented graphists to come out of the Swedish demo scene. But for some reason he dont like to put portfolios online that could help me prove that to you._.

Bob Himself wandering the Gothenburg suburbs?

Another character, or a pair actually, was introduced in one of the godzilla movies, which made godzilla himself more like a side character than the main event (like rising up from Sävelången to trash The Feeling 2000 just to get stopped by bob himself turning manga on him, or was that 1999 too?) and that is two small warezsucking aliens flying around in dead space with a spaceship equiped with a Commodore 1338: Xnitzy && Xnutzi. And those two have now, thanks to bob of course, got their own frequent show on Apan Bepan. So here they are. Xnitzy && Xnutzi

Xnitzy && Xnutzi episode 1
Xnitzi && Xnutzi episode 2
Xnitzi && Xnutzi episode 3

And thanks for reading!

Glomag - Roland + The Lamprey 8bitpeoples 103

Glomag aka Chris Burke has been active on the chip music scene since 2001, very active that is because we have been seeing him a lot. Quality wise, he has always been above the majority of the US Chip scene, even though that ain’t too hard there are a lot of Glomag songs on my chip music play lists. All of his music that I have heard has been made with Nanoloop or LSDj, but what makes Glomag stand out among the his fellow oldies in the US scene is that working on Gameboy hasn’t limited his style of music as most other Gameboy users. Its lacks the monotony and repetivity that I’m so bored of and! it has often got vocals, and even though they are not always good, they are still very welcome since that’s what most chip music lacks. Despite all these good points, Glomag has been keeping a very even quality, and the negative side of this is that I have never heard any Glomag song that really stands out and stays in my head. At Least none of his own compositions since his Kraftwerk cover, Pocket Calculator, was a real masterpiece. But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying Furious Clubfoot or Oye Como Va whenever I hear it.

So for his latest release, I was excited. The album cover art is the best I have seen on 8bp for a long long while, kudos to minusbaby for some great work done. The EP starts of, just like his last 8bp release,  with a cover of Ennio Morricone (Ecstacy of Gold). Might be a cliché choice you think? But hells no! This one is very well performed and has a guitar! Ever since Machinae Supremacy I have been convinced that the best two elements to go with chip music is vocals and electric guitars and this simply another proof of that. The next song is another one of those well composed glomag songs but not much more than that… Glomag has a thing for making his Gameboy sound better than others though, sound wise. I dont know if that’s a result of post production or if his Gameboy is simply better than average, but I wish more Gameboy tracks would have this sound. Even those horrible LSDj sample kits sounds good in track 3, which is a pretty Depeche Mode-esque song with not-that-superb lyrics that might’ve benefited from a little more volume. Track 4 is an average to good breakbeat track, but if I was glomag I would’ve let bitshifter handle this style. Thats not to be harsh on the song but Bitshifter has already monopolised this style, especially on the gameboy, till the point where after 5 seconds I thought my playlist had shuffled.
The best song by far on the release is track number 5, and I think I can go so so far as to say that this is the best Glomag song I’ve ever heard. Superb dark dance friendly chip music at its best and with great vocals. This track is definitely something for my DJ-sets and I hope to see some remixes of this in the future!

Conclusion, a very good Glomag release, I cant really decide if it’s my favourite one but will always be the one I remember the most thanks to Disco Nostromo. I hope to see a lot more from Glomag very soon. And more guitars please!

M.Echant for dataairlines.net

01 The Ecstasy of Gold
02 Roland & The Lamprey
03 Bad Therapy
04 Ice Me Nine
05 Disco Nostromo
06 Fan Service