gwEm

Chiptography: How did chiptune find you? 

gwEm: Back when I was in my late teens I was really into drum and bass and hardcore rave stuff. I was DJing out in smaller nightclubs and it was going fairly well but somehow I wasn't quite satisfied with it. 

Chiptography: You said you were a teenager at this point? 

gwEm: I was 17 when I first started to DJ and I bought my first decks and records. A friend of mine at university asked, "Are you into Aphex Twin?" and I was like, "No, who's he?" His stuff is really good and was similar to the stuff I was DJing at the time. Aphex Twin had a record label called Rephlex Records and there was a release on that label called Maxi German Rave Blast Hits 3 by a German duo called Bodenständig 2000. It was completely amazing to me and I listened to it constantly. I got in touch with one of the members, a guy who goes by the name Drx. He was extremely friendly and he told me about this website called Micromusic.net. I eventually met him and he gave me a disc for my Atari with the music software that he used. I thought, "Wow, what a friendly guy." Normally in the drum and bass scene, it's a little bit competitive. No one really wants to help you out. His attitude was completely the opposite so I thought, maybe this is the new thing I've been looking for. I transitioned from DJing into making chiptune and being part of this early community on Micromusic.net. 

Chiptography: Were you DJing as gwEm? 

gwEm: No, I had a few different DJ names, none of which I was happy with. The first one I came up with was Merlin. 

Chiptography: Like the wizard?

gwEm: Like the wizard, yeah. I thought, "Let's set the dance floors burnin'. It's the one they call Merlin." I mean, come on, I was 17. That was pretty cheesy, I thought. My first car was a Vauxhall Nova so another DJ name was NovaNova1 because I thought that was old school techno-y kind of sounding. The thing is, at University my nickname was Gwem. Everyone was calling me that. 

Chiptography: Why?

gwEm: It's not a very good story. Basically, we were having some drinks and we were laughing at how English nobility has these double-barrel names with lots of middle names so we kind of added names to our own. Mine was Gareth William Edward Morris which I'm not called. Everyone was like, “That's Gwem.” I was like, “That sounds awful. Don't call me Gwem.” Obviously everyone called me Gwem even more. 

Chiptography: You're wrong- that's an amazing story. 

gwEm: The name kind of stuck. Anyway, when I started the chiptune stuff I thought, well, I need a new name. The drum and bass thing is over now. Everyone's calling me Gwem so I might as well go with that. I don't like it that much, even now. But I don't know, people say it suits me and it's too late to change it again. It sounds kind of cute and that's nice. It would be nice if it sounded a bit tougher. Merlin and NovaNova1 they were kind of more like, "Bang, yeah." Gwem, it's nice. People like it.  

Chiptography: I met you at a Blip Festival. Was the first blip festival you played in New York also with Bodenständig 2000? 

gwEm: Yeah, it was 2007, that's right. 

Chiptography: How was it to perform with the group that inspired you to get into chiptune at such a significant event? 

gwEm: Well actually, my first chiptune show in London was with them as well. Obviously I was super into it. It was really exciting. Those guys are really cool and we get on like a house on fire. They're not so active these days which is a shame but they've gone to other interesting things. I think Bern worked a bit with Björk and Dragan is now a professor of computer art. One of their songs was featured on an advert. 

Chiptography: How long was it from when you first discovered chiptune to when you were actually making chiptune? 

gwEm: A matter of months probably. I got the Maxi German Rave Blast Hits album and I went to my first chiptune show which was near Spitalfield Market in London. That's where I met Dragan and he gave me the disk. I think I tried it the next day or it might have been two days after. I've still got it actually. He customized the disk with Tipp-Ex and he painted a smiley face and he wrote “Micromusic present” on there. I've still got it somewhere. I started making my first tunes with that. I had an Atari ST when I was a kid so when I heard this album, I could clearly hear that that was the same kind of sound that I was used to with the ST. I knew that that computer was very popular in Germany as well. I got the Atari out and had a go with it. I still have that one. I don't use it to play live though. I've been through several Ataris through the years because they're not really designed for being smashed across the world in a suitcase but they last fairly well. They're quite reliable considering; after a couple of years of gigging they start to break. 

Chiptography: What will you do when you run out of Ataris? 

gwEm: They're starting to get quite expensive on eBay. I've been lucky in that some people have donated their Ataris in order for me to play. Actually, particularly on the demo scene, they do that. I guess they're happy to see them being used in a constructive way. I'll make things with it. It's not going to sit in some collection. So maybe they like that about it but it's kind of like a contribution to the scene. I'm managing to keep it going. I have had shows where one of them is broken. Instead of having two I'd just have to do the show with one Atari. If it's a guitar based show I quite often just play from my iPhone so that's more reliable. There's a moment in sound check where I take a deep breath and plug it in and hope that it switches on because there's a very real chance that they won't work. At that point, I envy Game Boy musicians because they're cheap and plentiful and you can protect them a lot better because they're smaller and there will be someone you can borrow one from. 

Chiptography: Have you ever made music on a Game Boy?

gwEm: Yeah, I did actually. In the Micromusic era. Johan Kotlinski was a friend of mine and so I bought his Little Sound Dj and I wrote some songs on it. I even did one live show which was the Relaxed Beat party in a Paris squat. That was the only party I used a Game Boy live. In the end I stopped just because I didn't like the sound of it. I preferred the Atari so I went back to that. There are some people doing amazing things with a Game Boy but it's just not for me. I like it but the Atari keeps on giving. I have all these other things in my studio. I play them but then go and make music on the Atari. 

Chiptography: When did you integrate your guitar playing? 

gwEm: While all this was going on there was also the Electroclash scene. Bands like ADULT, Fischerspooner and The Martini Brothers. I was quite into that as well so I thought maybe I'll have a stab at doing an electro song. I had this melody in my head and I wrote the lyrics down as well. It was completely different to the way I work now. I never normally have an idea just appear in my head. That song was called Fuck You Management Wanker which I still play live now. I sent it to Dragan. I said, "I've done this. It's not really chiptune but what do you reckon?" And he said "If you don't upload this to Micromusic I'm going to make an account and do it for you." I think that was my third upload to Micromusic. The two before that, one of them was called Tune 4 My Broken Atari which was actually a fake-bit song. I sampled my Atari and assembled it into a track. Later I remade the song on my Atari because there's no reason why I couldn't have, but I wasn't quite comfortable with the tracker at that point. The second one was a song called Full On! which I sometimes DJ. I find the drums a little bit weak. Maybe I should do a remix. That was a techno-y kind of thing. Then the third one was Fuck You Management Wanker and that was a very popular track. Even though I saw it as more of an electropunk song I thought, well this guitar is now a thing. I only learned and bought the guitar so I could perform that song. 

Gwem "FYMW" dir. A. Singh USA/2003/5:45 Introduced by a blatantly shoe-horned Lemmy live in concert and dedicated to IT managers everywhere, "FYMW" - Fuck Yo...

Chiptography: Really? You didn't know how to play guitar before that? 

gwEm: No, I never touched it before. I knew the song needed a guitar 'cause it's electropunk and I knew I wanted to have a Flying V. When we were kids at school we would always draw Flying Vs in our school books. I walked into a shop in Guildford and there was a second hand Flying V there and I thought, “perfect.” 

Chiptography: It was waiting for you. 

gwEm: Yeah, so I bought that and then I thought well I better learn to play this thing. Actually, when I put Fuck You Management Wanker together I still couldn't really play so I was playing individual notes, sampling them, and assembling them in the tracker. I couldn't actually play it but then I was booked for my first gig and I had to learn how to play it properly very quickly. Even the guitar solo is individual notes which I cut up in the tracker and sequenced because I didn't know what I was doing basically. That is actually the only solo that I can play note for note the same as the record because I had to sit down and really learn it for that gig. 

Chiptography: It's so surprising because it comes off as if you were playing for years. You have so many guitars now. 

gwEm: I have 49 guitars now which is a bit embarrassing. 

Chiptography: Why?

gwEm: I don't need that many. I like them as objects. I'd like to give some away to musicians who want to have a guitar and maybe can't afford one. 

Chiptography: To me, it just shows your passion for it. 

gwEm: Yeah, well I love it and there's nothing more glorious than putting your foot on the monitor and throwing down a big solo. I feel like I could be a much better guitarist than I am though. 

Chiptography: You're self-taught, yes? 

gwEm: I never had a guitar lesson. Actually that's not true. I had one really weird guitar lesson. 

Chiptography: Why was it weird? 

gwEm: The original guitarist in this band called The Scorpions was a guy called Uli Jon Roth. He is inspired by Hendrix and he's kind of a hippie. He has all these weird ideas about music. I thought his guitar playing was fantastic because it was very melodic, quite classical, and a bit chiptune actually. I became completely obsessed with him. I saw he did this thing called the Sky Academy where he teaches you. I went and it was a bit disappointing. We didn't actually get to play any guitar. I thought he was going to show me some hot licks and that kind of thing but he was explaining that he sees music as a journey and every time he plays a solo he goes into a meditative state and tries to imagine the guitar solos as different colors. 

Chiptography: Wow, that's very far out. 

gwEm: It is. He even believes that the different notes of the scale have positive and negative charges so the following note is attracted by the previous note. That was a little esoteric for me. I kind of see what he's getting at. Obviously it works for him. I don't really have the capacity to meditate like that on stage. You still have to be in control and be coordinated. He did give me a couple of good tips. You can consciously slow down your breathing when you play a solo. Before I was just like, "Oh, the solo- I need to play really fast now." He was like, "just try to breathe slowly if you can't meditate and that will give you the control that you're looking for." I thought that was a good tip but he said, "To be honest the only way you're going to progress is if you start meditation." So yeah, that was the only guitar lesson I had. Interesting one. 

Chiptography: Very unexpected.

gwEm: Yeah, totally unexpected but he's still my favorite guitarist. I think he always will be. He's not one people talk about a lot but I think if you listen to what he's playing, you'll like it straight away. He also introduced me to the Fender Stratocaster. He used to play a Strat in the Scorpions and it has a different sound to it. It kind of sounds like it's singing, like a bell. I decided to take a leaf out of his book and I did play a Strat for a couple of gigs. The problem is once you start playing the Flying V, it's such a visual impact, everyone's like "Where's the Flying V gwEm? We've paid to see it. We haven't paid to see you play a Strat. Come on, man! Where's the V?" I can never not play the V now. 

Chiptography: You can't get away from that guitar just like you can't get away from your name.

gwEm: I can't get away from it but I did put a strat pick up in the neck position of the V to give me kind of the Uli Jon Roth sound for when I'm soloing. The Flying V is played by Rudolf and Michael Schenker in the Scorpions as well so there's another German influence. 

Chiptography: Speaking of German influences, you and I have something in common in that we have German ancestors. 

gwEm: That's right. My grandmother on my mother's side is German and her parents came over in between the first and second world wars. What I understand was that they were traveling musicians and they moved from Germany to London to start a new life here. It's quite interesting because my own parents aren't particularly musical but I was stoked to find out that in the distant past, members of my family were professional musicians and came from Germany. 

Chiptography: Was it the grandmother that got you the Atari? 

gwEm: That's right.

