💿 LINDSAY LOWEND — LL 2020 - VOLUME 1

⌾ LISTEN TO LINDSAY LOWEND, LL 2020 - VOLUME 1 EP ⌾

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Back in 2013, Lindsay Lowend released an incredible collection of music: the Wind Fish EP. It popped with energy, combining hyperactive dopamine-firing electronics and footwork-flavoured beats with videogame music for an unforgettable sound. With the added bonus of being, in title at least, inspired by a unique Zelda title (Game Boy bop Link's Awakening, of course), Lindsay Lowend set a bar of quality for early '10s internet music.

And then he was gone — sort of. Lindsay Lowend maintained an output of a few sporadic tracks from then on, and even an album under his actual name, Antonio Mendez — 2018's Highland Drive.

Meanwhile, the Wind Fish EP, and its creator, drifted into legend.

- But now like Link himself in a legend retold, Lowend has risen and released LL 2020 - Volume 1 into the world: a 3-track EP that enlists the help of fellow VGM-leaning musicmaker Maxo.

Beginning with a dose of chiptune, 'NBA LIVE 99' shares the funk-meets-jazz club vibe of its namesake's soundtrack (check out the NBA Live 99 menu music, for starters) but keeps it strictly 16-bit. The bass fuzz and staccato beat, stuttering melodies and glittery top notes carve a territory somewhere between Streets of Rage and an off-duty Sonic the Hedghog, moving into a second half beset with hefty chords and fluid neon melody. It's a party.

In 'should my pet be eating that' (lol), the sound morphs into something more contemporary, plasma chords clacking with wonky sheen — similar to the spacey vibe of the 'Wi-Fi Menu' theme in Mario Kart Wii and the stark, soft-and-sharp intro to Dizzee Rascal's 'Sittin' Here'. It presses on, driven by a robust D&B-flavoured beat (a passage of skiffling breakbeat dropped in for good measure), the warm melodica-esque chords and a woozy virtuosic melody painting a the by-the-sea vibe.

'Permabanned' (again: lol) finishes things up beautifully. Like admiring a sunset with new pals on Animal Crossing, this is Lowend's effervescent collab with Maxo, streaks of melody like sun sparkling on water playing over a chord progression that K.K. Slider would be proud of: lounge-y, emotive and dipping into pools of chill, snippets of real-life birdsong peal between the instrumental (it's not his first foray into foley, going by this Breath of the Wild redub) — a trickle of reality from your window. An echo, maybe, of Wind Fish title track with its crashing waves and beeping seagulls.

The first multi-track release from Lindsay Lowend in years may be short, but it hits the spot: pure chiptune, VGM-style atmospheres, variegated beats, a lush environment. And if you're left wanting more, that's ok: LL 2020 - Volume 1 is just the beginning.

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• 🔔 You can listen to and purchase ($1, or more if you're feeling generous) Lindsay Lowend's LL 2020 - Volume 1 over on his Bandcamp.

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☟ Lindsay Lowend Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 EAUXMAR & CAIUS — HURT U

⌾ LISTEN TO HURT U BY EAUXMAR & CAIUS ⌾

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It's the far-off vocal sample in 'Hurt U' that gives it a sense of instant feeling; stretched, pitch-shifted and flung into the distance, this scratchy, soulful voice gives the track its name. Partway between hearing somebody sing in the shower and listening to bootleg MP3 of your fav new pop song, the sample is all love and reminiscence—sometimes close to your ear, sometimes a ghostly recolletion.

Teaming up for this number, Caius and EAUXMAR lay warm classic chords on a bed of thick, clarified bass, seasoning it with sparkling ornamentations and gooey plasma synth. Layering the dusty grandeur of old-school funk and futurist glitter, it shifts between classic house piano desire lines and the robust fizz of mechanical bass with sweeps of chiptune sensibility. The aural equivalent to a mouthful of tangy, wholesome food, the production on 'Hurt U' is deliciously stodgy and packed full of textures.

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• 🔔 'Hurt U' by EAUXMAR and Caius is out now on STMPD RCRDS.

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☟ EAUXMAR Internet Presence ☟
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☟ Caius Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 MATT SOKOL — THE ART FACTORY [初演 • PREMIERE]

There is a great deal of urgency in Matt Sokol's 'the art factory', a track brimming kinetic energy courtesy of collusion between breakneck drums and earthy handfuls of synth arranged in robust arpeggios. Melodies cry out in its first half like little robots communicating brightly with chirruping bleeps-n-bloops, evoking the scene assumed by its enigmatic title: an art factory, where art is made; the sound is industrious, cheerful, with dips of intrigue and doom effusing from a couple of key changes within the first minute. Who are these robots on the production line? For whom is this art being made? We wonder.

Talking to us about the track, Matt Sokol – a drummer himself as well as producer – explains the hyperactive beats: "My love for drums and youthful obsession with math rock drumming means I can't help it," he writes in an email to us, "so many of my beats are crazy fast, flying all over the place."

'the art factory' goes through not only key changes, but whole stylistic shifts. At 1:14 the arpeggio falls away leaving a naked footwork beat thumping beneath a new set of spooky, gleaming synths, chiptune-esque (the VGM sound is "ultimately a coincidence" however), signalling a darker twist behind this art factory, a growling crunch of distortion raging till its crescendo at 1:46 summons an overwhelming sinister tone; look at the artwork—is that blood trailing from what we assume is the factory? The track ends with calm and steady beat, gentle guitar riff, with chilled sweeps of the strings—things are back to normal. It is a multifaceted offering. These are more than superficial changes, however, and are reflective of a thought process.

"I think my mind moves faster than average, both in good and bad ways," Sokol tells us. "I can think fast but also sometimes I can think too fast and go down crazy intellectual pathways in my mind that are not useful."

"With music it seems like that aspect of my personality comes out in overdrive."

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• 🔔 'the art factory' will be released as a standalone single on 19th January.
• 🔔 Matt Sokol's debut EP bloomer was released in October last year and you can listen to and purchase it over on his Bandcamp.

