My casual interest in chiptunes piqued during episode 7 of series 3 of Skins. My friend said it was castles. I didn’t think it was because the girl looked different and the guy was singing and castles already went on Skins (that’s where I learned about them) so I decided to investigate. Luckily, the guys at Skins love showing off their music. I was greeted with quite the interesting group name. I usually have beef with long nonsensical names like this but for some reason, it doesn’t bother me.
From what I could gather from their myspace, they only have their “Inner City Angst EP” which only has 4 songs but have the “Me Versus You” vinyl forthcoming April 27th. They’ve also been involved with a few Kitsune Compilations. I’ve been listening to Inner City Angst since that episode of Skins aired and it doesn’t venture far off the path that Crystal Castles paved for me which doesn’t really surprise me since they share the same label.
Off the Inner City Angst EP, all 4 of the tracks have their own kind of charm: Superheroes is the fast, screaming, percussion-heavy track that got me hooked. It’s got everything I want in a standard chiptunes track. Dead End is a bit mellower and Blood Lust is fun too, but Wizards, however, is my favourite song of theirs because it sounds the most not like something I’ve heard in the chiptunes genre before.
This track works out like a story: the opening arpeggios foreshadow a sort of epic quality, reminiscent of the Final Fantasy theme. There’s usually something that ties you in about it that makes you read it – it could just be the cover artwork or the blurb on the back. For this song, it’s those arpeggios – something epic is going to be happening in the next 4 minutes. So then we go into the song, starts off mellow, something new adds with each measure: a flutter of beeps, a change in percussion, a hit of melody, a pad. Layer after layer, the mix just keeps building until the climax at 2:27 – it just takes the track to the next level, bringing in a main melody, slowly dying back down to what it was, then gone.
Like nothing happened.
I don’t remember the last time a song sent me on a trip like that. Maybe Hell Hath No Fury by Klute. Either way, cheers to YLHCSD. To more tracks, and more music.