Chiptography: That's really special actually.

gwEm: Yeah, it is. I've always felt an affinity with the German approach to music because it's quite mathematical and it also has a kind of sideways looking sense of humor about it that appeals to me. I also just really like German people, German food, and culture. I signed a couple of tracks to a German record label as well. It's probably the place where I've played the most from any other country. I have lots of very good friends there as a result of playing there. I'm really happy about that. 

Chiptography: Kannst du Deutsch sprechen? (Can you speak German?)

gwEm: Ja, ein bisschen. (Yes, a little.) I'm super rusty. I was engaged to a German girl for five or six years. I did learn quite a bit but the problem is, unless you use it, you get quite rusty after a while and I was never that good anyway. I like speaking it even in a little way by ordering food, getting around and talking about football. These are things I can do. I tried to get a job in Berlin after I finished my Ph.D. I think that was around 2003 or 2004. There are lots of different freelancers and English speaking people now but back then you needed to speak it properly. The kind of overly familiar German that I knew wasn't really good enough to get a job there. I also spent six months in Munich while I was at university. 

Chiptography: Did you go to school there? 

gwEm: Kind of. We called it a sandwich year. You study for three years and then you do a sandwich year before you finish off by doing a masters. Part of my sandwich year was in Germany. I worked for a German company in Munich. I didn't learn any German there though because there was an Australian bar close to where I was staying. I was probably only 19 so I just went there. I completely missed the opportunity to speak German properly. 

Chiptography: What type of work were you doing? 

gwEm: It was the same kind of stuff I do now. It's microchip design, specifically these chips called FPGAs where you can reconfigure the logic on them each time you switch it on. I came across these chips kind of around the same time that I was discovering chiptune actually. I thought it was such a cool concept. It's an electronic circuit but you can change it around however you want. I got super into that and that's what I do professionally now. I did a Ph.D. using them and then after I finished that I had a series of different jobs all doing FPGA related work. 

Chiptography: I thought you were in the financial field.

gwEm: That's right. Generally in the UK, if you want to do electronics the jobs aren't in London. They tend to be in places you don't want to live like Slough or Cambridge maybe. I wanted to live in London because that's where all the music is. That leads you on very nicely to finance because they are using these chips. When I first finished my Ph.D. it was the first dawn of financial corporations using this technology for their trading. My Ph.D. was in looking at different ways to perform arithmetic and maths on the device. That mapped perfectly onto what trading firms do which is financial modeling. I got in on that on the ground floor so to speak and that's been quite interesting as well. I quite like the maths and it is very cutting edge as well. It's kind of something like the demoscene, because you have to continually optimize and get faster and faster. Competitors aren't getting any slower. It's intellectually challenging. I work with a great bunch of guys as well. We're always looking at ways to improve it, to get some kind of edge. 

Chiptography: It's nice to have a job that challenges you like that. 

gwEm: Yeah, it's good. I don't even know if I'd rather make my money entirely from music. That was my dream when I was DJing drum and bass when I was 17/18/19. There's nothing I wouldn't have liked more than to be a pro drum and bass DJ but now I'm not so sure. I think because I'm not dependent on music financially, I can do whatever I like and make weird gwEm music and not worry about if people are going to like it or not. Music is a massive money hole so I need a job to support my music habit. 

gwEm on a photo walk.

Chiptography: I find you to be one of those people that has such a great balance of left brain, right brain. You're very artistic but you're also very scientific and equally brilliant on both sides of that spectrum. Speaking of which, I always really enjoyed your photography which is also equal parts art and science. You're working with a machine, chemicals, technology and understanding how light works but you're also making artistic choices in framing, depth of field, and when you release your shutter. 

gwEm: I do like photography. There is very much a scientific process involved because you're effectively changing the chemistry of the film by exposing it to light and then it forms an image. It's like magic when you see it happening in the darkroom. When you get film it's completely opaque, it's nearly black. Then you expose it to light and put some chemicals on it and suddenly there's a negative there and it's like, how did that happen? That's very cool. I like to get to the bottom of things. I wasn't really happy taking it to the pharmacy to be developed. I did that with the first couple of rolls but then I got super into it and started making my own developers and developing every film and scanning them myself. I do believe that the process guides the art to an extent as well. 

Chiptography: There's a lot of decision making both in the time of shooting and exposing that film with how much light you want to allow in the camera. Do you want a shallow depth of field or a wide one? When you process it, you have more decision making as to how you work with the chemicals. It's an art and at the same time a personal choice with every single image. I always have such a good time looking at your work on Instagram. 

gwEm: There is a relationship between photography and music. If you want to make music, the best way is to listen to other people's music and then figure out how it works and apply science and a bit of creativity to that. I think it's the same with photography. 

Chiptography: Yeah, I agree with that. 

gwEm: When I was first introduced to street photography and the work of the big names like William Eggleston or Moriyama or guys like that I thought it was interesting geometrically but it has a social commentary as well and sometimes a little bit of a sense of humor. You quickly learn stuff that you don't like. Someone like Bruce Gilden is great but I find him quite aggressive in the way he takes pictures. I like it to be a bit more candid, trying to capture people as they are hopefully in some interesting situation. It's just the same with my music in a way. I wrote my own music software and live performance software and I think if you have developed something like that or you understand the science behind what you're doing you can turn that around and use that to your advantage. It can make the end product a bit stronger and more part of you. There's nothing like developing a picture and knowing that you've done the whole process. Maybe you haven't made the film but you made the developer and you developed and printed it. Actually I kind of wanted to make my own film but I got sucked back into music. 

Part of gwEm’s lens collection including several vintage lenses.

Chiptography: The equipment you use is pretty impressive. 

gwEm: Yeah, it is but it's only because I'm a gearhead. You see amazing stuff even shot on an iPhone if you know what you're doing with it. Essentially you can deconstruct photography and you're literally just pressing a button if you want to be super meta about it. In terms of DJing you can say, a DJ’s job is to choose the next song. So again, you're just pressing play. Clearly there's more to it than that. There is something that has that moment of capturing the decisive moment like Cartier-Bresson. He's another big favorite of mine. He knew exactly when to press the shutter. I wouldn't say I consider myself a photographer your level or definitely not someone like Eggleston or Cartier-Bresson because they devoted their whole lives to it as you're doing. I'm just experimenting with it for a few years. 

Chiptography: I think of you as a musician but  you're not just a musician. Photography is such a perfect visual medium for you because it is a mixture of a technology, science and art. 

gwEm: I totally agree with you. I love the blend of science with art. I know it's very renaissance but it's perfect. I'm an engineer, musician, chemist and a photographer. They go together so perfectly. Obviously, subscribers to my Instagram may not be aware that it was a byproduct of a relationship I was in at the time with a Polish photographer. I found I almost had to because we would be out and about doing boyfriend-girlfriend things and I thought she was alongside me but in fact, she was 100 yards back taking a picture of something. I realized the only way I could be with her was to be doing the same thing and then obviously I got completely obsessed by it. 

Chiptography: When artists become involved with other artists, their art starts to blend in a very natural way. You can see the world in a different way because art is a way of communicating. When you're speaking through your lens, your camera, your film or your speaking through guitar or electronic beats and music, it's a different way of relating to the world. 

gwEm: It is kind of like being in a relationship with another person in a way. If you're in a couple you do change as a person and I think you learn a different way of seeing and appreciating the world that we're in. I certainly find that different girlfriends that I was lucky enough to be with have always lead me to produce different work. Each time I'm slightly reborn into being a different person than the previous incarnation if you like. Whenever you break up it's like a terrible traumatic reboot. You're never quite the same afterward. 

Chiptography: I find that there's a part of my past partners that stays with me. There's a part of them that becomes me even though they're gone, it's still there. 

gwEm: I think that's true. I'm not really in touch with any of my former loves. I find it quite painful. By the same token, I still like them and they're all very talented but you get feelings of regret and how it didn't work out and you kind of really wanted it to. I guess these things end for a reason at the end of the day and you learn and evolve as a person. 

Chiptography: You have two awards from True Chip Till Death. Can you tell me the story about how you got those? 

gwEm: I keep them by my bed so clearly they mean a lot. The first one is an award for Best Chip Software and it goes to maxYMiser which I'm very happy about because maxYMiser was a fuckload of effort. I was working constantly on the first version for about a year. I played very few shows that year because I was focused just on that. I bought myself a very small IBM ThinkPad and I was coding all the time like at airports, at home, on the train. Whenever I had a free moment I was working on maxYMiser. I also got an award for maxYMiser from VORC.org, Hally's website.

Chiptography: Tell me more about maxYMiser. Why did you decide to make your own software?

gwEm: maxYMiser was started after I went to my first demoparty in 2004 and the first version was released to the public in 2005. At that time there were a few good Atari trackers, but they all had different features. My idea was to combine the best of all the trackers into one. The main challenge I faced was not knowing assembly language very well when I started the project, but I was reasonable at the end.

Chiptography: Your software is one of the staple softwares in chiptune today. Who uses your software to make chiptune? How does it feel to see other artists take your software and make their work? 

gwEm: Some of the artists using maxYMiser are Dma-Sc, UltraSyd, Xyno and 505. In fact I would say all of the chip musicians working on Atari ST use my software in some way. I’m always delighted to listen to a really good tune done in maxYMiser.

Chiptography: What was your second True Chip Till Death award for?

gwEm: The second award I got from True Chip Till Death was for Artist of the Year. I'm also happy about it because I normally don't win awards like this. I sometimes find that my music can be a bit of an acquired taste. Not everyone likes mechanistic guitar playing and some nerdy guy angrily shouting over the top. I was quite chuffed to get artist of the year. That was really cool. I don't always see myself in the top tier of popular artists like Goto80 or Bit Shifter or someone like that. That year evidently, True Chip Till Death did consider me to be part of that echelon so that's kind of cool. 

Chiptography: Is there a chiptune story or a moment that was really special to you? 

gwEm: I did a show in India once. 

Chiptography: What?!? 

gwEm: I went there on business and I was staying at The Grand in Bangalore which is kind of like an average business hotel. There was a hotel bar so I went in there and there was some guy with a Casio keyboard and another guy with a guitar. They were just jamming covers but the covers they were playing were a little bit strange. He played a Deep Purple song and then he played The Mexican by Babe Ruth. I turned around and I was like, "You guys have some serious musical taste." They had a little break and I got talking to them and they asked if I could play. I had some tracks on my phone and I borrowed the guy's guitar and I did a little set there in the hotel bar. 

Chiptography: What did they think about your set? 

gwEm: They were quite keen. I don't know why they had the Casio. Maybe they couldn't afford a different thing or maybe they liked the sound? I think they appreciated the qualities that it had and the musicality of it. They clearly knew a lot about music so that was nice that they trusted me to do a show. I assumed maybe I was doing their job for them and they just wanted to have a quiet beer for a minute but it was fun. There wasn't really anyone else in the bar. There were some business people and they didn't really look up much. They just accepted it and so I had this weird Indian guitar with this shit amp. I plugged my phone into where the casio was and just did a little set for a half an hour or so. That was a pretty awesome moment.