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☟ Matt Sokol Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 NELWARD — ALIVE IN SCREEN EP [初演 • PREMIERE]

From the first glitching funk of Alive In Screen by netlabel DESKPOP associate Nelward, the rattling fuzzed-out chiptune, is an indication of what's to come. It's theatrical, it's marinated in videogame sensibilities and grilled over coals of groove, summoned by textured bristling beats and found-sound lusciousness. What hits you next in opener 'brain dance' is the melodic motif in its intro: big guitars play this sweeping chromatic introductory statement, grandeur and compartmentalised mystique, as we go swaying into the track's thick synth chords, velcro beats, and more importantly somewhat the space between these sounds that itself is a motif in this otherwise brightly maximalist collection of tracks.

That same melodic motif appears later in the track, wordlessly, floatily, by featured singer Paige Williams. It also pops up as the soapy squeaky clean synth hook in EP single 'apple shampoo', slightly altered, more uptempo, but noticeably there. Later we find it at work in final track 'toy world', a Mario Galaxy-themed environment with a collage of percussion—drip-droplets, insectoid hi-hats, clattering wood, water streaming, marimba. Here the motif is minimally orchestral at the beginning, and in the slow-jam lounge of the second half it appears throughout, the lobby of a space hotel, glorious muzak. This instrumental ends things on a calm note, wrapping up the motif with a neat bow in a drifting, unhurried manner that gives the impression of infinitely floating.

To a lesser extent we see this utilisation of this motif in 'seafoam breeze', where the Prince-meets-playground-rhyhmes of Nelward's vocal sings "easy as 1-2-3", that same melody echoing throughout. Similarly 'the wild firmament' seems to follow that similar pattern of notes, though on a scale that it would only be recognisable to your conscious mind sped-up. This track is a heavenly interlude that sweeps in million mile waves of gentle soft synth, augmented with carefree idling whistles and occasional trills of bopping synth. Tropical, like an afternoon nap on a beach; waking up sunburnt.

'seafoam breeze', in more than just its title, has this upbeat sunny nature that summons tropicalia more than other tracks; and with its glistening lances of synth and warm vocal hook in the chorus, 'apple shampoo' ("…the only kind I've ever used") is similar, though it feels more bathroom based: like a carefree, idealised showertime, it summons suds on shining white tiles, a steaming showerhead, ending in a flurry of lather as the beat double-times and we end up in a neat outro of bubbling percussion.

We did mention Prince. Aside from this tropical-ness, there is groove infused in much of Alive In Screen, but more than this there is a combo of guitar shredding and flamboyant, often sensual vocals, the combination of which really does summon the late great pop maestro himself. 'the minus world', named for the Mario Bros. glitch, begins sounding similar to the creeping urgency of the Mysterious Forest theme from Zelda: Link's Awakening, but goes on with Prince-esque vocals ("Thought I was done before I even began!") a similarity heightened by panting in/exhalations, mingling with its 8-bit neo-noir heist atmosphere, complete with metal guitar bridge and noodling. Again, in melody and emphasis – "You're a strawman, alright / sticks and stones won't break your bones / cause you're a strawman! Alright / la, la-la, la-la…" – the hook in 'strawman' excels in its reminiscence; in fact the whole song, its deep wobbly bass carving a sunken nocturnal groove, gloopy and sludgy with its swing rhythm, the luxury noir with crystalline chimes and atonal chords that effuse pure mystery, it's similar, it's Prince in a SNES cartridge.

Taking compositional cues from both the complexity of classically inspired videogame music and the relative simplicity of pop grooves and hooks, Nelward has incorporated two disparate worlds into one cohesive collection, crunchy textured beats punctuating all the way. Lyrically, it's fun—he speaks of "oatmeal for dinner" in 'Brain Dance', is concerned about his "eggs and toast" in 'apple shampoo' (let alone that song's chorus), and begins 'the minus world' with a line about being in the zone where buffalos roam, amongst other delightful lines, aligning with carefree throughout. There is a clear influence from videogames, owing to chiptune sensibilities – most noticeably in the bitcrushed beat of 'the minus world' – and the general feel, such as the vibe of 'the wild firmament' (see Cosmic Cove Galaxy theme from Super Mario Galaxy 2), the cinematic intro to 'Brain Dance', scene-setting flavours throughout; even the name, Alive In Screen, suggests this.

More than that, the title summarises: in its entirety, Nelward's EP is the interests of a person with their mind rooted in imagination (…In Screen), but which does not stop at introspection and branches into reality (Alive…) with guitars 'n' groove and the vocals of a real-life person aplenty, these two sides joined not only with comprehensive composition and construction, but with that persistent motif bookended by the first and last track. It threads through for seamless relation between each track, and in its repetition and refraining it creates a sense of instant classic, something to be remembered, the grail of pop.

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• 🔔 Nelward's Alive In Screen EP is released tomorrow, 22nd November, courtesy of DESKPOP. You can pre-order, and order tomorrow and thenceforth, from Bandcamp for a paltry $4—or more if you choose using this hyperlink.
• 🔔 Accompanying Alive In Screen is the created by artist brainfoam. The bubbly lo-fi saturation and pastel flavours of the artwork match with the carefree and imaginative feeling in the EP—not to mention the Saved By The Bell abstract shapes highlighting the friendly, accessible nature of the music. Features a pre-banana Nelward, which makes sense given the mention of food in some of the lyrics; dressed normally, only as somebody who can write a song about the type of shampoo they use in the shower should be.

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☟ Nelward Internet Presence ☟
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💿 MAXO — SKYRISER

Remember the Nintendo WFC music from Mario Kart Wii? The opening of 'Dependent' on Maxo's very recent Skyriser EP recalls this. There are the spacey synths, the stuttering drums, the feeling of restrained ecstasy that a person feels as they do something immensely exciting controlled by their thumbs and contained within a screen. Ultimately there is no actual wind rushing through your hair, no real monstrous tortoise shells rifling at your head. It's even better: it's in another world. And to add to that already beguiling prospect there is this hyperactive, highly kinetic sound, just to ensure you get the message that this is escapist fun.

Similar cool, breezy synths run through 'Tears In The Wind' with their alien modulation. Starry melodies plink gently across this carpet of percussive electronic activity, leaving behind a trail of stardust reverb. There is also a touch of Earthbound in how the synth chords are muffled at times, how they sometimes seem atonal, and in the rhythm with which they hit your ears, a similar modulation and fuzzy feeling that's in the 'Battle Against a Machine' theme.

