Rhymetorrents has released an excellent compilation of Halloween-themed nerdcore hip hop tracks free on their site. There’s quite a bit of first-person zombie shooting, vampire berating, Satan-hating, and even some dice-rolling and router-rebooting gone wrong. Here’s some of the standout tracks:

Rocket Propelled Geeks - “No Carrier” [NSFR*]
What if you power-cycled your router to reboot your internet connection but ended up resurrecting the internet itself? Think of how scary it would be to have a cat watching you from the ceiling and a bunch of Nigerians in your living room.

MC Lars & MC Chris - “Roommate From Hell (Ice & Fire Mix)”
You’d be regretting not trying to find off-campus housing on Craigslist if your dorm roommate ended up being the Prince of Darkness himself.

Able-X - “Dark times”
A funky, bleepy, creepy take on Armageddon.

MC Loki - “Prince Of The City”
More of the n00b pwning.

High-C - “Schizo” [NSFR]
Best line: “I’m dropping more than clues if you want to hunt the Wumpus but you couldn’t find your rump with a motherf***ing compass”

ZeaLouS1 - “Zombie Killa”
A geeksta rap about owning zombies.

*Not Safe For Radio

Here’s the entire compilation: Rhyme Torrents Halloween 2.0.

Here’s an interesting blog featuring tracks from video game soundtracks, along with a bit of insightful commentary and historical context. Not only do they include symphonic renditions of tracks from Final Fantasy, there are nods to more obscure tracks such as the medievel-eque vocal track“You Were There” from ICO [PS2], “Let Mom Sleep,” the breakdance-inspiring title track from Jet Grind Radio [Dreamcast], the brooding, Eastern-European “Waiting For Action” track that opens Hitman 2 [Mult.], and the instrumental 90s-Jrock combat accompaniment, “Blue Water, Blue Sky “ from Guilty Gear X [Arcade].

I had Hitman 2 for the PC and loved the puzzle-solving / strategy aspect combined with the creeipiness of the environment and badass factor. Hearing the soundtrack makes me want to dig up those disks and pretend to be a bald super assassin once again.

Check out the entire collection here: VGMe >> Music.

Laptop jockeys and synth-slingers have a harder time getting gigs in a club world ruled by rock. Here’s a nice article over at Createdigitalmusic.com that has ten tips on how to get booked for a live PA in a club or a bar.

Getting Booked:10 Basic Tips for Getting Live Electronic Music Gigs

Here’s another one over at LivePA on more of the technical elements of getting started:

Livepa: Where Electronic Music Comes Alive

Here’s also a good, related article:
Getting Publicity: Start With a Good Name for Your Project

Who doesn’t love free music? Go download the compilation we put together specifically for Fashion Focus Chicago 2006, Teh Choons. There’s twelve tracks of excellent electronic music from artists like Marshall Watson, Bit Shifter, Quantazelle, and Miles Tilmann. Yes, FREE as in beer, people. Get it!

www.fractalspin.com/choons

The International Chiptune Resistance Tour invaded Chicago on Sunday, June 4th at Deadtech–a gallery on the west side that hosts “Dorkbot,” a regular show and tell for people doing interesting things with technology. Less a presentation than a straight up rock show, the Tour features two Gameboy musicians, Nullsleep and Bitshifter, using the sequencer programs Little Sound DJ and Nanoloop. The event’s description forebode the sonic onslaught in store for the evening:

The familiar beeps, clicks, and tones of obsolete game hardware, repurposed into arresting laser-guided melodies and low-res, hard-hitting precision rhythms — all delivered at high volume from standard-issue handhelds and home gaming consoles. The machines are small, the sound is gigantic, the scope is worldwide, the advance is unstoppable. Prepare your defenses.

A row of tables flanked by two PA speakers were set up at once end of the small–and already warming as people filtered in–windowless gallery. At one end were six or eight Gameboys that were plugged into a Mackie mixer. Nulsleep, apparently MCing the night, made an introduction and then implored the crowd to ditch the chairs they were sitting on and move towards the front, because “rocking out in front of a bunch of seated people would be weird.” Apparently agreeing, the crowd congregated towards the middle-front and the chairs were pushed into the far back of the space.

Saskrotch opened with a drill-n-carnage set consisting mostly of 8bit notes digitally-signal-processed into a breakcore-ish array with the occasional movie sample. The crowd nodded and clapped politley when appropriate but seemed more interested in the pizza on the table at the side and the small fridge full of High Life next to it.

Nullsleep grabbed the mic after Saskrotch’s set and suggested the crowd imbibe more beer and gave a short intermission that allowed them to do so. Bitshifter stepped up to the row of Gameboys and opened with a catchy track from his latest album, The Information Chase, freely downloadable from the 8bitpeoples label [MP3s here].

Here’s a video of the beginning of Bitshifter’s set [mirror1].

The small group of dancers at the back left moved to the front left and their infectious energy turned that side into a dance party.

Check out the video of the dancers [mirror1].

His last track was the highlight of his set. Check out the video of Bitshifter rocking out. [mirror1]
Following up was Nullsleep, who maintained the energy of Bitshifter’s set, but periodically addressed the audience with comments about the tour or his gear.

Here he’s extolling the glories of a modified cartridge that lets you store songs on an SD memory card, which allowed him to keep his whole set on one Gameboy.

Here’s the crowd loving his set.

After succumbing to the request for an encore, Nullsleep thanked the crowd, divulged that he had blown through 8 credit cards on the tour, and mentioned that they had t-shirts for sale. Everyone crowded around the table, snagging buttons, t-shirts and CDs. The t-shirts feature a Russian-constructivist / airforce design with a raised Powerglove. Hilarious.

Music (MP3s - right click, save as):
Bitshifter - “The Information Chase” The Information Chase. 8BitPeoples
Nullsleep - “Enjoy The Silence” Depeche Mode Megamix. 8BitPeoples

Here’s a few more links to explore:
Nulsleep video on Coolhunting
Bitshifter video on Coolhunting
Micromusic.net. An 8bit music site (Registration required)
Scene.org. A demoscene website with computer game music
VGmusic Has MIDI files of Gameboy music from games

Drag that Speak-N-Spell out of storage, grab a soldering iron, and head to NYC in April! The Bent 2006 festival will showcase the fine art of circuit-bending, or “the creative short-circuiting of low voltage, battery-powered electronic audio devices such as guitar effects, children’s toys and small synthesizers to create new musical instruments and sound generators” [via Wikipedia]. There’ll be performances, installations, and hands-on workshops, so you can get a C-B guru to walk you through the process of getting that plastic kid’s piano you got at Target to sound like a psychadelic banshee in a food processor.Excellent circuit bent instruments are available from Pete Edwards at Casperelectronics (see photo) and Robotspeak in San Francisco.