This may come as a rather large shock to you, but here at Chiptunes = WIN, we really like compilations. We really, really like them. And what’s better than listening to a compilation that we put together ourselves? Listening to one that someone else put together! It’s like all the joy of getting a mixtape from your crush without the sweaty palms and the queasy feeling that gets worse the more you try not to think about it (that wasn’t just me, right?). Enter DESKPOP, the new label by FLOOR BABA and Braz_OS. They got all sorts of folks together to drop the last great compo of 2015 – and if you haven’t heard, you’re about to be in for a helluva trip.

Billed as “THE VERY FIRST ALBUM EVER TO DROP ON A USB CARD,” ‘DESKTAPE’ is 18 tracks by more than twenty artists – some of whom you may recognize from our very own compilations, others you may have never heard of. It’s an album that calls itself experimental and means it – there are some folks that put some serious time and effort exploring the intricacies of loops and dissonance in addition to some really well-made bangers. Having such a wide range of styles and compositional philosophies on one compilation keeps things from getting too predictable; it means you’ve got to stay engaged with the music, even when that music is slow and relaxing. Sure, you’ve still got a few songs on here which are more “traditional”, but much more of the album truly is more experimental than you might expect from the early serialist composers – or, you know, for a more modern example, ＶＡＰＯＲＷＡＶＥ.

But enough fancy music words – let’s talk about some of my favorite tracks on the album!

DESKTAPE by Vince Kaichan

Beginning with the end here, Vince Kaichan’s track is the last on the album, but the first one I want to bring up because it’s the most compositionally “normal” track on the album. If you’re not quite ready to go all John Cage meets Macintosh Plus yet, this is a good one to go to. It’s easy to bandy around words like “sentimental” when talking about music and just kind of hope that the audience accepts it without justification, but seriously, this is the audio equivalent of riding down the California coast with the sun going down over the ocean to your side after a long weekend with your friends. A simple drum beat paired with strategic use of delays makes the notes feel like they’re stretching off into the distance behind you, and the bell-like tones paired with a soft melody provide a soothing effect unlike many others.

DESKTAPE by bansheebeat

My first two thoughts upon hearing this were “Whoa, new bansheebeat, nice!” and “Wait…this is bansheebeat, right?” For someone like bansheebeat whose discography is almost exclusively ambient and/or videogamey/anime inspired music, this track is practically something out of ANAMANAGUCHI’s ‘Endless Fantasy.’ It’s not a bad thing by any means – in fact, it’s an intriguing departure from most of last year’s ‘Lumine‘ release, and it’s cool to know that ol’ bansheebeat is still exploring new territory. With the wonderful Danika Harrod on vocals, we’ve got a touching tale of young lovers breaking and entering into a mall in the wee hours of the morning to see each other. The percussion in this song is on point – be it the realistic marimba patches to the glass bells, and mixed with Danika’s sweet and straightforward lyrical stylings, the listener is almost able to ignore the fact that the song must inevitably end with our young lovers running away from mall security into the middle of the night.

DESKTAPE by JesusKidz

Alright, I can’t just TELL you there are weird tracks on the album and not deliver, so let’s talk about ‘Electric Blue Crayfish 2.’ While starting off fairly normal by establishing a solid driving beat, as soon as the bass comes in you can tell things aren’t going to stay on the rails for very long. While never varying its tempo, EBC2 is an exercise in stacking percussion loops on top of percussion loops, putting things that don’t quite line up on top of each other yet never losing the beat. It’s an interesting exercise in atonal music – it sounds like it wants to have a key, but any instrument that plays more than a few notes (specifically the piano and bass) will quickly tell you there is no key to be found here. Atonal pieces are always fun to pick apart from a technical level, since you don’t necessarily have to worry about how a passage works on its own – instead, you can pay attention to the instruments that make up the music and how they interact with each other.

DESKTAPE by FLOOR BABA

For our final piece in review, we look at the man behind the music, ol’ FLOOR BABA himself. ‘JELLY MINING,’ aside from bringing to mind really questionable images of how one would go jelly mining, is a track like no other. It’s like a jerky and partially detuned Broadway overture, sliding into notes and losing tempo only to catch back up to it shortly after. It continues on, eventually stabilizing by resetting the drum/hi-hat beats the time as the song fades. I feel like glassy bell tones must have been the hidden theme of this album, because this song, like many others, makes use of them in short bursts on top of everything else. It’s a song that refuses to let you just sit and groove to the beat, since the beat keeps changing – and I respect that. It’s a song that fights back while still being enjoyable.

Honestly, I can safely say this was one of my most favorite releases of 2015, and I’m excited to hear what else DESKPOP has to offer moving forward. Unbeknownst to everyone (or maybe just me), DESKPOP has been putting out small releases for a year now – including the Decktonic EP I reviewed last year. It’s not the longest album that they’ve released so far, but it’s longer than most, and I hope this means that we can expect more full-length releases – especially (hopefully) from folks on this compilation that haven’t had anything published with them so far. Who knows! It’s a big crazy year ahead of us, and the Chiptune Dieties have many unknown boons to deliver upon us. In the meantime, though, go own your part of internet history and cop one of those sweet USB drives from the DESKPOP Bandcamp page. If you want to listen to the rest of the album, either click that Bandcamp link or check the embed at the bottom of the page. If you want to know more about the artists, feel free to peruse the laundry list of links below. Also, as a final fun fact – this album marks the absolute for-real last work of the artist currently known as barbeque – you’ll notice the linkapalooza below features no Bandcamp or SoundCloud for him because he’s taken down all of his music (though Googling “barbeque chiptune” does get you a healthy number of results). Rumor has it he’ll be starting a new project soon, so keep your eye on that Twitter!

Seats out!

That Andy Guy

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

FLOOR BABA

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

nelward

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

Captain Beard

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

Braz_OS

Soundcloud | Twitter

BastienGOAT

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

bansheebeat

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

danika

Soundcloud | Twitter

Cher Nobel

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

Decktonic

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

barbeque

Twitter



JesusKidz

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

TomFoolishness

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

Space Candy

Soundcloud | Twitter

bahsful

Soundcloud | Twitter

Sylcmyk

Soundcloud | Twitter

tothejazz

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

golgi

Soundcloud | Twitter

ilkae

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

zebra

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

Vince Kaichan

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Twitter

DESKTAPE by DESKPOP

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