Clearly VGM, videogame music, is an influence. But alongside this, infused with it, is an almost outlandish experimentalism, which results at all times in bold dynamic eruptions. The overall intensity of 'Tears In The Wind', for instance, how buzzes abrasively, its bass scowling and gonna-blow, how the chords at times (e.g. around 2:39) chromatise with rapid ascension through semitones, and how cuts in the music itself create these sudden jumps through negative space, literally startling your brain as it attempts to react (0:58); similarly at 0:29 in 'Dependent' the unexpected rush of space into ears is then counteracted with stumbling staccato sound. There's the unforeseen switch in 'Kite' from intense rainbow synths to playroom xylophones (1:05), plus its mad wobbling sounds from about 1:55. Or simply the chord progression itself in 'Grow Wings', a beacon of composition with its breakcore beats, glitching electronics and smooth subtle and sparingly used vocal samples. Dynamics, knowing how to play with sound as much as when to create an absence of it for maximum effect, seems to be a Maxo forte.

Little details like these hide away in the Skyriser tracks like Easter eggs, giving each one a high replay value. The album opener and also its certified most-cute 'Plushlined' is a good example of these small parts both making up the whole and being exceptionally enjoyable on their own—the way it starts with this World 1-1 ease and freshness, the plinking melody, the hyper marching band drums, the luscious fingerclicks, snippets of birdsong, rapidly arpeggiating bleeps, airplane sounds, two or three different vocal samples, then the wonky Earthbound-esque synth chords. And that's just the intro. It's intentionally maximalist and bristling with numerous elements without ever seeming overly busy, each one placed precisely whilst retaining a carefree haphazard quality.

But aside from the tiny details there is an overarching theme, or at least seems to be. We begin with cute and happy, then it gets spacey and far-flung, then a bit more serious in the fluffy threats of 'Tears In The Wind', then downright dark at the start of 'Grow Wings' with its brooding vibe in the bulging synth bass and scuttling heavy half-speed beat, before making an intense volta around the midpoint of that track, and going into 'Kite', which begins as a resolution – with vocals presumably from Maxo himself gently crooning over hard beats and that plonking tuned percussion, a concluding sort of track sounding like sunlight glinting on raindrops left after a storm still with dark grey clouds rolling away to reveal endless blue – and which ends as triumphal pogosticking disco.

Indeed the track's titles suggest this sonic storyline, too: 'Plushlined'—well, it conjures cuteness, comfort. 'Dependent' has somewhat negative connotations, especially regarding drugs or even a dependency on people. 'Tears In The Wind', well it's almost self-explanatory: tears are sad enough, but when they are whipped away by the wind, so that even nature finds your sadness ill-fitting, it has even more lonely, repressive symbolism. 'Grow Wings', like the track itself, sounds like a kind of volta, a change—or there is a desire to change there, to view a situation from further away, from a more objective viewpoint than on the ground, figuratively speaking; or perhaps it is a desire for escapist wish-fulfilment, to grow wings, to gain a superpower. And then 'Kite'. Kites are simple, fun, associated with childhood wonder not-a-care-in-the-world-ness in this non-committal stage of life. Another meaning is of a bird, also called a kite: birds mean freedom, escape.

Thus in Skyriser, even in the title itself we have the point of the EP, the story: from start to finish, from ground to sky, our central character is happy and fine, experiences attachment and then rejection, wanders lonely and sad, somehow grows wings and ascends into the sky.

The EP comes with three remixes, essentially different tracks rather than recognisable reworkings. Two are of 'Grow Wings'—Tomggg flips it into a virtuosic tumble of bleeping sounds, uptempo skittering dopamine-firing electronic melodies and low bassy booms; on the other hand TREKKIE TRAX-affiliated producer Carpainter turns the track into a frenzy of happy hardcore. The other remix is TORIENA, who puts a breakcore-flavoured spin on 'Tears In The Wind' with glitched-out chiptune sensibilities. These are stylistically likeminded artists, ones who help with the colour palette of Skyriser even further, adding to its moodboard of high-powered fun: absolutely this is dance music that eschews lyrics and formulae for imagination and free association, swaps populism for poptacular, paints a fresh nightclub – if only in our headphones, in our bedrooms – for nerds and internet people and gamers and creatives and for anybody else who wants to be taken elsewhere by music.

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• 🔔 Maxo's Skyriser EP was released on 11th October by Japan-located label TREKKIE TRAX. You may purchase the EP by clicking this hyperlink and subsequently deciding exactly which service you would like to use in order to do so.
• 🔔 The artwork for Skyriser was created by visual artist and also musicmaker Yung Slav. It features Maxo's musicmaking logo – the interlocked cubes – hurtling into a splash of crystalline aquamarine liquid. There's a lot of kineticism and fluidity in the visuals, reflecting the movement and natural, effortless flow of the compositions on the EP; or else, in opposition to the EP's title, the logo, textured smoothly rocky like an asteroid, falls towards the Earth. Perhaps that is the silent, visual beginning of Skyriser, and after this comes 'Plushlined' which sonically describes the newly-arrived-on-Earth creature whose story we subsequently follow.

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☟ Maxo Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 DUCKY — WHAT U SAY

To find a sort of absolutism for sounds and styles of sounds in the music world today is something of a rare thing. Genres have become so fluid and superfluous a notion that, instead of being rallied around and defining a fanbase, they are treated more like palettes, or moodboards, and can be blended in new ways according the artists' desires. And so it is with musicmaker DUCKY. In particular 'What U Say' is a cocktail of chiptune, VGM, dubstep, pop, footwork, drum and bass, an experimental track, as many tracks that make their way into the pages of yes/no tend to be; gone is the label of 'experimental' as mere code for 'abstract' or 'unlistenable', experimental is vibrant and fresh and very online.

But to say that is to discredit the clear leaning towards, or rather the roots in, rave and specifically dubstep and the combination of sweet upbeatness – euphoria – and hard, noisy, quite dark manifestations that loom in both. 'What U Say' begins something like a track from SNES racer Top Gear, triumphal synths blaring overdriven abrasive, pulsing bass bobbling with excitement. It builds, handclaps taking us to the apex from where we plummet into grinding squelching synth and a punchy thudding beat. Vocodered vocals skip like a robotic sirensong. A small bridge where marimba-like chimes resound darkly amidst warm crackles and ominous tides of sub-bass gloop. And at breakneck speed: rapid kicks take us back into the chaos of neon bubblegum high-end melodies and scraping searing synth that storms with the beat.

