Thursday, March 15, 2007

MAKING ART FROM MARIO KART



Sabrepulse

Famicom Connection
Storm Raid Battle

Call it what you will, Nintendo-Core, Str8-Bit, IDM, that-Annoying-Game-Boy-Music... I certainly won't insist upon any genre names. If you want to know what these songs sounds like, think a game of Tetris where instead of rearranging the blocks with your thumbs you do it with your feet, like on those Karaoke-Style Choreography-Dance Machines that you get down at your nearest arcade. Then add in a few samples that wouldn't be out of place of Streetfighter or Mario (think: the Princess scenes), and you've pretty much got it. Stupid, fun, and addictive. Harking back to a more innocent age where the biggest problem in your life was completing that fucking difficult level on Zelda, unlocking all the extra tracks in Diddy Kong Racing, winning the world cup in International Superstar Soccer, or getting beat every! single!! time!!! you played multiplayer Goldeneye with your brother.



Colonopenbracket

Twin Chevron Action Flash
-->->-@ (Cute)

Colonopenbracket or :( take this electronic whiz-kid music and use it to their own ends. Using their own voices instead of samples, they create their own songs full of adolescent worries and a pervading sense of fun. Emo-core? If core means using those bleeps that old computers used to emit when you pressed a key for too long, then yes! because it contains sounds like - and inspired by - those silly noises, and the vocals are so often emo in their nature, yet irresistable. "You're not the cutest guy in here!"



Sabrepulse + Colonopenbracket

Colonopenbracket - Twin Chevron Action Flash (Sabrepulse Remix)

This one seems to have been arranged by a child, fascinated by incomprehensible language, and so instead choosing to rearrange and play with vowel sounds to get the meaning across. And yet, some of it seems so genuinely sincere - too young to know how to lie! The track consists of electronic beeps inspired by too much time playing arcade machines and the sense of wonder reminiscent of spending many a long night down at the bowling alley trying to win a quid on the two-pence machine and then... finally!... just at the end of the night, hitting the jackpot! A whole two pounds and thirty-four pence! Life was so simple once (for the fortunate, anyway), and we should always be reminded of this.

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Colonopenbracket are currently touring the UK, check out dates here.
Sabrepulse will apparently be moving away from 8 bit in the near future.
To buy things, go to their websites.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woah its so strange seeing :( in blogs...I'm so used to seeing Mart et al at gigs in Aberdeen I just think of them as a local band. Good on them though

Anonymous said...

Love :(

Thanx for the remix, I didnt have it!

rulesforhouses said...

the lyrics are actually "you know, i'm the cutest guy in here". i thought the same until i was corrected by the band.

:( have good music but the singer is awful, and pretty stupid live act, they'd may aswell lip sync all there songs because they pretty much fake the whole instrument part, one of the worst bands/singer i've seen live, they're only going to be a small flash in a miniture pan.

good if your a "hip" 14 year old emo kid, annoying if you are a little more mature.