Listen to gwEm’s music on Bandcamp and Soundcloud.

Follow gwEm on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Find more information on gwEm’s music software maxYMiser.

Photos by Chiptography © 2020.

2xAA

Chiptography: I'm sitting in London with Sam Wray, who is a chiptune musician under the name 2xAA and also visual artist under the name NO_SIGNAL. How did chiptune find you? 

2xAA: It's a funny story really. I moved between primary and secondary school, like age 11/12, so I had to get into a new friend group in the new school. That took a while initially, so I spent a lot of my lunchtimes and breaks in the computer rooms on the internet. I think when I was age 13 or 14 I stumbled across chip music online. I saw a video or something and I was like, "Ah, that's a sound that I don't really recognize. That sounds cool." It wasn't video game music, it was chiptune. I never had an old 8-bit console when I was a kid. My first console was a Game Boy Advance when I was 12. I delved deeper and found 8bitpeoples, then I found more communities online. I stumbled across it by accident really. I took my mp3 player which had a slide-out usb connector and plugged it in the school computers, downloaded all the chip music and listened to it on my way home and to school and just all the time really. 

Chiptography: Do you remember some of the first artists you were listening to? 

2xAA: The first one that ever stood out to me was gwEm actually. I really liked Green Day and My Chemical Romance when I was in my early teens so gwEm stood out to me 'cause he's got a really punky vibe. It was actually "Live From Hell" with him and Counter Reset. If you haven't heard it, it's really good. Years later I spoke to gwEm backstage at Superbyte 2012 and said to him, "That's the album that got me into chiptune. It's so cool that we can finally talk." He said, "That was a university project from one of my friends." I was like, "What do you mean?" He was like, "All of the crowd is completely fake on that." That blew my mind because at age 13/14, I listened to this album and I thought, "Wow- that's chiptune. This roaring crowd- wow!" 

Chiptography: You had this image in your mind with gwEm playing to this big crowd but it was all digitized and fabricated. 

2xAA: Absolutely. Coupling that with Blip Festival videos and the larger festivals around that time, I thought that's how it goes. That's chiptune. I hadn't been to a proper chiptune gig before Superbyte 2012. That was my first big one. 

Chiptography:  When did you start making music? 

2xAA: I was around 14 or 15 years old. I got into it quite quickly. I was fiddling around with stuff from the DS, some homebrew applications like NitroTracker. I bugged my parents, "Can I get this LSDj cartridge for my birthday?" My dad was like, "No, I don't know what that is. It looks dodgy." We didn't have broadband at home so my parents were very much, “let's not buy stuff from online.” I convinced them and got a cartridge. 

Left: White-shelled Game Boy modded by Joe Bleeps. Right: Glass Game Boy diorama, a specially commissioned graduation present from Sam’s mum.

Chiptography: Were you playing music before that? Did you study instruments?

2xAA: I was studying guitar from age 9 and keyboard from even earlier than that. I was in a youth music group of about 80 people in my hometown. It's a charity funded local council-run thing called Plymouth Musical Activities Club, PMAC for short. I did that from age 9-18 and stayed on as staff afterward when I got to be too old to be in the group. 

Chiptography: Were you doing your own compositions as well? 

2xAA: Not really until I got into trackers and the Game Boy stuff. It has a low barrier of entry. At the time, Game Boys weren't too hard to find or that expensive to buy. They're still not too expensive but I think I probably picked up my first Game Boy to use as a musical instrument for £20 or maybe less. One with a case and all the accessories, that might be harder to find now. I put in the pro-sound mod myself, so it was relatively inexpensive to get a portable music tracker. My parents would drive me around quite a lot for school or if we're going away somewhere. We were always in the car. Having a portable music workstation in the back of the car when you don't have to think about where you're going, you can just go for it. That's how I started writing stuff.

Chiptography: When did you get into doing visuals? 

2xAA: This one is quite a different story. I started doing visuals in a hack week for young people across the UK, called Young Rewired State. It was a small, week-long hackathon across the UK. If you're between ages 9 and 18, you were either mentored or worked with people that were designers or software engineers and over the week learn to code or build something within a team. At the end of that week, everybody gathered at one main center and presented their work. It was a bit of a competition, very fun. I was a participant in 2012 and then I went back the following two years as a mentor. The second year, they asked me to put on a gig at the end of the week in the main center, which was my hometown, Plymouth. They wanted some music Friday night when everyone was arriving. I organized the gig and realized there was a projection screen but we didn't have any visuals. At the time, I didn't know any visualist that would be able to get down to Plymouth on short notice so I started experimenting during the week and hacked together my own visual software, just in the browser. 

Chiptography: Was this the birth of your software, modV? 

2xAA: Pretty much, yes. It definitely got me inspired to use the browser as a medium to create a platform for audio reactive visuals. There’s a video online somewhere where I say to “watch out for the web for generative art” as I thought it was going to be big. Another big influence was seeing Dario, as Lazersausage, perform his visuals at AnalogAttack in London, also in 2014.

Chiptography: What made you think to include visuals? 

2xAA: They sent me the specifications of the stage and they had a really nice projection screen. One of the acts that I booked was one of my lecturers at university, Mike Blow and his wife, Kayoko. I knew they were going to do an AV performance and I thought well, we don't have any visuals for the rest of it and I'd see people do visuals before. It can't be that hard. 

Chiptography: I love that attitude, honestly! 

2xAA: I used the technologies that I knew and started throwing some stuff together. In the end, it turned out to be something more actually. I thought that the young people may not be into the music. They’d had a really long week meeting new people, hacking together and they've traveled a long way to Plymouth. Plymouth is not easy to get to. It's in the southwest and the only way to get there cheaply is by bus. There's one train line but it was the furthest point away from the rest of the centers during the hack week. Everyone was tired when they got there. I thought, let's make a little remote control for the visuals so they can interact with the gig. If you connect with your phone, every 30 seconds or so, someone else would have control of the visuals. The visuals were still audio-reactive but you could change what was going on the screen. It was in a big hall and loads of kids sat down, chatted with their friends, worked on their projects or ate food. They didn't really want to get up and dance. They were too tired but a lot of them were on their phone messing with the visuals. They were still part of the event and it didn't seem like, “oh there's something going on over there but I'm not really part of that.” They could still interact with it and be included. 

Chiptography: Was the music electronic or chiptune? 

2xAA: The first act was an experimental AV piece but the rest was chiptune stuff. I called upon my chiptune friends because the event also was paying for accommodation and travel for all the artists. That's the dream- have money and put on a show. That was the first show that I put on so that was the gold standard right there. That was awesome. We had MizKai, J3WEL, The Virus Empire and myself. 

2xAA in his London neighborhood.

Chiptography: Since then, you’ve performed quite a lot, haven’t you? 

2xAA: Actually, I have a list on my music website. 

Chiptography: Are these all chip shows?

2xAA: These are anywhere that I've played music or done visuals so far but I'm probably going to move the visuals to a separate site at some point. I kind of split the 2xAA and NO_SIGNAL up a bit. 

Chiptography: When did that happen? 

2xAA: Just recently actually. This past year (2019), I wanted to keep them a bit more separate. I put out two albums on Data Airlines in the past couple of years. They asked me if I had anything. That was before I was doing any of the new Nanoloop stuff or any of the heavier bits. I was doing some LSDj stuff but in my opinion, it was just ok. There were much more interesting artists out there doing much cooler stuff. I was just kind of plodding along doing whatever I wanted with music stuff. But then Data Airlines was like, "We think you can do something. Send some stuff over when you have it." That was a nice vote of confidence. I pretty much love every single artist this label works with and it was a really nice thing that they did, asking me to send something. They pushed me along. I put out two albums with them and I'm very happy with those two. I kind of want to keep the 2xAA just music because that was what it was for a long time. The visuals came along and I feel it's a different project now. 

Chiptography: Tell me more about your visual software, modV. Is it available for artists to use? Would you recommend it for people who are just beginning to get into visuals or is it for advanced users?

2xAA: modV is free and open source, meaning people can see how I built it and can contribute changes back. It’s probably okay for people who know their way around a command-line but I’m working to fix that. That’s the biggest stumbling block with it right now. But, once you’re in the software, I think it’s pretty straightforward for beginners or advanced users. I’ve let people at shows have a go on it, held a workshop this year (2019) and I’ve had great feedback so far.

Chiptography: Tell me about the story behind the name 2xAA. 

2xAA: It's just batteries. 2 “AA” batteries. I might have had a Game Boy color before I had an Advance. I'm not sure but... What the name is about- just batteries. 

Chiptography: What?!? That's cool! I love it! What's the story behind NO_SIGNAL? 

2xAA: You know when you haven't plugged anything into a projector and it comes up with "no signal"? That's it. 

Chiptography: Both of your artist names have something to do with power and connection. 

2xAA: I hadn't really thought of that. I just thought NO_SIGNAL was really funny actually. I played Hypernight, a small show in London. It was nothing chiptune at all. It's kind of an anime-inspired kind of music gig. The projector there just kept cutting out the whole time. The HDMI cable wasn't long enough and it was bent out of shape so it wasn't connecting properly. The projector kept displaying in huge letters, "NO SIGNAL" and I was the only person doing visuals all night. People were just shouting at me, “NO SIGNAL!” I joked about it saying I was going to change my name, and then I did. 

The first time I photographed 2xAA at the SuperByte 2015 Preparty.

Chiptography: There you go. I think that’s the first time a shotty cable made history! When we met at SuperByte 2015, you were about to go to University. What did you study? 

2xAA: I studied a course called "Digital Arts and Technology" which is a combination of computer science and art theory. It had a lot of interactive programming, interactive installations, and a lot of thinking about where technology will take us in the future. I studied how fictional works impact our daily lives as in how it pushes us to create those works of fiction in real life. For example, one which we weren't allowed to talk about ever because it came up so often was Minority Report with the crazy panels and stuff like that. Those are a thing now. Another one which came up a lot was the PADDs in Star Trek. We have phones and iPads now. We looked at transhumanism and how technology will affect biology as well. It was very much an art and technology course because we had the programing parts but we always had to link it to the theory somehow and make sure one complimented the other. 

Chiptography: It makes me think of the movie, Her. It was about the future of technology but also about the future of human relationships and mental health and our relationship to technology. That ties in a lot with what you were studying. 

2xAA: Absolutely, I love that film. I have a Google Home upstairs. When I say, "Hey Google, I'm leaving," it's like "Have a good day!" It's really weird, you kind of get into a relationship. It's a daily routine just talking to this object. 

Chiptography: Now that I'm traveling, I miss Alexa because she kept me posted on the weather, current events and she told me jokes. I could always ask her something if I was lonely and I love her sense of humor. It’s as if she has a genuine personality and mind of her own. Tell me about your current job. What are you up to these days?

2xAA: I'm an experience technologist at an agency called POKE. I work with creative technology and installations. They’re usually quite large projects. I can't talk about the details of my current project but it’s been intense and we've made really good progress towards our deadline. 

Chiptography: It sounds interesting because you get to work on different projects and exercise your brain since it's not the same kind of tasks every day. You're using so many of the skills you developed in university to execute these different projects but there's still a lot of creativity and research involved. 