Delicately, that chiming once more in earshot, DUCKY's track ends. And you realise, despite the squalling dubstep sounds at work, despite the familiar rhythms, it is alive with freshness, with emotivity, illustrating chaos and calm like an electronic symphony.

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• 🔔 The wonderful 'What U Say' is track number 3 on LA-based DUCKY's new EP I Fall In Love With Everyone I Meet, which you can stream and download variously here.

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☟ DUCKY Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 AESAIRE — CHROMATIC CANOPIES [初演 • PREMIERE]

A slice of music toasted and spread with a sweet combo of videogame music and carefree swing, Aesaire's track takes us into a shuffling world of fourth level fun, the sort of music that doesn't denote the easier levels of a game but something a few stages on, you know, but not the hard levels. What first sprang to mind was Dynamite Headdy, sort of like this, but more the atmosphere it effuses, the way it visually builds grass-topped 16-bit platforms and robot enemies as it bounces along. The syncopated melodies weave with the jabbing chords that stutter between the wide swing of the kick-snare dynamic, the dreamier soft choral haze that flutters upwards for extra breeziness in the already breezy quite jazzy chiptune-flavoured 'Chromatic Canopies'.

Indeed its feeling of playfulness is a direct effect of the music theory elements behind the track, "swing rhythms and chromaticism," as Aesaire tells us. Basically a free-for-all of any notes rather than those of a particular key, chromaticism literally adds colour—and the colour at work in this track comes foremost from the bleepsome melodies that appear to dance around the other bassier notes and the chords, and from the more rhythmic sections themselves, too. It's like a hop, skip and a jump, a spring in a step, setting off on the right foot and various other light, optimistic cliches for the beginning of this music project, as well as a brazen reminder of the importance and influence of videogame music in the current landscape of the electronic music world.

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• 🔔 This is only the beginning, so keep your eye on Aesaire's SoundCloud.

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☟ Aesaire Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 LINDSAY LOWEND – DOWNTOWN MANNEQUIN

Painting a fun but altogether chilling atmosphere with this smart uptempo tune is musicmaking maestro (officially composer and sound designer) Lindsay Lowend. 'Downtown Mannequin' combines clever composition with various instruments and a driving disco feel, not only allowing you to skim on its surface as if it were a videogame soundtrack – not unlike Lowend, what with his 2013 VGM-inspired Wind Fish EP, and much SoundCloud output since then – but also allowing a deeper experience for the cavernous imagination.

Popping boppity beeps provide their subtle jolts throughout, these staccato patterns bouncing along from start to finish, the pixel canvas on which is strewn moody synth strings and atonal chords like shimmering shards of light striking here and there, muted lightning, and icy sparkling notes played in exotic scales. Later a crazed march of acidy synth joins in, squelching and whipping along with the skitter of the beat: it all feels like the frenzy of shopping.

Yes combined with the title, this track with its frosty yet happy-go-lucky physique, its excited but frenetic ticking percussion, presents the clean lines chrome and glass sheen of a high-end future shopping experience, the frantic bustle of shoppers, the gleam of expensive new items on display and out of reach, overwhelming. And how some sounds jar and jut out, subtle sideswipes at the expected tinny emptiness of the track—the mind assaulted the sensory overload; and how the string parts, soft and sensitive, play bravely in the whirl of confusion. Modern day consumerism with the gloss of superficiality draped over true troubled feelings boiling below.

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• 'Downtown Mannequin' does not appear to be part of any release, but like almost all of Lindsay Lowend's music it can be downloaded for free. You will also notice that comments are disabled and numbers of likes/plays are hidden for pretty much all his tracks.
• You should also check out LL's Vimeo, where musicmaking meets the wholly practicable art-science of sound design under his real name, Tony Mendez.

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☟ Lindsay Lowend Internet Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Twitter • Vimeo

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MUHROCHKA – TEARS THAT LED TO OUR END

'Tears that led to our end'. It's a very sad title, a six-word micro-story that tells you everything you need to know: there was sadness – hence the tears – and there was an ending of what we can assume was a relationship. Instantly there's a snapshot of long talks, grey skies, the dullness of the world from the perspective of the speaker, the impending doom of it all, the hours stretched out ahead in unending fathoms of solitude.

Very melodramatic, I know I know, but that's how it feels – and that's just going from the title of this track by Muhrochka. It's difficult to get much information about this guy, but we can abduce that he's from Russia somewhere, thanks to a link (albeit not working) to a profile on VK, which is basically Russia's Facebook. 'Tears that led to our end' is eight months old but it's of no consequence: the track sounds how it sounds regardless of time.

So what does it actually sound like? It's chiptuney, that's for sure – "fakebit" as it's been tagged. To a flailing set of hi-hats, marshy snares and pulsing kicks, a muffled tide of droning, damaged synth sounds judders in a fuzzy whirlwind: an immediate landscape of hardy metallic greyscale, dark teal waves cresting and crashing in a storm of static. Decaying clusters of bleeps play fluid notes over the top, alternating with sparse and plaintive booping sounds soaring in the bright murk of it all, like a brave face in the wake of anguish.

Melancholy, gloomy, introspective – these words would all fit Muhrochka's song, but there's something other than that, something vital about the track, something alive and beating at its core. Though it spins a sad orbit in your mind, this song is by no means downbeat – as much as it charts an unchangeable series of events, it also serves as a record of courageous acceptance, an illustration of hope.

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☟ Muhrochka Social Media Presence ☟
YouTube • Last.fm Bandcamp

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UJICO* – SUMMERTIME MEMORIES

It's house music. But it's house music with a difference. It's electro-house music. And not just any old electro-house music, but... well, not every bite of electro-house I take tastes as delicious as the atmosphere given off in the Casino Night Zone from Sonic II; no, it's not every day that the electronic claque of French-touch feeling house gets mixed with chiptune-flavoured VGM-inspired music, as has happened here, but it's always a better day when something like this is discovered.

