Another new artist coming onto my scene, ‘Dot.AY’ is a gameboy chiptuner from Melbourne, Australia. His new release is ‘You’re Better At This Than You Think’ was solely created to be performed at Square Sounds Toyko 2018. Whilst this is a unique way to go about creating an album, it’s ultimately how ‘Dot.AY’ went about recording it is more remarkable. Instead of going through the normal means of using a PC and a mixer, every song was recorded at an analogue studio and direct to tape! A unconventional way to record music, but it’s something that I don’t think has ever done in chiptune. To get a glimpse into how this was produced I’ve linked a video below:

Moving onto my the review, Dot.AY’s ‘You’re Better At This Than You Think’ is a quite devilish release. Whilst most chiptune music out of a gameboy is vibrant and melodic, this is the opposite. It’s instead deep, minimalistic & heavy.

You’re Better At This Than You Think by Dot.AY

It follows the drums, bass and rhythm primarily. This is evermore true in the song, ‘Vibraslop’. Throughout the run time of this track, the pulse channels are particularly controlled, with ‘Dot.AY’ opting to instead focus on the WAV channel for bass and drums. Samples are used as breaks quite regularly and really help in making the tone more diverse across the spectrum.

One more thing that is apparent is the fact of how minimalist ‘Vibraslop’ is. In fact the majority of ‘YBATTYT’ feels quite minimal, with a lot held back. This is actually quite unconventional for LSDJ, as normally there is a lot more going on. That is not a bad thing however, in fact it’s going against the wave which is certainly what more chiptuners should do!

Dot.AY

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