2xAA: Totally. I pull a lot from what I studied because we were always looking to future technologies and edge technologies. There's a lot of planning and trying to find the right people as well to get it all done in by the deadline. There's only two experience technologist in our agency at the moment. We're looking to grow the team but the thing is we can't build all the things all the time. If there's a huge build we'll probably work with someone else to get it done but we still need to build an internal prototype, do the research to make sure that we can actually do this in the time that we have and be able to sell that to our clients. If someone comes to us and they say, "Can you make this in-store hologram which people can interact with using controllers in another store across the UK?" Yeah, we probably can but we need a bit of research time and then we'll figure out how we do this. We'll still do it and take control over the project and make it work but we might have to bring in extra people just ‘cause we have other stuff going on at the same time. 

Chiptography: This blows my mind.  

2xAA: Thank you. This is the job that I've been looking for since graduating in 2016. 

Chiptography: So this is your dream job? 

2xAA: Pretty much. The only way it could get better would be if we could work with clients that helped people instead of just developing something to promote the client even further. They're mostly brands which don't require any extra recognition. Not to say the work isn’t fun, I’m learning a lot and the team is absolutely fantastic! It satisfies my urge to learn and create experiences.

Chiptography: There may be an opportunity at some point in the future to engage your company in giving back by working with the community. I’m so happy you already have an eye out for that. It sounds like a challenging job but I feel like you need that because ever since you were a kid you were exploring things on the internet, researching and taking it to the next level. You found chiptune and all of a sudden you were making chiptune and then you were playing shows and then you were organizing shows. You are someone who sees something, gets intensely involved and then just blows it up. So you grew up in Plymouth. Were you born there? 

2xAA: Yeah. 

Chiptography: One of your parents actually bought a photograph of mine. 

2xAA: It was my mum. I actually have that upstairs. My mum framed it up. 

My photograph that 2xAA’s mum printed and framed for him.

Chiptography: Do your parents still live in Plymouth? 

2xAA: My mum does. So my parents split up when I was 9 and my dad died when I was 15. I'm pretty open about it these days. It was around the time that I got into chiptune and I think a lot of that carried me on with chiptune 'cause they both happened around the same time. 

Chiptography: I don't know what it feels like to lose a parent but I have experience with friends and family members who have and it seems completely… devastating isn't even the right word because the world is different. 

2xAA: That's a good way to put it, the world is different. I understood what was going on but your mind does a few tricks to get you through stuff, to block stuff out and make sure that you're ok. 

Chiptography: You were also very young. You don't really expect it, as a teenager. It's a constant that your parents are there. 

2xAA: My mum and dad only split up a few years before. There was a lot of change around that time because that was final exam time in school as well. I kind of switched off around that time in terms of school. I wasn't super into school anyway and I just got into programming and music. Looking back, obviously it's a sad time but at the same point I feel like I have some really good skills now. It's a real double-edged sword. It's something that I thought about quite a lot and I talked to a lot of people about.

Chiptography: It's very natural for people to get deeper into their work when they're coping with an emotional state of pain. I've had that experience when I had severe depression as a teenager and throughout college and even today. There's a lot of insecurities that go with that. 

2xAA: It's hard to kind of, like justify it in a way. I don't know. It's odd. It's very odd. 

Chiptography: It's an odd experience because it can be so uncomfortable and it's something that you don't necessarily want to talk about or share with the world. When I'm going through a rough patch I turn off. It seems like Marjorie's just doing her normal thing but... 

2xAA: There are times where I close up completely. Even now if I'm going through a very busy period or I'm stressed or something, I close off quite heavily sometimes. It's one of those things in which you learn and try not to do. 

Chiptography: It takes time to get to that point. Thank you for sharing that with me. 

2xAA: It's just cool that I'm at a point where I can talk about it comfortably. 

Chiptography: Do you have a chiptune story as far as something that happened at a show or with an artist that made an impact on you? 

2xAA: It was 2015. I went on a three-day tour in Russia with Henry Homesweet. He was booked already and Forest Booking, the people in Russia doing tours there, were looking to get another artist. I met Tom, Henry Homesweet, at SuperByte that year when I did some visuals. He was quite impressed because he does web development and all of my visual software is in the browser. He asked if they could get me along for the Russia tour as well. That was my first time traveling alone. It was really a scary kind of thing since I was 21. 

Chiptography: I can imagine!

2xAA’s Gameboy Advance and Nanoloop cartridge.

2xAA: That was the first time I saw him play live properly. At the time I was using LSDj with my Game Boy and then I saw him play his nanoloop set on the Game Boy Advance. I heard the sound and was like, "Wow- that is incredible. How do you do that?" He said, "yeah, it's just nanoloop two." I saved up money over a few months and bought a Nanoloop One cartridge and a Nanoloop Two cartridge. I barely touched Nanoloop One. It's literally in that drawer there. It's underneath all this stuff. For the kind of dancy, more house stuff that I've been getting into, the nanoloop two software and the way that it handles audio is really cool. He changed my whole workflow for making music just from seeing him play a couple of gigs. I've told him that as well and he's like, "oh yeah, I didn't do that." And I'm like, "yes you did." 

Chiptography: Incredible. Tell me more about your Russia tour.

2xAA: I flew into Moscow and then I traveled to St. Petersburg. We played a gig there and then went back to Moscow together to play a gig. We then went to a town south of Moscow called Tula. The three venues were very different actually. The one in St. Petersburg felt like more of a standard music venue. There was this backstage area that was triangular-shaped. It literally went into a corner. It had a toilet on one side and then a shower hanging off the wall on the other side. 

Chiptography: What was that about?

2xAA: I don't know. It was just really funny. For some reason that stuck out to me. I think all the walls were painted black as well. The rest of the venue was totally fine, it was just that one room. When everything else feels very normal and one thing sticks out, that's the one thing you're going to remember. The venue was cool but it had a weird bathroom. The crowd there was pretty nice but I think they were expecting more general music kind of stuff rather than chiptune. The Moscow gig, they were expecting chiptune there for sure and that was like a pub kind of situation with multiple levels. The bar was upstairs and there was a balcony which you can see down onto the stage. The stage was in this middle area. There wasn't a middle area where you could sit though. There was only a downwards area. People would be below the stage and the stage would be in the middle of the bottom and the top levels. 

Chiptography: So the stage itself was on its own level?

2xAA: Yeah, and there were stairs on one side which you could get to the stage. If you weren't doing anything on the stage you continue down into the lower area. That was a weird layout but it actually worked really well. That was a cool gig. I met BalloonBear for the first time there. If you don't know BalloonBear he's a chiptune artist from Russia. The Tula one for me that was the best one because people were really into the show. The age range there was ridiculous. There must have been people from like age 13 to whatever age, it doesn't matter. There were a few older people in the crowd. It felt like a pop up space for gigs. The walls were painted and I think they plastered over the walls before we got there as well so it was really fresh. They dressed up this whole hall. They made this giant space invader cardboard cutout in front of this light and there was a controller for the light behind it on the side. It looked really cool! There was a little area before that with cardboard cut out video game characters. There was a Pacman, there was a Super Mario photo booth with a red hat and you could get behind these pipes. They painted everything just for the gig, just for one day. It was really cool. Everyone I met, they were also really nice people. I did a little video documentary as we were going through it.

The last day of the Henry Homesweet & 2xAA Russian tour in Tula! Perfomers in order: Gamegate - https://gamegate.bandcamp.com/ 2xAA (me) - https://2xAA.bandc...

Chiptography: It sounds like a really big party! 

2xAA: Yeah it was! I don't know how many people were there, probably 150 at least. That gig was funny though 'cause one of the organizers, Alex from Forest Bookings, he's quite a well built kind of guy.  I was doing the visuals on the side for Henry Homesweet and he just picked me up at some point. He's like "Yeah, you're going in the crowd." He literally picked me up and threw me into the crowd. I grabbed my camera literally off the side, hit record, and recorded myself on top of the crowd. It was really fun. It was probably some of the best bigs I ever played actually. Going to Russia was quite the experience. That was the first time I played internationally. I feel really good about that. It was awesome. Every time I see Tom, Henry Homesweet, we're like, "Wasn't Russia kind of crazy?" but in a good way. 

Chiptography: We're going to walk down to the River Thames in a bit. Why do you want to be photographed there?

2xAA: I grew up around water. Plymouth is called the "Ocean City." It's in the southwest and it faces the channel. We have the Plymouth Sound which is a big cove with a tiny island in the middle. Most of my time, especially as a teenager hanging out with friends, we would go to the waterfront. We would sit there and talk and hang out and look out into the sea. It just reminds me of a calm place to be, hanging out with friends and looking back on those moments. This area that I live in now is Popular and it's part of the docklands in East London, so there's actually quite a lot of different pockets of water around here. I live pretty close to the Thames. The Thames is a tidal river so it's got a little bit of the sea in there at least, but it’s not really the same. Occasionally, if I have the time, I'll go down to the waterfront and walk along the Thames and it reminds me a lot of being calm and close to home. It's a nice place to be. 

Chiptography: I remember that when we met at SuperByte you gave me a µCollective (Micro Collective) pin. What is µCollective and what’s going on with it since then?

2xAA: µCollective was an online community for chiptune artists, very much like chipmusic.org. It's an online forum where you can talk about chip music or chiptune, the topics around it and share information, music and image uploads. It was very much in the vein of 8-bit Collective. I used to be a forum admin for 8-bit Collective in it's later years. The guy that ran it kind of just let it die basically. I'm not entirely sure of the exact circumstances but I think it was either money or time or effort or something. I think 8-bit Collective was around for about 7 years so that's a lot of content to lose. I don't know if there's a back up of all of the forums, wikiposts, image uploads, music uploads. Having that community online was super special. This was before facebook groups were a real big thing. I think people used reddit a lot but for what the scene needed to do, sharing music and ideas and to be able to find those in an accessible way, (searching a forum or a wiki) 8-bit Collective was invaluable. When it died, I was still an active admin and I was a bit annoyed really that there were no backups of seven years of content. I think there were over four thousand users or something. It's just like, "Wow, where did all this stuff go?" I come from an archival background as well. I worked in a film archive for a long time and I like the preservation and conservation of ideas and media.

Chiptography: A lot of online interaction like social media is about this moment. It's about now. Every once in a while you'll scroll through someone's Instagram feed and look at their old pictures but for the most part you see what's new, what's fresh. As a photo documentarian I also really agree with you that there is a lot of value in saving things for posterity. 

2xAA: Especially when it's a whole community.

Chiptography: It's culture. It's history.

