Data Airlines is pleased to announce our first trans-Atlantic route today. DATA011. MisfitChris is the first US musician to resident with Data Airlines and his debut EP ‘Fake Bit’ includes three chipelectrohouse hits and one Dubmood Remix. Be the first to travel with your favourite chipmusic airliner across the Atlantic. Tickets avalible on Amazon and Itunes and will very soon be available for online streaming on last.fm, deezer & spotify, just follow the links. Have a nice trip.

MisfitChris – Fake Bit (DATA011) Preview Snippets

Finally its out. Data Airlines 009. Transregional des pyrenees. Gameboy electro house composed with LSDj by Dubmood in 2007 re-edited and re-released in 2009 and just like the case with British Rail, Sveriges Järnvägar or the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, heavily delayed until 2010 by reasons force majeur. We are sorry for that but at least its out. Including remixes by Facteur, Fred Berthet and Goto80!  At the moment you can get it at Amazon, Itunes and Last.fm but it will soon be online at spotify, deezer and beatport (just follow the links). Again, we are very sorry for the long delay and stayed tune for the upcoming misfitchris release!

You remember the amigacrew Uprough!  which I’ve mentioned on this blog?  Said group organised a demoparty in Göteborg last week called DataStorm2010. A few weeks earlier I got an email from Louie / TBL asking if I could supply him with music for a C64 demo due to datastorm that he was working on together with Pantaloon / Fairlight.  I know I’m Razor 1911 but old rivalry gets boring (and I already broke that rule by making a chip-coop with Bliss / Fairlight on Hype2003). So that was never a problem.

The problem was rather that I never made a SID in my life since  i’m all about Atari. So I gave Zabutom a call and due to lack of time we decided to do a remake of my old gameboy electro house tune from 2007 called C’etait mieux en RDA (wich is a mix of Sector 1A to 1D on album with said name).  I re-tracked the song with FTII using c64 limitations, or well more or less, and gave it to zabutom who got killer sid skills. He then recomposed the whole thing on commodore and gave it some zabutom touch in the process and the result got lovely. Honestly Zabutom I never heard such a nice SID basedrum in my life of work (and if I have I don’t know where I heard it!)

And the demo? Kickass as expected with such a great lineup as louie and pantaloon.

all Datastorm 2010 released are available for free download here

As with my live from Stockholm in 2008, I decided to share a series of extracts of live-sets recorded over the years, starting with my blipfestival concert in Brooklyn 2008 recorded by the friendly guys over at 2 player productions.

Ain’t that easy to make a setlist for this one though. It start of with a remix of Ym2149 sexy thing from 2002, then a dubmood vs facteur remix on Kraftwerks Heimcomputer. Third song is an extended version of Oai Star – Sature Part 1. Then it gets into some random mishmash of chipcovers of soulwax, several parts of the Sektor songs on C’etait mieux en RDA, Gem Tos – Sunnyvale, Voices from Samel L Session, a remix of my gameboyremix of The Knifes Silent shout, a mashup of a mr oizo track, back to The Knife and off with a very edited and remixed Toffelskater, its actually a mashup of 3 different remixes.  Confused? Me too and then I havnt even mentioned the bugs and lags during the set since I had computerproblems. =) But I hope someone will like this anyway!

Download here click click click

Signal FAIL, If I remember someone poured a beer on the VJ-computer and TheCmen had to hop in and save the ship.

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.

On the internet there is a guy named Wolfgang who got the idea to construct a fully functional Atari STe. What I get from the projects web-site is that his intention is also to comercialise it. So If I have got this right, he is using a FPGA to emulate all chips (yes including the ym2149) like the 68k cpu and the blitter and dma chips on a circuitboard and its running emuTOS. Its all opensource too. So yeah practically an open source atariSTe. At the moment it is not that priceworthy though since it costs about half of what a real STe would have cost back in the days, and about 5 times what it would cost today. But still, look at this cute little version of the motherboard. Suska III-T. It has:

• 128MB DDR RAM.
• 32MB Flash PROM.
• 2 Micro SD-Card plugs
• Soundsystem with an audio codec.
• RTC.
• Radio chip.
• Connector for a LCD panel.
• Touchpanel ready.
• Extension plug for the FPGA board.

We will follow this project with great interest yes sirs.

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!

Here you are, the latest Data Airlines release is something we have been working on for quite a while. A compilation of chip covers/remixes of The Knife Songs. For you who don’t know The Knife, its an electronic music duo, Karin and Olof Dreijer,  from Gothenburg Sweden who has been around since the beginning of 2000 and has had quite an important influence on later Swedish electronic music. Its been on our mind to do this compilation for some time but we though of inviting some friends over to add some adversity to it.  Most of them have been seen here on Data Airlines before and the majority of them are from the demo scene.  We are very pleased to announce the comeback of Zalza (Rebels^Tequila) and Per Almered aka Excellence in Art (XiA) on the chip music scene since their music has been very important and inspiring for allot of us in the past. We would also like to re thank Fr0st from the amiga crew Tulou and pr0f / comic bakery for the cover-art. This release is free for you to listen to and spread on the Internet as much as you want and we hope you like it. Oh, and the download link is here. click click! click!!

Download Data Airlines – The Knife (DATA013)

Maskinoperatör – The Captain
Zabutom – Bird
Paza Rahm – Girls night out
Random – Like a Pen
Syphus – Heartbeats
Interlude
Gem Tos – Marble House
Zalza – We Share Our Mothers Health
Excellence In Art – Handy Man
Misfitchris – Na Na Na
Dubmood – Silent Shout