It’s always interesting when you see big names break into the VGM and chiptune music scene. Cody Carpenter, musician and son of legendary director and composer John Carpenter, along with game composer Mark Day (Diner Dash, Aqua Kitty) have done just that and released an album of RPG-inspired chiptune/electronic hybrid music titles Shadow Spirits Vol.1.
Carpenter has experience in the music world all his own, having not only co-wrote, co-produced, and performed on the acclaimed Lost Themes (2015) and Lost Themes II (2016) with his father and Daniel Davies, but also released five instrumental progressive rock albums and one synthwave vocal album exclusively on Bandcamp. 2018 saw the release of Cody’s first non-Bandcamp exclusive album entitled “Cody Carpenter’s Interdependence”. Now, he’s delved into the realm of chiptunes.
“I wrote the original versions of these tracks exclusively with the NES chipset. I then passed it over to Mark to arrange into the finished product. We were both inspired by classic game music, with myself also taking a lot of inspiration from the work of Vince DiCola.” – Cody Carpenter, Musician & Co-producer
The album features 14 tracks of original chiptune & electronic music, which lend themselves to the nostalgic themes of the 80s and 90s RPG classics and could easily be slid into any retro-style game and sound inspired.
“Initially we were going to do a 4 track EP. But the tracks came out so well we decided a full album would be better. I suggested a classic RPG concept as I love the music of Nobuo Uematsu and Hiroki Kikuta and had recently played Final Fantasy VII. I arranged Cody’s pieces along with the pieces I had written using the Commodore SID chip for most sounds and a little Juno 106 here and there for warmth.” – Mark Day, Arranger & Co-producer
Shadow Spirits Vol.1 is currently available for pre-order on Bandcamp for $10 and will be releasing in full on April 24th.