2xAA: Yeah, it is history. Anyway, I just got a bit annoyed really, I think pissed off would be the right term, at the guy running the thing. He probably had a good reason why it collapsed or didn't have time to back it up. Around the same time I was learning to code websites. I was really getting into it so I thought I would build my own forum and online community called µCollective to replace the void that 8-bit Collective left. It went through a couple of iterations for a few years. I got asked by SuperByte to put a big advertisement on the front page to let people know that SuperByte was happening. I ran a competition on the site where you could submit a poster design, or a pin design or a piece of music and I’d get them made. There was a voting system where you had to log in and vote them up. Whoever got the highest vote on the pin design, the poster design and the music upload would all be included and printed, we made a CD also. I really wanted to make this a big community thing and drive people's creativity. But that was before getting into university. University took a lot of my time and then µCollective stagnated a bit as I had different projects coming up like my visual software, modV. The whole shift between forums and Facebook was happening at the same time. In fact, it probably happened before µCollective was a thing anyway. A lot of people gravitated towards Facebook groups for the place to connect and share ideas. Facebook groups, even now don't really do the job to replace forums. I think the functionality is much better now but searching for stuff in Facebook groups is always terrible. It was always about the now. That was the problem. It just felt a little bit more like a show. It was like "This is what I've been doing recently" instead of "ah- here's a cool idea." 

Chiptography: It's not a place you can go and research and go down the rabbit hole of information. It’s not a useful tool in that sense. 

2xAA: It's also not searchable and not linkable unless you're a Facebook user so you have to have an account to see group content, as far as I know at least. Maybe some groups can be open now. I don't like the idea of it all being on Facebook. There's something about that that screams NO to me. I took down the main forums on µCollective but I still have all the data. That's all heavily backed up. I don't want to have a repeat of what happened with previous projects. I built a holding page for the site so you can listen to the music uploaded. It's like a random radio. You just click through and listen and you can see the comments and favorites on a track and how many plays it had before the site was put on hold. You can still access the media there at least in some form. Eventually, I'll swing back around to it and build it up as another online forum but maybe try to do it in a different way. Maybe more like an app. It's a difficult one because it is just me on the project and I would love some help but it's finding the people with the right abilities and time. I don't want to just make µCollective as a drop-in kind of like "This is now our forums" kind of thing. I want it to be fairly custom, something to be built to do the job. I coded the first site, all of the back-end functionality, all of the forum functionality. I don't want to skimp out on different features. I want to put a lot of effort into it but in the past few years I haven't had the time or motivation to do it, because of the big shift between forums and Facebook basically. It's kind of put a downer on things for me. 

Chiptography: I feel that. The world and technology is also always changing. 

2xAA: Absolutely yeah. 

Chiptography: Myspace was really hot for a while and now it's dead. There will potentially be a time when Facebook is dead. Who knows what the next big thing is going to be. Instagram is really big right now. 

2xAA: But Instagram has it's own flaws. Like I want to show a post from 2016, let's wait five minutes while I scroll back. There's no easy way to jump to a point on your timeline as such. People love the app itself but actually, from like a historical perspective, even just searching the thing or even backing stuff up on it, it's way more difficult. 

Chiptography:  I think you made a smart choice to put it on hold until you figure out what you want it to be and figure out its relevance in the modern internet world. 

2xAA: Thanks. At the moment I'm trying to build up the real world gigs again. I put on µCollective gigs under the name µChip (MicroChip). I’ve done five of those so far. Visualist, Antonio Roberts (HelloCatFood) helped me on the third one and he managed to get lottery arts funding. Having a budget for that one was really nice. I feel like that's something that can return especially with the Hyperwave pairing as of recently. Mikey (Shirobon) and I joined forces because we both want the same thing. We both want to put on good chiptune nights. We can support each other in terms of effort and financially. It's a very different way of putting on gigs now because we can take a little bit longer but put on a better show. 

Chiptography: I like that you're taking µCollective and building on it. It's not just an online forum to connect and to archive, it's also a physical event. You organize shows where people can come together and share their ideas, music and visuals. 

2xAA: It's really nice that it can be fluid and it can be in the real world. 

Chiptography: That's fantastic! I'm really excited to see where it goes and how it grows. I'm excited to experience it in the early days. 

2xAA: It's going to be good. 

Listen to 2xAA’s music on Bandcamp and Soundcloud.

Follow 2xAA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Follow NO_SIGNAL on Twitter and Instagram.

Follow µCollective on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Learn more about Sam Wray on his website.

Photos by Chiptography © 2020.

scythe

Chiptography: Tell me about your first chiptune experience and what drew you into the scene? How old were you?

あなたをチップチューンシーンに引き込んだ最初の体験について教えてください。当時何歳でしたか？

scythe: Although I knew there is a genre of chiptune from before, SST2016 was undoubtedly the trigger for entering the scene in earnest. I was 21 years old and I lived in the shrine in Tokyo in order to become a Shinto priest. At that time, I happened to get a day off on Sunday for the first time in four years of Tokyo (in the shrine where I was, students were basically not allowed to take a holiday on Saturdays and Sundays). And the day was DAY2 of SST2016 by chance. As Uraboroshi, yukkerom, and Tobokegao invited me, I decided to go to there. I saw KUNIO (and SUPERSTARS), Mega Ran, NNNNNNNNNN, TORIENA, etc. at there and experienced chiptune on a big stage. They all looked shining and I felt chiptune was so cool. It changed my world. Then I made chiptune within that day, and played it at OPEN MIC at Post-party. York, CheapBeats boss, listened to the track and called out to me. Then my chiptune life started.

その前からそういう音楽がある事は知ってはいましたが本格的にシーンに入るきっかけになったのは間違いなくSST2016ですね。当時は21歳で神主になるために東京の神社に住み込みで実習しながら大学に通ってたんですけど、4年間いてたまたま初めて日曜日に休みが取れたんですよね(僕のいた神社では学生は土日に休みを取る事は基本的に許されてなかったんです)。それでその日が偶然SSTの2日目だったので、その少し前からネット上で交流のあったとぼさん(@to6okegao),ウラさん(@uraboroshi),ゆっけさん(@yukkerom)の誘いもあって行ってみることにしたんです。そこでKUNIO(とSUPERSTARS)、Megaran、NNNNNNNNNN、TORIENAなどを見て、初めて大きい箱でチップチューンを浴びる体験をしました。ステージに上がるアーティストはみんな輝いて見えたし「ああ、チップチューンってめちゃめちゃかっこいいな～」と思いました。文字通り世界が変わったんです。それで翌日の後夜祭のオープンマイクでその日の内に完成させた曲をかけて、それがきっかけでレーベルのボス、ヨーキに声を掛けてもらったのが今の自分へのきっかけだと思います。

Chiptography: How did you learn to make chiptune in just one day? What device did you make your first tune on and what software did you use? What was the name of the first track you played at that open mic in 2016?

わずか1日でチップチューンの作り方をどのように学びましたか？ 最初にチューニングしたのはどのデバイスで、どのソフトウェアを使用しましたか？ 2016年にオープンマイクでプレイした最初のトラックの名前は何でしたか？

scythe: Since I was interested in making chiptunes, I already knew some of the unique techniques. I played “Shiden-Issen (紫電一閃)” made with DMG-CPU1.5.sf2. At that time, I didn't think about playing on the real machine.

チップチューンを作る前から興味はあったので、チップチューン独特の技法は既にいくつか知っていました。その時はDMG-CPU1.5.sf2を使った紫電一閃という曲をプレイしました。当時は実機で演奏することは考えてなかったですね。

Chiptography: What instrument did you play when you first started making Chiptune and do you still have it?

チップチューンを作るのに最初に使った楽器は何ですか？まだそれを持ってますか？

scythe: When I first made chiptune, I used Magical 8bit Plug, DMG-CPU1.5.sf2, and Famitracker. In terms of instruments, DMG is my first. Now I use 2xGBC mainly. Of course, I have past instruments, but I have transplanted parts to other GAME BOY, so it is not in perfect condition.

本格的に活動する前はMagical 8bit PlugやDMG-CPU1.5.sf2、Famitracker等を使っていました。最初の楽器という意味ではDMGが最初です。今はGBC2台をメインで使ってます けどね。もちろん今でも過去に使っていた機材は保管してます。でも他のゲームボーイにパーツを移植したりしているので完全な状態ではないですね。

Chiptography: The first time I photographed you was at Square Sounds Tokyo 2018. It’s very impressive that you were first introduced to chipmusic only 2 years prior. How did it feel to perform on the same stage that inspired you?

最初にあなたを撮影したのはSST2018の時でした。たった2年前にチップチューンを始めたというのはとても印象的です。彼らと同じステージでライブをしてどう感じましたか？

scythe: Yes. It was my first time to perform on such a big stage, and I was very happy because it was my wish.

そうですね。あんなに大きなステージで演奏する事は初めてだったし、SSTのステージに立つのは夢だったので本当に嬉しかったです。

scythe performing live at Square Sounds Tokyo 2018.

Square Sounds Tokyo 2018でのscytheのライブ。

Chiptography: What’s the story behind your artist name?

アーティスト名の由来について教えてください。

scythe: scythe is a handle that I have used for more than 10 years. I took it from my last name (Kamada=鎌田, 鎌＝scythe). I have been using it for a long time, so it has become established as another name for myself.

scytheはもう10年以上使っているハンドルネームです。苗字から取ったんですけど (鎌田、鎌＝scythe)、ずいぶん長く使っているのでもう一つの名前として自分の中でも 定着してますね。

Chiptography: Oh! So a scythe is a direct translation of your real last name, Kamada. That’s pretty cool because although Japanese people would have known, I don’t know that English speaking people would make that connection. Did you use this as a nick-name in the last 10 years or did you use it to create other music before chiptune?

ああ、scytheは鎌田からの直訳だったんですね！日本人なら分かるかもしれないけど英語圏 の人にはその関係性は分からないですね。いいと思います。10年以上あなたのニックネームとして、もしくはチップチューン以前の名義として使っていましたか？

scythe: Haha, Good point. I've been using this name since I started the internet. So the name before make chiptune is scythe too.

確かにそれはそうかも笑。インターネットを使い始めた頃からずっとこの名前です。だからチップチューンをやる前の名義もずっとscytheのままです。

Chiptography: How do your family, friends, and co-workers perceive what you do?

家族や友人、同僚はあなたのしている事を知っていますか？

scythe: Yes. I think my parents always support me because they let me do what I want to do. Most of my friends are also active in music (not chiptune), so they know about my activities. co-workers are the same. The president and section manager have my albums.

うん、みんな知ってますね。家族も基本的にやりたい事はやらせてくれる方なので応援 してくれてると思います。基本的に付き合いのある友人は大体チップチューンではないけど何かしら音楽をやっている人が多いので認知はされてます。同僚に関してもみんな僕の事は知ってますね。社長、課長に至っては僕のCD買ってるし笑。

Chiptography: Tell me about your family and where you grew up.

家族の事、あなたが育った場所について教えてください。

scythe: I was born in Sapporo. I grew up there until entering university. My father is also a Shinto priest and my mother was a kindergarten teacher. And I have an older sister. When I was a junior high school student, I listened to my sister's CD until I started looking for music to listen to. There are many Shinto priests in my family, and almost all of the Shinto priests that have Kamada surnames in Hokkaido are relatives. So many lol. So Shinto shrines have always been involved in my life. In a way, it was a natural flow for me to become a priest.

