This one is a scenic soundscape, a canvas painted with old tools, vintage equipment employed in the creation of something new and something beautiful, something that summons an elsewhere. In the description of the track on SoundCloud musicmaker and creator of this particular track – the descriptively titled 'how to fix an IBM fax machine instructional guide 1996' – downstate wrote: "I made this with the drum sounds from a dying roland jv30 and the korg M1 digital synthesizer." At points it's like breakcore made with an old drum machine, which in fact might be exactly what it is, with the percussive clacks and metallic zings zipping and trilling with glitch intensity and wheezing retro quality.
There is that newness to it, painted with old brushes and old paint. But then there is this golden-age sound to it, and it probably has a lot to do with the warmth of this, the analogue warmth in the thick chords that bubble in their slow singular refrains, as much as it has to do with the quite literally gleaming melodies that ache and twinkle zither-like above. And in this classic sound is perhaps an inherent leaning towards cinematic, scene-setting, VGM-style (thinking Earthbound, Streets of Rage, for instance), the expansive, exploratory feel of it. downstate also mentions that they probably "could have cut the hiss from the broken keyboard but i like it sounding like shit its authentic." But that hiss, that decayed grey noise hovering throughout, does indeed add to it, does add authenticity, gives it the swathing static of ages gone by as a backdrop.
- π You can download all and any of Downstate's tracks from this Wordpress that they've set up as an archive.
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