12.01.11 | Joshua Kopstein | Comment? Around this time last year, I was sitting at my desk, jaw agape, listening to an early recording sent by the inimitable Dan Behrens, lead guitarist of VG cover bands Armcannon and Metroid Metal. It was maybe the 2nd song I’d seen him write under his Danimal Cannon moniker with LSDJ, the popular homebrew tracker [...]
11.03.11 | Joshua Kopstein | Comment? Last year, chiptune electrodance duo George & Jonathan floored us with The Best Music, a scrumptious collage of party-down funk and endearing synth silliness which effortlessly won our votes for #1 chip music album of 2010. With a bonus Christmas EP and incredible performances at MAGFest and Silent Barn, G&J are holding down their stellar [...]
10.17.11 | Joshua Kopstein | Comment? Photo: Emi Spicer Fans of chiptune prog rock outfit Cheap Dinosaurs have no doubt been gritting their teeth in anticipation of an official release from the esteemed super-group, which contains members of Chromelodeon, Animal Style and Brown Recluse. Now, after an extremely limited physical release back in 2009, it’s finally here: From singalong favorites (familiar [...]
06.22.11 | Joshua Kopstein | 2 Comments Regular readers of this site should be no strangers to the party jams of chiptune duo George & Jonathan. Last year they dazzled us with The Best Music (OSV’s best chip music album of 2010), and followed it up with a holiday bonus treat, The Best Christmas. Despite their recent hiatus in lieu of long-distance [...]
04.14.11 | Joshua Kopstein | 3 Comments Photos: Emi Spicer The music of the Final Fantasy series is not normally the kind of music I like to share with others. That is to say, my initial exposure to Nobuo Uematsu’s captivating scores was such an event that it gave me this neurotic feeling that I was getting my own personal concert; that [...]
04.11.11 | Joshua Kopstein | 1 Comment [Over on Motherboard.tv, our very own Josh Kopstein recently interviewed Jim Guthrie, the legendary Canadian indie-folk musician behind the gorgeous audiovisual iPad collaboration Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP.] Amidst a desolate landscape of barely-stimulating apps made with boring train rides in mind,Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (read our review here) stands as a testament to the amazing [...]
02.28.11 | Joshua Kopstein | Comment? Described fittingly as “the Andrew W.K. of chip music,” Nashville, Tennessee’s Rainbowdragoneyes rules the corpse-strewn no man’s land that lies between DDR-style eurotrance and epic death metal with an iron fist. And his newest release, The Primordial Booze, makes certain that any who dare tread there are met with a customary greeting of unrelenting, microprocessor-fueled [...]
02.08.11 | Joshua Kopstein | Comment? Photos by Emi Spicer & Marjorie Becker Layers of rock-hard ice continued to freeze over the cold pavement of Wyckoff Avenue in New York City’s northeastern borough of Queens last Saturday night. But unbeknownst to many of the sleepy street’s residents, an environment entirely opposite had briefly come into being at Silent Barn, the area’s [...]
01.14.11 | Joshua Kopstein | 4 Comments OSV has finally arrived at one of our favorite events of the year: Northern Virginia’s Music and Games Festival (MAGFest). The renowned 4-day videogame music party is starting off louder than usual this year as it seems that for the first time ever, the Fest has truly reached critical mass. The normally mid-sized festival is [...]
12.27.10 | Joshua Kopstein | 3 Comments It was an especially cold December in New York City this year. And it had nothing to do with the massive blizzard that was whipping 18 inches of snow around at speeds up to 35 mph. It had to do with the fact that, for the first time in a long while, the five boroughs [...]
12.25.10 | Joshua Kopstein | 3 Comments Did anyone wake up to the jazzy-fresh Christmas present that George & Jonathan left for us under the Internet Tree last night? If not, it’s time to wake up and smell the yule log, because Philadelphia’s funkiest chiptune duo have gifted us with THE BEST CHRISTMAS, a mix of new material and kickin’ holiday jams [...]
11.29.10 | Joshua Kopstein | 1 Comment In case you missed it the first time around, the soundtrack to Amanita Design’s atmospheric steampunk point-and-click adventure Machinarium is getting a reprint on vinyl courtesy of Czech label Minority Records. Tomas Dvorak’s outstanding score is one of the most captivating and effective examples of game audio in recent memory, melding bizarre organic soundscapes with [...]