札幌で生まれて、 大学に入るまではそこで育ちました。 私の父も神主であり、母は幼稚園の先生をしていました。あとは3つ上の姉がいます。 僕が中学生だったとき、聞く音楽を自分で探し始めるまでは姉のCDを聴いてました。 私の一族には多くの神主がいて、北海道で鎌田の姓を持っている神主のほとんどは親戚です。本当に多いです笑。 なので、神社はいつも私の人生に関わっています。ある意味、僕が神主になるのは自然な流れでした。

Chiptography: Both your father and grandfather were priests. How far back is the genealogy?　

お父さんとお祖父さんが神主という事ですが、その系譜はどこまで遡りますか？

scythe: I, father, grandfather, grandfather's father.

僕と、父親、おじいちゃん、ひいおじいちゃん。

Chiptography: Four generations! Wow!

四世代！ すごい！

scythe: Since Hokkaido has been pioneering for 150 years, it's about 4 generations. This year is just 150.

北海道が開拓から150年しか経っていないので、たぶん約4世代です。今年でちょうど150年なんですよ。

Chiptography: Just this year? So big celebrations! Did your father want you to work at his shrine in Sapporo?

ちょうど今年？とてもめでたいですね！お父さんはあなたに札幌の神社で働いて欲しいと思っていましたか？

scythe: Yes. Eventually, I'm going to go there. In two or three or 4 years. It's not yet decided. My grandfather also has a shrine so I go to the festival every year. I went to play as a kid, but now I'm helping as a priest.

はい。 最終的に僕もそこに行くと思います。2年か3年、もしくは4年で。まだ決まってないけど。祖父も神社を持っているのでそこのお祭りには毎年行ってます。子供の頃は遊びに行ってたけど今は神主として手伝いにいっていますね。

Chiptography: Outside of chiptune, what are your interests and passions?

チップチューン以外では何に興味がありますか？

scythe: Well... I love eating delicious food. I often cook dishes that I want to eat myself. There seems to be a lot of fun to “make something”, whether it ’s things, music, or cooking.

なんですかね…。美味しい物を食べる事は大好きです。食べたいものがあれば自分で作る事も多いです。物にせよ音楽、料理にせよ「何かを作る」ことに楽しみを見出す事が多いようです。

Chiptography: Food is a passion of mine as well! I also cook a lot at home and prefer it to going to a restaurant. I agree that it feels satisfying to make a meal yourself. There is something to putting the ingredients together and seeing the dish form. I love sitting down to eat when I plate something beautifully.

料理を食べるのは私も大好きです！私も外食より自分でご飯を作る方が多いですね。自分の為に料理をする事で満たされる事には同意します。材料を盛り付けた皿を見ると心に来るものがあります。自分のプレートの上に美しい食事が乗っている時、食卓につくのが大好きです。

scythe: Nice! It’s okay, I’m not really good at arranging food, but I know it.

いいですね、僕は盛り付けは上手くないけどめっちゃわかります。

Chiptography: What is your favorite dish to cook and why?

好きな料理は何ですか？その理由は？

scythe: I like Curry, Spaghetti Napolitan, Omu-hayashi (Hashed Beef and Omelette), Dandan noodles, and so on. Hm, When I answer that, It’s difficult question… I like foods that kids would like, haha.

カレー、ナポリタン、オムハヤシとかですかね。理由って言われると難しいけど…子供が好きそうな物は大体好きだと思います笑。

scythe’s mineral collection. The top two minerals are fluorite. The middle three minerals are blue amber, opal and pyrite. The bottom two minerals are amber (normal) and blue amber. His favorite mineral is blue amber because it glows in different colors when held in different light sources (sunlight, ultraviolet, artificial).

scytheの鉱物コレクション。上段が蛍石、中段は左から琥珀、オパール、パイライトです。下段は左が琥珀、右がブルーアンバー(青い琥珀)。ブルーアンバーは紫外線に当たると青色に蛍光する特別な琥珀で、scytheのお気に入りです。

scythe: Other than that, I like collecting minerals but I'm not so enthusiastic right now because there is no mineral shop near my town. When I was in Tokyo, many mineral shows were held, so I often went there. I also went to the mineral shops in Shinjuku and Harajuku. I feel the romance that nature creates that beautiful stones over a long period of time. I especially like amber, opals and citrines that look like sunsets.

それ以外だったら、最近は買える店が近くにないのもあってそこまで熱心ではないけど鉱物を集めてます。東京にいた頃はミネラルショー(鉱物の即売会)が定期的に開催されていたのでよく行ってました。後は新宿や原宿の鉱物屋にもよく行ってましたね。自然が長い時間をかけてあの美しい石を作り上げる事にロマンを感じます。琥珀やオパール、シトリンみたいな夕焼け色をした物が特に好きです。

Chiptography: We call mineral collecting “rock” collecting although I like the way it translates to “minerals” here because the word “rock” doesn’t sound beautiful. Do you keep your minerals displayed in your home so you can enjoy them? Do you have a favorite mineral in your personal collection?

鉱物を集めるのは石(＝ロック)収集と呼びますが、石という言葉は美しく聞こえないため、ここでは鉱物(ミネラル)と言い換えるのがいいでしょう。鉱物観察を楽しむ為に家にしまっておくのですか？ またあなたのコレクションの中でお気に入りの鉱物は何ですか？

scythe: Yeah, basically it is housed. My favorite is blue amber. A special amber that reflects blue when exposed to ultraviolet light. It looks like a sunset sky depending on the angle.

そうですね、基本的には家にしまってあります。一番好きなのはブルーアンバーですね。紫外線に当たると青色に反射する特別な琥珀です。角度によって本当に夕焼け空の様に見えるんです。

Chiptography: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

小さい頃なりたかったものは何ですか？

scythe: From the time when I was a child, there were so many shrines nearby that I could see my future. When I was in elementary school, there was a time when I wanted to be a carpenter (a shrine specialist carpenter) rather than a shrine lord. I've always loved crafting since a long time ago.

これも小さい頃から神社が近くにありすぎてなんとなく自分の将来が見えちゃってましたね。小学生の頃は神主よりも宮大工(神社専門の大工)になりたいと思ってた時期がありました。昔からやっぱり工作とか好きでしたね。

Chiptography: I never had the opportunity to speak to a Shinto Priest before! What does a shrine lord do and what other types of jobs are possible at a shrine?

今まで神主と話す機会はありませんでした！ 神主は神社で何をしていますか？

scythe: I bet. We clean up shrine, make shinsen (food for god), pray for peace and security of the nation, perform a purification ceremony, and so on. And recently I often write goshuin (red stamps).

でしょうね。普段は神社の掃除とか神饌を作ったり、国の平和を祈る祭事や祈祷をしたりしてます。最近は御朱印とかも結構書きますね。

Chiptography: How did you become a Shinto priest? What do you do every day?

どうやって神主になりましたか？毎日何をしていますか？

scythe: In order to become a priest, there are two ways to complete or receive training in two universities in Japan, but after graduating from a university in Tokyo for four years, I obtained a qualification and then worked at a shrine in Tomakomai. As the time of New Year and annual festivals approaches, we are busy with preparations, but during peacetime, we pray at shrines, write red stamps, and go to visits when building houses.

神主になるにあたって日本に2カ所ある大学を修了するか研修を受ける方法があるんですけど、僕は東京の大学に4年通って資格を取得した後で、苫小牧の神社に奉職しました。正月や例大祭の時期が近づくにつれて準備に追われ忙しくなりますが、平時には神社で祈願をしたり、御朱印を書いたり、後は家を建てる際のお祓い等に出向いたりしてます。

Chiptography: I imagine it’s fulfilling to have a career that you’ve seen a path for since childhood. Were there any challenges with getting into school? How long were you in school?

子供の頃から見てきた職業に就くことにはやりがいを感じると思います。入学するのは大変でしたか？またどれくらいの期間学校にいて、授業のやりがい等はありましたか？

scythe: I don't think there was any difficulty in school life. Rather, training at the shrine was more difficult… I worked at a shrine at noon and went to university at night, so I went university about 3 hours a day for 4-6 days a week. In fact, I was not a very serious student, especially after being inspired by chiptune lol. I often went out of class and went to Akihabara to buy parts for modding, and most events are basically from the evening so I skipped classes.

学生生活自体はそこまで大変じゃなかったと思います。むしろ神社での実習の方が大変でしたね…日中神社で働いて夜に大学行って、大体1日3～4時間で週に4～6日とかでしたね。　今思うとそんなに真面目な学生ではなかったです、特にチップチューンを始めてからは笑。よく授業を抜け出して秋葉原に改造用の部品を買いに行ったし、大体のイベントは夕方からだから学校もそれなりにサボってました。

Chiptography: Do you live close to the shrine? Do you live with family, friends or by yourself? What is your home like?

神社の近くに住んでるんですか？家族や友人と暮らしてる？それとも一人暮らし？家はどんな感じですか？

scythe: Ya, within 10 minutes walking distance from work. I’m living alone. But I often meet yukkerom and ryota because they live in the neighborhood. We go to the gym together every week. I live in a one room of the apartment. It doesn’t have any special features...Oh, I hang illustrations that are drawn by Illustrators I like on the wall.

うん、神社から歩いて10分かからない所で一人暮らししています。でもyukkeromとりょーたが近所に住んでるのでよく会いますね、毎週3人でジムに行くので。アパートの一室に住んでます。特に特徴があるわけではないけど…あ、部屋に好きな イラストレーターの絵が貼ってあったりします。

Chiptography: What are the names of the illustrators that made the illustrations on your wall?

壁のイラストを描いたイラストレーターの名前は何ですか？

scythe: Eri Kitamura (@hoshieri7), Narume (@narumeNKR), Sacha (@sch_39), HAKURO (@Ha96), masuno (@masnodon), Pecota Pechka (@PPechka)…

北村英理(@hoshieri7)、なるめ(@narumeNKR)、左茶(@sch_39)、HAKURO(@Ha96)、鱒野(@masnodon), ぺこたぺちか(@PPechka)…

Chiptography: There was one in particular that made album artwork for you, yes?

特にアルバムのアートワークを作った人がいますね？

scythe: Exactly! Eri Kitamura made artwork of “Nighty Night Stories”, and Narume made “Mirage Diary” art too.

そうです！えりさんにはNighty Night Storiesの、なるめさんにはMirage Diaryのアートをそれぞれ描いてもらいました。

Chiptography: Your Gameboys also have illustrations on them. Where these also created by the same illustrators?

ゲームボーイにもイラストが描いてありますが、 これらも同じイラストレーターによるものですか？

scythe: That’s right. They were drawn by Eri kitamura and HAKURO.

そうです。これはえりさんとHAKUROさんに描いてもらいました。

Chiptography: You showed me an alarm clock you made out of a Gameboy. This is very cool. What inspired you to make this? Do you make any other items?

ゲームボーイで作った目覚まし時計を見せてくれました。 これはとてもクールです。 これを作るきっかけは何ですか？ 他に何か作っていますか？

scythe: Thank you. While I was modding Game Boys, I had a surplus shell so I thought it could be used for something. At the same time, an official Game Boy-type alarm clock appeared, but I liked analog clocks and thought about making it.

ありがとう。ゲームボーイを改造する中でどうしてもシェルが余ってしまうので何かに使えないかなと思って。ちょうど同時期に公式でゲームボーイ型の目覚まし時計が出てたんですけど、アナログ時計の方が好きだし作ってみようかなと思ったんです。

Chiptography: Where do you see yourself in 20 years?

