Tunes Consumed: the Poutine Silver Platter

8-bit sounds have permeated the lives of practically everyone who lived through the late-80s/early-90s, and like a recipe for healthy living, they need to be consumed now and again by anyone whose life was touched by their tantalizing raw pitches.

I can remember my first experience with an Atari 5200, it was monumental. The family tele would go without serving its mediatastic purpose for days on end as my sisters and I would gawk at the 256-bit color pallettes, in awe of the way we could magically manipulate and move about on the screen. To be fair, though, videogames at the time were always musically lacking, and the blip-bloops that accompanied animations were usually meant to repercuss the fact that you had hit something, shot something, or… jumped? Sounds meant using disk memory, and bytes were terribly scarce back then. Because of this, games would rarely be scored with soundtracks, and when they were, it was still within the limitations of the hardware; it wasn’t until much later that the soundtracks would evoke the same emotive qualities as a full-bodied song.

Nowadays, artists who are proud to list videogames as their prime source of inspiration are often overlooked on that very premise, but who says it’s not a worthy source? There’s a whole world of people directly reproducing game-music, and while I respect them from afar, I fail to see the point of it - the whole vg-midi craze is beyond me, but then, music grounded in 8-bit doesn’t have to be a direct, analog rehash, and Crystal Castles is out to get my back on this one.

Played on a keyboard modded with an authentic Atari 5200 chip, the tunes carry some pleasing IDM crescendos you wouldn’t think could come from such archaic keys. CC is self-described as THRASH THRASH THRASH, which is only apparent from two of the tracks on this 7″ teaser. The two tracks in question are wrought with female throaty vocals on cue with some frantic keyboard work, and it meshes in a way that’s reminiscent of another Atari-gang you may have heard of… who? Why Atari Teenage Riot, of course.

I’m less impressed with those tracks, but everything else screams of my childhood. It’s a certain nostalgia for wonder, adventure, and bemusement that I’d be at a loss to explain to anyone who doesn’t immediately “get it”; I can’t recommend enough that you try it on for yourself, though, and find out.

mp3:
Crystal Castles - 1983
Crystal Castles - Crimewave

(see also):
Gimmie Tinnitus : has another track, and a Crimewave remix.
Quarterlifeparty : a valid attempt at decipering some lyrics.

Unfortunately the EP mentioned was on a limited run of 500. You can support the Castles with their Crimewave single, over here.