Every once and a while I search ‘knoxburry’ in soulseek to see how accessible I am in that network.  I was pleasantly surprised to see my track from this compilation show up!  It meant that it was finally released!!

The official release page is here.  But I found spam on forums first when googling for the damn thing.  We’ve got some reviews on WATMM and xltronic and overall they are positive.  I’ve known for a long time that IDM/breakcore enthusiasts often don’t enjoy chipmusic even though there are many artists who jump back and forth between these mediums.

My track is ‘alberto balsalm’ and I am not totally satisfied with my effort.  There is a section of the song I just could not get the chords right no matter what I tried.  But that’s ok, I suppose.  I did my best to catch the essence of the song and the rhythm is spot on.  I substituted the wooden chair squeak with the Legend of Zelda’s “the dungeon boss is in the next room” sound.

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Here are a couple things said at WATMM —

Yeah, somebody said they didn’t like the Alberto Basalm but that’s one of my favorites because it’s so fucked up and authentic. I hate how most 8-Bit is “simulated” and then what’s the point? You’re not fooling anyone because you’re doing things that exceed the capacities of a SID chip. You have to admit that the percussion breakdown is the tits because it’s so metapharstic. But that huge, blat of a minor chord does not belong at all lol–makes it sound like Castlevania

I disagree. Doesn’t matter if it exceeds the capacity of an SID chip. Its all about the sound that it produces. I have no interest in what hardware/software they’re using. Its all about that squarewave sound :spiteful:

And, so, you can see that these Aphex Twin fans don’t know the difference between the Commodore 64 SID chip and an NES with a VRC6 expansion (what I used). Of course you can’t expect people who are :spiteful: against simple square waves to know the difference. Comments on chiptune forums like chipmusic.org and 8bitcollective.com don’t even touch what systems or methods were used.  What I don’t get is why Aphex Twin lovers won’t allow themselves to enjoy such a tribute with his early history of frankenstein hardware.  How is programming antique hardware that different?

Much respect to Emar for organizing and hosting this compilation!

Download 126mb .ZIP here