20年後には何をしていると思いますか？

scythe: In terms of work, I think I'm back at the Shinto shrine in Sapporo. I'd like to get married before that, but lol. Because I haven’t had a girlfriend for a long time... When it comes to chiptune, I would like to continue in some way. Now we are preparing to make a chiptune using a Sufami chip. Recently, I have been making LSDJ commentary videos, holding a chiptune competition, and creating a site that archives the waveform memory of Game Boy titles. I don't have the skills to host a real event, so I would like to help and increase the number of people who start a new chiptune.

仕事面では札幌の実家の神社に戻っているとは思います。それまでに結婚とかしてればいいですけどね笑。長く彼女もいないので… チップチューンに関していえば、是非何かしらの形で続けていきたいと思っています。今はスーファミのチップを使ったチップチューンを作るために準備しているところです。最近はLSDj解説動画の作成、チップチューンコンペの開催、ゲームボーイタイトルの波形メモリをアーカイブするサイトの作成などをしてきました。リアルでのイベントを主催する技量はないのでそういう面で新たにチップチューンを始める人を増やしたいし助けになりたいと考えています。

Chiptography: What is the name of the website that archives waveform memory of Gameboy titles?

Gameboyタイトルの波形メモリをアーカイブするWebサイトの名前は何ですか？

scythe: GB waveform archives. But I'm busy now and can't update the site.

今は忙しくて更新出来ていませんが…

Chiptography: Do people from around the world use your site?

世界中の人々があなたのサイトを使用していますか？

Scythe: I don't know.

うーん、どうでしょう。

(scythe went into the data analytics for his website to view where users are located.)

(scytheはユーザーの所在を調べる為にウェブサイトのデータ解析に行きました)

Chiptography: (Reading from the analytics) Japan, US, France, Ecuador, South Korea, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Brazil! Beautiful!

(解析を読み）日本、アメリカ、フランス、エクアドル、韓国、ベルギー、カナダ、デンマーク、ブラジル！すばらしいです！

Scythe: It was more than I thought.

思っていた以上に見てくれてましたね。

Chiptography: What are the biggest life-changing elements you walk away with, having been involved in the scene and it's people.

シーンとその人に関わってきた中で、人生を変える最大の要素は何ですか？

scythe: It's difficult. In my case, I think it was a live performance's impact. I think it's more important to see with your eyes than with words, listen with sound, and feel with your body. Although I'm not good at speaking myself, I always want to be able to convey something with expressions that are not words. And all that is left is to make good friends.

難しいですね。僕の場合はやっぱりライブでの衝撃だったと思います。言葉よりも目で見て、音で聴いて、体で感じる事が大事なんだと思います。僕自身喋るのが得意ではないのもありますが、言葉ではない表現で何かを伝えられるようになりたいとは常に思っています。後はいい友人を見つける事ですかね。

Chiptography: I totally agree. For me, the live shows bring such an incredible amount of joy and I am often also left speechless. That is why I make photographs. I am moved by the live performances and I want to make images that capture my experience in a subjective way. I want to show the beauty and excitement that I see during those live performances. You are a very creative person who experiences the world deeply with all 5 senses: sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch. When you are performing or attending a live performance, all of these senses are stimulated. I think you and I are very similar in this regard.

全くその通りです。私にとっては、ライブは大きな歓びを与えてくれるし時々言葉を失う事もあります。それが私が写真を撮る理由です。ライブパフォーマンスに感動し、それを主観的に捉えた写真を撮りたいです。自分の見たライブの華やかさや興奮を見せたいです。あなたは五感全てで世界を深く感じ取るとても創造的な人です。演者としてライブにいる時、また観客としてライブを見ている時の両方でこれらの感覚が刺激されています。その点では私とあなたはとてもよく似ていると思います。

scythe: That's right at all.

全くその通りです。

Chiptography: Have you traveled outside of Japan?

国外に旅行したことはありますか？

scythe: Not yet. I want to perform abroad someday and want to meet more chiptuners!

まだないですね。 いつか海外でライブをしたいし、もっとチップチューナーに会いたいです！

Chiptography: where would you go?

どこに行きたい？

scythe: Square Sounds Melbourne. First I have to get my own passport… There are many festivals around the world.

スクエアサウンズメルボルンかな。まずパスポート取らなきゃダメですね。世界には多くのフェスティバルがあります。

Chiptography: There is a lot going on in Europe also! Get that passport and meet me there.

多くはヨーロッパでも開催されています。パスポートを取ってそこで会いましょう。

scythe: Nice. I want long vacation.. Going abroad takes many time.

いいですね。長期休暇が欲しいです…海外旅行は時間がかかるので。

Chiptography: I understand. My wish is to photograph you performing abroad one day.

わかります。いつかあなたが海外でライブする写真を取りたいですね。

scythe: Thank you! I wish it come true.

ありがとうございます！そうなるといいですね。

Listen to scythe’s music on Bandcamp and Soundcloud.

Follow scythe on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Photos by Chiptography © 2019.

skybox

Chiptography: Tell me how chiptune found you.

skybox: I think it was 2004. I was living in a rural part of Missouri, outside of Kansas City.

Chiptography: Is that where you're from? 

skybox: My dad was in the air force so we moved around a bunch. My earliest memories were living in Shaw Air force Base, South Carolina. We moved to St. Charles, Missouri which is just a couple of hours north of St. Louis. Ultimately, we moved to this area called Warrensburg because Whiteman Air force base is there. If you didn't know, it's the airforce base where all the B2 bombers are. My dad was in the 509th which is the B2 Bomber division. It's really interesting 'cause whenever there are military movies, even in the Shin Godzilla movie, they had their squadron division setting up to drop bombs on Godzilla and stuff. I was like, "Oh, that's cool!" 'cause I know where these are flying out of. From about 2nd grade to graduating high school, I lived in Warrensburg which is about 45 minutes east of Kansas city in rural farmlands. I must have been a sophomore in early high school. 4chan was still very, very new and the internet was very wild west but there was a board on 4chan that was just for flash animations. One of my favorite things about 4chan at the time in that flashboard was there were always people making really cool looping animations. It's kind of like Nyan Cat, just that looping song. There's nothing going on. I don't remember the name of the flash but there were lots of bright colors and shapes shifting when I clicked on it. I spent days trying to figure out what the song was. I'd ask people and nobody could tell me. I ended up having to find a flash decompiler so I could pull the SWF file apart and actually get the source name of the audio inside and even then it was just the track name. The song was Pastel Colored Candy. So I kept digging and digging and eventually, I found out that it was made by this group called YMCK. I went on to buy their Family Music CD which had just come out in Japan. I had always really liked video game music. Even as a kid I always wondered, "How did they make it? How could I make it?" I wasn't making music at the time. I was playing with FL studio and playing with weird samples and stuff. I had just got into making music as a way to waste time. After more digging, I found out it was called chiptune. It's kind of where it started but I didn't get involved with any particular scene until I moved to Detroit which was much, much later. 

Chiptography: So you weren't making chip music. It just piqued your curiosity. 

skybox: Yes. Most of my original chipmusic was fakebit up until about 2012 when I got really deep into LSDJ.  I actually didn't have a lot of chiptune as an influence when I was making music. When I was younger I was big into DDR, dance music, trance, and house. The first album I was super, super into was Daft Punk Discovery. Then I got into IDM and breakcore so like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Venetian Snares. My biggest influence at the time was The Flashbulb. He was a little different than the rest of the people in that genre. His music was very melodic driven, very progressive and evolving. It wasn't big percussion stuff or trying to be as aggressive and loud as possible. It was very fluid and it resonated with me. There was also Kettel, a Dutch guy, who does really strong, melodic, I guess you would call it acid music. I realized that I really liked that and I also wanted to make really melodic stuff which is why a lot of my music is very melody-driven as opposed to hypertechnical. 

Chiptography: After high school, did you go to college? 

skybox: No, after high school I had an opportunity to move to Seattle. Technically, Redmond, Washington. It's a suburb about 30 minutes away. Originally I told my parents that I wanted to go to school in Bellingham which is about two hours north of here. I wanted to go and I was like, I'm going to go to Seattle and save up. I have three other siblings. My mom was working as a manager at various food places and retail stuff. My dad was working in the military so we weren't the most well off and with all the kids... I never felt the gravity of not having money or my parents not having money but I definitely understood what it was later. Nobody in my family went to university. My mom didn't even graduate high school. She had a GED. Between the time that I had moved out, she decided to go back to school for radiology and now she's a radiologist.

Chiptography: Good for her!

skybox: So I moved to Redmond and I didn't really know what I was going to do but I wanted to try. I realized very quickly that going to school requires a lot of money. Money which I did not have. I was working two jobs, both full time. From 6 in the morning until 8, 9, 10 pm every day. I would get lucky sometimes and have both jobs off on the same day but it was very, very uncommon. So I was just working 7 days a week. Even then, I was not realistic. 

Chiptography: What were your jobs?

skybox: I worked in retail. I worked at the flagship store for Eddie Bauer.

Chiptography: I can't imagine you working at an Eddie Bauer. 

skybox: It's so weird! Eddie Bauer has really shifted over the last ten years. They went back to their roots of hiking and that kind of stuff but for a while, that market wasn't there especially during the recession. They were banking super hard on mid-30s women's clothing. So you would go to the store and it would be like Pacific Northwest Women's mid-30s basics. It was a lot of that. There was a small men's department just for denim and your very basic dress clothes. It was a good job. I also worked at a movie theater. That was the worst job ever. I quit within a month.

Chiptography: What didn't you like about it? 

skybox: I applaud anyone who works in the food industry, whether it's fast food or a high-end restaurant or anywhere in between. It's so stressful. The work and stress to compensation ratio is so unfair. With the movie theater, they made their money with concessions. It was super high stress and high pressure for any teenage kid but they're the only ones who are going to take those jobs. It sucked so be nice to the people at the concession stands at the movie theater 'cause it's really stressful. It seems like it's pretty straightforward, just making popcorn and stuff but all the equipment is really hot. There's a lot of oil around there so there's a high potential for burning. They have high standards for food freshness which is great but there's also that pressure of everyone trying to get to the theater. When they're done with that it's just clean up and break down and it's a constant cycle. 

Chiptography: I never thought about that actually. I was a waitress for a long time. I worked at several 24-hour diners so I understand the pressures to keep everything moving and not make mistakes.

skybox: I also worked at World Market. My bosses loved me there for some reason. I always had a lot of fun. It was a much lower stress job. At some point when I was working between Eddie Bauer and World Market, I would go to one, get off, walk to the next place (they were about a 20 minute walk away from each other), change my outfit and get to it. As you can imagine, that is just physically and mentally too demanding and financially still unfeasible. I realized I couldn't make the kind of money that was needed for a school as nice as Bellingham. The university there is super, super nice. I had no sense of scale or gravity of everything involved. My parents didn't go to college so they didn't really know all the intricacies. I didn't even consider school loans or anything like that. I had no established credit.