Something like what? Something like 'Summertime Memories' by musicmaker Ujico* (with asterisk, that's no typo). IRL name, Keitaro Ujiie, he's an 18-year-old producer from Tokyo who also makes music under the name Snail's House, under which moniker he has previously released an EP called Kirara for Japan-based label Trekkie Trax (associated with other dance-based artists like Carpainter, who's also counted as a founder of the label). 'Summertime Memories' is a two-week old track that first, if you have any penchant for anime aesthetics, lures you in with its artwork, and then sucker punches you right in the groove bone with an explosive dab of HOUSE. And it's a free download: double win.

It'd be unfair to call this entirely house, though. Even though the kicks thud and the hi-hats skitter intricately along with the best of 'em, even though its snares boom with simmering pugilism, it seems (after first listen at least) to have more in common with future funk than straight house. Why? Because of the pulsing feel of is continual beat, the ebb-and-flow of sidechained sounds that punctuate future funk jams the world over. Admittedly, however, this style does feel as though it derives from French-touch house anyway, so what am I saying?

Added to this booming feel-good rhythm are stuttering synth chords, bold melody lines bleeping with chiptune aesthetics, saw-wave synth bass, the constant plink of a rhythmic boop, chopped and garbled vocal samples, all of it never jostling for space but running concurrent to each other with fugue-like complexity. It's urgent and dirty, summing up the humidity and bustling joy of summertime in just under four minutes of irrepressible groove, and therefore deserving of the description given by its maker on SoundCloud: 夏に向けたエレクトロなチューンです! ("This is the electro tune of the summer!")

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☟ Ujico* Social Media Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Twitter • YouTube

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LINDSAY LOWEND – BODY PARTY INSTRUMENTAL (SNES VERSION) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

You can pretty much always trust or at least count on Lindsay Lowend to create very good songs. That's basically a given. Yep, this is the Washington DC-based producer dropping in again with more sumptuous VGM-(videogame music if u please)-inspired music, and what's more he's made this casually whilst he's on tour in Europe. Just dropping genius joints offhand and nonchalant – it's loveable.

Using SNES soundfonts, which are basically just instruments used in SNES games, for chords played in whimsical story-telling patterns, LL offers up a new and particularly wonderful rendition of Ciara's 'Body Party'. I've been burned before for posting on Twitter about a Ciara remix that was available for free download, so there's this underlying feeling of dread as I write this. In any case, aside from the crystal clear samples of the original, this may as well be a totally new song, which it kind of is.

Crunchy 16-bit bass carves out curving tunnels beneath the totally winsome chords, nostalgically fresh, as a metronomic beat keeps time in a simple bop from kick to snare. Later on it's as if KK Slider from Animal Crossing has joined in, the bwee-bwee-bwayy-bwoo noises later on basically summoning KK from his digital plane to this earthly world, sharing the stage with Ciara, and with Lindsay on keys. An ideal fantasy line-up in the world of fantasy line-ups.

The three tags that accompany this song on SoundCloud basically sum it up: #CIARA, #SNES, #SILLY_SHIT. And even if it IS silly shit, it's some of the best silly shit I've heard – perhaps it's better just being called "a fun song." And with that, he's also being rather pioneering in the pairing of seemingly disparate styles: SNES-era sounds &... Ciara. Usually a joke song is also kiiiind of rubbish (most things by Flight of the Conchords exempt), but Lindsay Lowend is clearly a musician through and through – even though it's silly, he can't help but make it oh— so— good.

• Yeah, this is a free download (clicketh).
• PS. WHERE does that funny little "Oh…" noise in the song come from? I recognise it but I've been going crazy trying to think where it comes from. If you know please tell me. Thank you.

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MEISHI SMILE – LUST

Oh goddd this like everything else has taken ages to actually get from my ears to my brain to my fingers to the keyboard. It was released over a month ago. What is "it"? God damn— it's Meishi Smile with his debut album Lust. Yes indeed it's "The 1st Album" – there can never be another one by Meishi Smile, no no nope. This is the 1st album and it always will be.

But what is it like? Lust is essentially a mix of rough and smooth, a mix of harsh self-berating distortion and endless reverb free-floating out into the gulf of digital voids, all beset with J-pop sensibilities; it's sugar-coated white noise, it's dance music for bedroom dwellers and indoors inclined individuals, it's idealised. Within its 8 tracks, there are many moments where it soars past the boundaries of euphoria with a post-Balearic furore, too happy to be real; a gentle, dream-induced kind of EDM, not the type you'd hear in a massive tent at a festival, but the type that takes you away to weird worlds in the middle of the lonely nights.

Opener 'AJS' perhaps embodies this EDM style most clearly, keeping all the tropes of the so-called genre – like multiple drops and trance-like melodies skirling away in hookish fashion; likewise, 'Honey' drops in with octave-skipping bassline and clean-cut fast-paced synth melodies. However, here is a quirk of the album: the vocoder. There is something retro about the vocoder, yet in its very nature it IS a modern device. It is at odds with itself. But this works perfectly for Meishi Smile. The vocoder appears as a mainstay of 'Pale', which alongside its icicle-esque synth glistenings gives the track an atmosphere of coldness, of chill in the nominal sense. It's also in the chilled atmosphere of the next track, 'Still' – looping vocoders battling high-register hollow synth and wide washes of dreamy chords.

These chilled vibes start the proceedings on 'Heart', a song that moves between swaying seabed ambience and bouncing electro-dance; thick synth bass grooves in a pop mood and the vocoder seems here to be "singing" more than anywhere else. It's a song of slow and fast. That slowness, however, is portrayed so much better on the almost-surprise track 'Ai' – this one sounds like a super-reverbed and super-distorted version of the kind of slo-house synthpop that the infamous Drive soundtrack popularised with artists like College and Kavinsky (in this instance, more by the former than the latter). It reeks of nocturnal stylings, a simple melody and a steady, driving beat fogged by reverb and underpinned by formative rows of saw-wave bass jounce.

