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