That's in direct contrast to the happy-happy pop of previous track 'Summer Blue', a foray into something maybe you'd find on a videogame – squelchy bass, simple but very effective synth raining down in showers of 8-bit bleepery with an overriding melody played by synth lead and vocoder, syncopated toytronic chords in lieu of house piano for extra oomph. This is in direct contrast to the closer and most crazy of all tracks, 'Tears'. Meishi Smile mysteriously describes it on SoundCloud: "Dedicated to the one who was lost." And indeed, in title and in its near-happy hardcore extreme distortion, this aims to reflect not the moroseness, the lassitude, of being sad, but the fury and frustration of sadness, wholly up-tempo yet down-beat, tear-like droplets of synth raining down amidst the whirlwind haze of twisted grey noise synth.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. There are remixes. KOSMO KAT keeps 'Summer Blue' close to the original, adding touches here and there – percussion, a sunset-conjuring breakdown, droplet sample – for what is 'Summer Blue V2' basically. 'Heart' retains its washes of sound, yet is given a gentle touch of officious industry by Uio Loi, and la pumpkin turns it into an almost beatless slice of bassy experimentalism with added instruments, with the original melodies picked out and spotlighted. mus.hiba does likewise with 'Pale', extracting the song from its up-tempo frame and giving it a semi-trap makeover with added 80s synth melody and waves of trance synth. My favourite, I think, is gigandect's redoing of 'Honey' – now essentially a chiptune number, completely overrun with glorious bleeps, from its low-low buzzing bass all the way up to its fluid telephonic melody.

Phew. Well, this ain't conventional dance music; Meishi Smile ain't conventional. This is dance music hazed over with influences from videogame music to shoegaze and beyond, dreams converging like clouds to rain down startling reworkings of various recollections, feelings, and recollections of feelings. It's icy and robotic, but this cybernetic feel exudes nostalgia and emotion with subtle effortlessness; behind a mist of idealised sounds, just as anybody URL is veiled by idealised monikers and titles, Meishi Smile is there with boundless feeling.

• Get Lust for 10USD by clicky-clickin over here
• Listen to the truly awesome guest mix that Meishi Smile made for YES/NO

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STRANGEHEAD ㄷㄹㅊㅅ (DREAM CHASER) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

For ease I am not going to be dealing with the Korean characters, although here is a fun fact: it's called Hangul and instead of being written straightforwardly, each word is a 'block' of these little characters. Isn't that fun? Someone should create some blocky typography of English in this way. It'd look nice I think. What am I saying? Who cares. The Hangul here - ㄷㄹㅊㅅ - if you want to know, is like an acronym or abbreviation, cause it's in letter and not word form, and says: d r ch s. DRCHS - a truncated form of Dreamchase(r)? I guess.

Anyway, in the depths of the night I found this song and I enjoyed it a lot so I am writing about it right now. It's probably really bad for LA trackmaker Strangehead because I'm writing about this in a not very good mood so I don't think I'll do the song as much justice as I normally would, however I do hope that you - whoever is reading, skimming, or ignoring this writing right now - enjoy the song no matter what gibberish I blather, what garbage words I tip-tap into this word box right here. Pls enjoy it. Let's call it 'Dream Chaser'.

Caught up as I was in the 80s synth dreamscapes offered by people's musical reaction to the film Drive and its College & Kavinsky-dominated soundtrack, the love of this type of music has never left me so the opening to 'Dream Chaser' is like a sudden step into an alternate world populated by electronic beauty and the tough undertones featured in games like Streets of Rage. However, this song is the kind of thing you'd hear once you've cleaned up the city in that game, don't you think? It begins as a foray into dubstep tinged by bleeping arpeggios and a smooth lead synth heralding good news.

Claps lead up to a lovely winding build-up awash with freestyle beats, snares roll and hi-hats buzz with insectoid surgicality, the second part of this song being marked by the fun vocal sample of "Readyyy... Go!". It's a plunge pool of low melodies bopping over wide Sonic-inspired chords, clean and smooth and delicious. A second "take-off" at like 1:38 sends us into fantastically happy world, where house piano chords stab and vox synth provides simplistic melodies (sounding like a K.K. Slider song from Animal Crossing). More dynamic changes - strings join the show for drama - claps in a frezy. Then everything suddenly fades out leaving you with candy-popping soft synth mixed with a pop song sample from where I don't know.

How nice was that? And with all the videogame references I've made it's clear that, whether intentionally or not, the often underrated, earworming videogame sounds have made their influence known. With the song levelling-up its atmosphere of fun and magic, the title seems very apt indeed.

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99LETTERS MACHINE

Here's something noisy. Cause, you know, sometimes you need something noisy and boisterous to purge your mind of those tiniest of feelings that can really do a number on your mood, like small occurrences that can - albeit irrationally - ruin a perfectly good day. So something that can knock some sense into you is a good thing. Music can do the job of that proverbial "knock", though, cause we don't wanna get too violent with our good selves do we? No.

So here is 'Machine' by 99LETTERS - an Osaka-based DJ and producer who spends his time between Japan and France, real name Takahiro Kinoshita (or just Taka). According to his SoundCloud page, he's made music since 1998, beginning the process using a Gameboy for its sounds. But everything evolves, does it not? And now what supposedly began as chiptune style stuff has grown into some pretty hectic dance music with more than a little nod to the industrial side of techno. That, at least, is what I hear in 'Machine', which is 99LETTERS' latest single & offering to the ears of the world.

The song, aptly enough, starts with the sound of some machine or mechanical process - the perfect little intro to what is a relentless grinding of buzz-saw bitcrushed bleeps, a shower of rapid-fire sparks of distortion. That is underpinned with a beat that at first combines well-rounded kick with almost-out-of-time hi-hat flourishes, later extending to the sheer fizz of open hi-hats alternating with a fat, whip-like snare. It grows with intensity after a break that pummels you with ear-crunching low-low synth like digital gravel or the spirit of chiptune awakened through a séance with a blender as the medium. Or something. Indeed, the Taka himself says that part of this song was created by "some sampling with my gameboy."

It's lively and does not pull any punches, laying itself out from the start as a track fully intended to get the blood racing. More of that crunchy bass appears at the end, until the track fades out but whether or not this is because the SoundCloud stream is promotional, or if it is actually intended, I don't know. In any case, it will be out soon (???) on Japanese dance music label, House Studio-R.

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JOLLY MARE CASTLEMARE [VIDEO]

I really like the video for this song. But I'm confused because I just checked Jolly Mare's SoundCloud for an image - he'd only JUST uploaded 'Castlemare' and in its description he said he had "a lot of fun making a soundtrack for this amazing video". But I'd say that the video is an illustration of his music. No? Well. I dunno. You be the judge. For me, I think they just work really nicely together. As for the music though, that's what I'm really here to talk about.

I last wrote about this Italian producer - Jolly Mare, that is - when I found his song & video 'Nobody Cares'; it was a wildly synthesised track, loaded with funk and a solid-as-a-rock bassline. Most notably, it was rather retro in its stylisation - not just in the video, but in the sound itself of course. The same goes for the retro sounds in this song, 'Castlemare'. However, it's a very different style. Instead of beachy, sunny, funky stuff, it's videogamey triptune (see what I did there?) synthy 8-bit kind of stuff. Still retro, but a different twist, a different facet of "retro".

It's the videogame sound that rings true with me mostly. It's like the type of music you'd find skulking in the air of the last level of a quite hard retro videogame - set in a castle, obviously; the title being a portmanteau of "castle" and "nightmare", it makes sense really. Why not watch the video and get into the atmosphere of yesteryear, sword in hand, magic in mind, courage in heart.

Space between the synth melodies gives it a careful-where-you-tread,-there-could-be-traps kind of atmosphere, an eerie sound that conjures cold torchlit corridors with their echoing reverb. The melodies themselves are cast in a gloam of foreboding - a little bit dark - helped along by the fidgety beat that seems itself reluctant to get into a full, undisturbed rhythm. At about 2:00 in the song, a regular build-up starts and drum machine toms pound and roll up to a change in the song. The synth becomes fuller, other shining beams of electronic noise wail in, until towards the end when they disappear altogether - bar the clean, glossy bass - and focus shifts instead to that distinctly two-step beat.

Did you beat the boss?

Other than the sound, that video - I am not sure where it's from but it's pretty cool and I think I'd like to watch it now. It's some obscure retro supernatural martial arts film, lots of flying and energy beams involved; a bit like the precursor to Dragonball or at least perhaps an influence on it. Anyway. The music fits perfectly. Bye!

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KOLOTO KILL SCREEN

I wrote about Koloto, real name Maria Sullivan, last month - her track 'Fox Tales' was a hotbed of organic sounds and glitchy beats. I suppose in many ways it still IS. But we are forever moving forward. So let's move on. It'll be on her forthcoming EP (no name nor date for that yet) in any case. We now arrive at her new musical creation, 'Kill Screen'.

It's very different from 'Fox Tales', which was a very natural-sounding track. Full of innocence. This one instead is unnatural, in that it's pretty much wholly synthesised, and it is also not innocent. Not at all. Instead 'Kill Screen' brims with a looming menace from the very outset. A low and gloomy ambient atmosphere is cast with waves of dwindling hollow synth and a glitched-out harp arpeggio; aching sounds, like something being tightened, pressure rising, conjures images of something lurking in the background. A shuffling shifty clipping noise builds up to the drop.

And when it comes it's quite a change.

The harp turns into chiptune synthesisers, wildly bleeping in that same arpeggio; that tightening sound becomes a frantic frenetic beat. It's easier to hear the progression now - a kind of fugue that I guess even Bach might have been proud of - which gives it an epic kind of sound. Those bleeps though, aren't they delectable?

And it gets even more wild after the second drop. The synths are layered on top of each other, the beat more full yet still staccato. It conjures an image of an old castle from some old videogame - it would naturally be like, a boss fight or something, and it wouldn't be easy either. Or a chase scene. In any case, it's a menacing, Dracula-is-coming-for-you vibe that is still whizzing around in my head even after I've stopped listening to it - wholly worthy of its title, I say.

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LINDSAY LOWEND WIND FISH EP

This is my kind of music. Like, so seriously, it is my kind of music. I can't stress that enough. So if I talk too nicely about it then you're just gonna have to deal with it. Sorry. Anyway, I just saw someone post a song from this EP on Twitter and once I explored further into the actual EP itself I just had to post it up. I have a bit of trouble with multiple-song posts, because as you know I usually only just write about one song; when I write about lots of songs in one place, I tend to write about each song individually. But who wants to go onto a music blog and hear the blogger being self-deprecating, trembling in fear at the task ahead of him, complaining of his own efforts and talents? Nobody, of course. And that's why I am about to plough ahead. Once more unto the breach.

So first of all this is a nice collection of songs by someone called Lindsay Lowend (great name), a guy from America. I don't know anything more than that. The EP is gloriously titled Wind Fish after that mythical is-it-real-or-is-it-a-dream entity from the classic Gameboy title, Zelda: Link's Awakening - and it's not the first time that LL has referenced the game: he uses its intro theme for the intro in this mix, for instance. References aside, it's a stunning EP. One that makes you glad to be alive & with ears to boot.

On the whole it's a beat-heavy foray into a world that mixes cutesy electronica/game soundtrack with sunny hip-hop. When it all first starts with 'GT40', a rap sample declares "Got dem hoes in the kitchen" - a refrain that pops up throughout the song. The song is all swagger and sweetness, a strange mix, but it works. Machine gun hi-hats fire over explosive kicks and snares that cook up a glitchy skate-hop beat. Female vocals feature as samples throughout - something that's taken to the next level on 'Sass Mouth'. Altered female vocals zing through the distorted bass of the track, a more laid-back affair than the previous song. It's late evening in this one. Sunset has only just finished, leaving a red sky and the remnants of a humid day behind.

The strange videogame soundtrack synth sounds of 'It's George' are quite lovely - the high-pitched synth that almost seems to cry out is a stroke of genius. The audacious way that it's toyed with and strongly modulated is almost breathtaking. Just before 6 minutes in this song there's a brain-twisting drum solo (from where, I don't know - anything to do with a George the Drummer somewhere?) that seems to mark a change in the song's dynamic in general. This next section features minimal fluffy synth, dreamy glockenspiels, a sense of fidgety urgency - sounds a bit like the music in the Mysterious Woods from Link's Awakening, actually. This one's heavy with nostalgia. A real journey. And it's where you see the hip hop influence fall away in everything except the beat.

Same goes for final belter and title track 'Wind Fish'. Game-like synths set the scene at the beginning but we're soon transported to a dance-mat aesthetic, frantic double-speed house pianos battle against cutesy swarming synth-vox. The second half, however, is a dream world where the samples are chiptune-waves crashing on the beach, then a glossy synth chord odyssey with a two-step beat before finally we're whisked away out of the dream and back to reality.

Anyway. It's damn good and damn beautiful and if you like hip hop or game music or anything remotely electronic and wholly original, then get this. You can buy it iTunes.

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ANAMANAGUCHI ENDLESS FANTASY [FREE DOWNLOAD]

I don't know what Anamanaguchi means, but whatever it means (if it means anything) it certainly suits the style of music they make all the same. What style is that? It's like so nice. It is wholly chiptune - I'd say 8-bit, like many people do, but it ain't because it's more 16-bit and it doesn't have the same ring as 8-bit. So let's just leave it as chiptune.

What am I basing this off? I am basing this off a couple of months ago when I first heard them and was umming-and-ahhing about covering them, and also I am basing this off this particular song, 'Endless Fantasy'. It is the title track from their new album, the funds for which was raised by a frenzied fanbase overdonating to their kickstarter project.

But all the same let's not get caught up in details. It can sometimes be like untangling several pairs of headphones all at once, so let's leave it out and get to the music eh? 'Endless Fantasy' is basically an already-hit, sounding like the end-credits theme to your favourite anime, or the soundtrack to the greatest level of Sonic The Hedgehog that there ever could be. It's a rather incredible show of recycled videogame noises, tweaked and pushed into a real galloper of a track. (You can download it for FREEEEE).

What's more, it's filled with the same artful dynamism of your favourite dance music. Whilst high hollow whistles speed by to a pummelsome beat in some places, dragging you along for the ride, at other times you're exposed to the meaty distorted bass beneath the glistening shell of blips and bleeps (like at around the 1:00 mark). Indeed, around halfway through there's a great breakdown: only saw-wave chords, increasingly modulating, keep time before a great drop at 3 minutes where the chords beef up.

Crunching electric guitar joins the show, as do more sparkling drops of sound - all of it helping to create a wide atmosphere. Boundless. Yes that's it. Expansive. Forever horizons. The melody is nicely emotive and strikes a balance between nostalgia and anticipation; leaving home for an endless fantasy. There, I said it. This song literally sounds like an endless fantasy. It's gorgeous, and especially gorgeous if you are into videogame-type music anyway.

This comes as the second single from the album Endless Fantasy by the Brooklyn foursome.

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SHIGETO DETROIT PART 1

Songs that have a story, yeah they're quite nice aren't they - adds another level into what is essentially just a bunch of sounds stuck together. Hmmm that's a little reductionist of me so I'm sorry, but you know what I mean. The story behind a song can be told through the lyrics obviously, but if there are no lyrics to a song where does one turn? One turns to the title, one does.

So, from the title of Detroit-based Shigeto's new song (4 days old ok), 'Detroit Part 1', I think that we can safely assume that it is in some way connected to Detroit. It's a musical illustration of the city, one that instantly is typified by a raw jagged-edged sound surrounded by a hazy almost magical atmosphere, like knives cutting through smoke or the ghost of a city awaking bleary-eyed and trudging past its former glories.

There is an almost tragic atmosphere about it, something faintly hopeful against a present beset by woeful nostalgia. In short: it's beautiful.

Shigeto (real name Zach Saginaw) has created something that's eerie from the start with a metallic wind kinda sound, tinged with razor-sharp cutting sounds and aggressive shakers for percussion, all underpinned by a rumblingly bassy hip hop beat that sounds as though it's coming from somewhere else - a party in someone else's house, in someone else's city. It's a glitchy first half, meaty yet crumbed with hearty bubbling videogame bleeps and ray-gun zaps.

But then there's this perfect transition from that darker half to this next half, introduced by a ghostly marimba battling against percussive background clicks, joined by that same rumbling beat and now a deep bassline that is the foundation for a sad set of soft organ chords that take us to the end, with the marimbas echoing all around. Gradually it fades out, replaced with music that's entirely muffled slightly-square-wave synth for an outro, a tragic "bad ending" kind of vibe, sounding like something from Streets of Rage - is that what Detroit is like?

It's really nice stuff anyway and judging from the title there should be a 'Part 2' at some point. There is actually a whole new album, No Better Time Than Now, coming out 19th August on Ghostly.

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DAISUKE TANABE INTERVIEW

Mr Daisuke Tanabe, everybody. I have been a fan of this guy for a couple of years now, ever since I stumbled upon some of his old stuff on Spotify I was hooked by his sound. It sometimes sounds like a computer glitching to a hip hop beat, sometimes sounds like a hip hop song painted in a circuit board pattern.

I wrote about a couple of his songs quite a long time ago, 'Cuculus Canorum' (which is no longer available sadly) and 'Ghost', both of which display his glitch-trip-hop style very well indeed. It's the experimental sound, and the resulting pioneering spirit of having an adventure with music that comes through in his songs, which is very enjoyable indeed. He is also one half of the very cool Kidsuke along with Kidkanevil (who answered these same questions two weeks ago).

And here are Daisuke's answers to my lazy interview...

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Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
My name is Daisuke Tanabe and I'm making music.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
I was trying to make some sound with old keyboad when I was a kid and it was fun. And I'm still doing it.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
Can't explain. Too much thinking on this question.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
Whenever you want is the perfect timing.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
Good things to bad things. Everything around me.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
To travel around and meet interesting people is the best thing.

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
I just got Nina Simone record from recycle shop last week and it was a great album.

Who do you most admire in the music world?
Can't pick one. Everyone is doing their own thing and it's a great thing about making music.

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
...is what people will be?

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
Cannot tell my future. I don't plan anything at all. But I will make music.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
I grew up near nature. Nature is very important for me.

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Short and sweet. What's the saying? Still waters run deep? Does that apply here? I don't know. Maybe it does. You could say that his answers reflect simple-yet-effective minimalism that is the building blocks for many of his songs - you could also say that his brevity is yet more evidence (along with his musical style) of someone who won't be reigned in by any conventions. Not least my questions! But despite this, you can see that he is an honest person: he certainly doesn't mince his words.

There will be more music from this guy, thankfully. Alongside the Kidsuke stuff (which was confirmed by Kidkanevil in his interview), which Daisuke obviously enjoyed as he said "London is my second home", he also told me that he is "making a new album (finally)" which will be out "hopefully early next year". Looking forward to it! ありがとう！

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