Chiptography: It sounds like you didn't have much guidance. 

skybox: Zero. None. I realized that I was just going to kill myself staying in Redmond and I ultimately moved back to Kansas where my parents were. At some point, I got really stressed out and depressed about the whole thing and I moved to Washington DC. I had a friend who lived in Reston which is just outside of DC. I was there for months just recentering myself. Before I moved there I was working an overnight job as an overnight grocery stocker and I had become a full-blown zombie. Doing an overnight job like that changes so much about your brain. It's really weird 'cause when you're working overnights, you don't get that social connection with your friends because you're always sleeping when they're awake. Even on your days off, you're just too tired to hang out. There's something about that shift and not seeing the sun that destroys your ability to function. You have to get way more sleep. 9 hours, 10 hours doesn't cut it. It took months for me to recover but during that time I would be up really late and I was working on music. That is when I started doing LSDJ stuff. I had a chance to not work. I didn't have to worry about money. I was just living in my friend's living room. I put out The One Electronic album, Long Time Ago. It was a very naive idea of what an album was. It's still kinda cool even though it's very unpolished because it's progressive and narrative and melodic and all the stuff that I liked about my influences. I would say that for a long time a lot of my music was very much like diary entries. They're all narrative. When I was living in Reston, I was still doing computer music but I was learning LSDJ and it was really hard. I had one of the old clear blue official LSDJ carts. They don't have the USB port on them like the modern EMS carts do. You had to have a computer with a parallel port or serial port to flash it with a big cumbersome device or you had to send it to somebody to flash it for you. Anyone who was using the software at that time was a madman. One of the biggest things that it lacked was this thing called note prelisten. So when you're writing the music, you can't hear it until you press play. Instead of inserting the note and hearing what the note is or making an instrument and hearing that instrument as you're placing it down, you'd have to stop your stuff, move back to the main section and let it play through. You couldn't play in specific spots so if you wrote a new phrase in one container, you couldn't just to hear it and press play, you'd have to start from the top so you're always starting over. The longer the song got, the more painful it became… Anyone who was doing it, y'all are crazy. 

Wall detail from skybox’s studio.

Chiptography: How long were you in Reston? 

skybox: Like 4-5 months. I didn't want to be too big of a burden. I went back to stay with my parents for another year or so and then I moved to Detroit. I had a lot of friends who lived in Windsor. Windsor is the Canadian city adjacent to Detroit. They're separated by the river. I wanted to be closer to them. I had about $400 and I just took off. I still had not been part of the chiptune scene yet. I was still making music on my own. In 2012, I was having a hard time with my relationship with my girlfriend. Our group of friends ended up being more of her group of friends so I was very isolated at the time. My friend Tomas who lives in Chicago said, "Hey, I know you're having a really bad time right now. There's a show going on and my friend Nigel is playing." Nigel, as you may know, is Saskrotch. Back in 2007 when I was living in Redmond, I was digging into finding chip music besides YMCK and I learned about Sabrepulse and Saskrotch and Trash80, just a lot of the good kids. I remember talking to Nigel on AIM. 

Chiptography: For those who don't know, AIM is American Online Instant Messenger and it was the first mainstream way of chatting online.

Skybox: I loved AIM! I miss AIM. It was so good. The away messages! I wish facebook messenger had away messages. Imagine if someone messaged you and you could have a song quote or something deep. But yeah, so my friend was like, "Saskrotch is playing this thing. You should go!" and I was like this sounds like an amazing opportunity to see some chiptune stuff live 'cause I was just starting to post on 8-bit Collective. That was my first time being at a real chip show. There were a lot of notable people in the crowd, one of them being Corey (SNESEI). There are pictures from the event literally standing next to each other, not knowing who we were at the time. We ended up moving in together at some point. After the show, or between acts I can't remember, I stepped outside to get some air. I was with my friend who was very drunk and he's one of those people who just kind of like shouts things. He's really friendly. I think I was talking to Bubblegum Octopus who just finished their set and I was like, "Oh that was so good and it's really cool that there's a chiptune thing going on! " My friend just shouts, "THIS GUY MAKES CHIPTUNE TOO! IT'S REALLY GOOD!" And I'm just like, oh my God I did not want to be that kind of person. Standing next to him was Rebekah (Watabou) and she was like "Oh, there's a chiptune collective going on in Detroit right now called Piko Piko Detroit. If you're doing chiptune stuff you should message them or send them some music and maybe they can hook you up with shows." And I was like, "Ok cool, yeah!" The next day I did that. I messaged Piko Piko Detroit and I told them that I was looking to play shows. The person who responded to me was Tony, he goes by Monotony. He listened to some of the demos and stuff and he was like, "Oh this is so cool! I'm going to set you up with shows." And that's where I got brought into Piko Piko Detroit. This was like early summer 2012. Another chiptune person I met through Piko Piko Detroit was Justin who at the time went by Barbecue. He now goes by Kite Splash and makes incredible footwork stuff. He messaged me and he was like, "Yo, you want to hang out and get some drinks and stuff?" And I was like, why not? I met him at a bar and we got really drunk and really high and we talked about chiptune and we wandered around a park. I told him I was just learning how to do LSDJ stuff and I was showing some of it. At some point, he snatched it and started working on stuff. He played it back to me and it was blowing my mind 'cause I had not learned to do any of the technical stuff in LSDJ. I was doing basic bleep bloop stuff and I realized there was so much more to it. I ended up hanging out in his basement and just passing out watching Akira. 

Chiptography: That's really amazing because I feel like you were trying to figure out life on your own. After high school, you really struggling to figure it out and it was the same thing when you started to make chiptune. You didn't have any guidance or a strong community. That moment is so meaningful because he was there to guide you and mentor you. It was a turning point.

skybox: Yeah! We would regularly go on "dates" where we would get drunk and we would go to this place that's still around called One-Eyed Betty's and it's a craft beer-gastropub type deal. We would always get this giant thing of mussels and eat way too many of them and get way too drunk. It was always fun. We would tell people we were going to hang out at “Mussel Beach.” It was nice to finally make some friends who were my friends, do you know what I mean?

Chiptography: Was this when you started performing live?

skybox: One of the first shows that I played was this thing Piko@Lab. It was this event that Piko Piko Detroit would do monthly at a frozen yogurt shop in Ann Arbor. They would set up a tiny PA and we would play 20-30 minute sets and afterward, we would just go get food! The first time I met Corey, he was playing one of the Piko@Lab shows. We had played the same show but Corey and I still hadn't really talked. At some point, we sat down to eat pizza and he was like, "Dude, your stuff is super cool." And I was really impressed because Corey's stuff has always been super melodic and catching and fun. We connected over pizza which is very chiptune. At some point, I decided to move out of my house. He had a spare room and I moved in with him. That was very influential to the way I write music now. I really learned the ropes of LSDJ but before I got to that point where I was fully doing Gameboy stuff, we had a show. It was a music festival that we decided to throw on the same day as Movement. It's a very big midwest EDM festival that lasts a whole weekend. For some reason, we thought it would be a great idea to do something the same day because everyone's already downtown and they'll see these fliers and come.... Nobody came to the show. 

Chiptography: Oh no! 

skybox: It was just the performers. I'm pretty sure Nigel played that one. Who else played it? AndaruGO played, HunterQuinn, Mail Order Monsters, I played, and I believe Corey played. There was Cincinnati, Chicago and Detroit people. That show was, for me, a complete and absolute nightmare. 

Chiptography: Why?

skybox: I was still doing computer music at the time. I had a laptop, a synth, and my Gameboy. For whatever reason, all of my hardware failed. The laptop completely was unresponsive and my synth wasn't working. 

Chiptography: So it was a chiptune show? 

skybox: Yeah, it was maximum chiptune. Everything failed except the Gameboy. After that show, I decided it's time to just use the Gameboys. I cannot rely on this computer anymore. It was years of struggling getting hardware to work right and my computers failing. At some point, I was bringing a full-fledged desktop and monitor to shows because my laptop wasn't reliable enough and even then my computer's power supply started failing. There were times when I would keep pushing the power button on my desktop until it would power on. I would get pushed back on the lineup until it would turn on. It would turn on, I would plug all my stuff in and play the set. What a mess. I decided computer music sucks. I'm just going to use Gameboys. My Gameboys have never failed me ever still to this day. None of my carts have ever failed. Sometimes they'll crash if I smack them against the table too hard but I've never had any catastrophic failure with the Gameboys. 

Chiptography: You just needed that little push from the universe. Tell me about your current artist name, skybox. Where does that come from?

skybox: It's a bit of a story. A couple of years ago (2016, maybe 2015), I went through a big period of different monikers that were confusing for people. Either they didn't know how to pronounce it or they didn't know how to spell it and it just became sloppy. It was really frustrating playing shows and people either mixing it up or mispronouncing things. I really wanted something very simple and modern. I guess it's technically somehow videogame-related because skybox is the 3D environment where video games sit in. When you look at the sky you're literally looking at a skybox that the environment's sitting in. It's subtle enough that it's not like, "VIDEOGAMES." I'm not like Mario Man. You get the idea.

Chiptography: What were some of the other names you experimented with?

skybox: The very first name that I went by for a long time, I'm talking 2006/2007 - 2013/2014 was called The One Electronic which sounds very, very pretentious. 

Chiptography: I think I photographed you under that name. Did you do a New York show?

skybox: I did! There was a Piko Piko Detroit takeover show for Pulsewave back in 2013. 

Mikey playing as The One Electronic during the Piko Piko Detroit Pulsewave takeover in 2013.

Chiptography:It was in that loft space, right? 

skybox: Yeah! It was this interesting cool, loft thing. It was the first time I was in New York and I was super nervous about it. There were a lot of really cool OG people there. Bit Shifter was there and I remember he was just like, "Which CDs of these are good?" I forget who was at the table. I think it was me, my ex-girlfriend, Rachel and I want to say it was Dr!p. We were like, "This one's good. That one's good. They're all good." He was like, "Ok- I'll take them all." That was really cool because it was before the show even started and we were all really nervous. It was really surreal that we were going to play and do this big Pulsewave thing. It actually took a lot of tension out of the show. But yeah, I went by The One Electronic. I was a big fan of this comic called Rice Boy written by Evan Dahm. One of the characters in it was this bruting, stoic, detective kind of guy. He was also a robot guy and his name was The One Electronic. He was going on this journey to find somebody who was going to be a catalyst for this big, world-changing event. He was a really cool and interesting character. I reached out to Evan Dahm and I was like, "Hey, your comic is really inspirational. I've been doing music and I've been doing chiptune stuff. It feels very organic and natural to use that. Are you ok with this?" I know it's not a trademarked name or anything but it would be weird if I played a show and he was like, "Why is this guy using this name of this character?" He was totally cool with it. 

Chiptography: Do you think he's a little disappointed now that you gave up that name?

skybox: He probably forgot about it as soon as I sent the email. He was like, "Yeah, ok, whatever dude." So yeah, I went by that for a long time. It always sounded a little pretentious and also people would say it wrong. They usually say, "The One Electric." They would either say it wrong or spell it wrong and it's also a mouthful so I was like, "Ok, maybe I won't do that." For a couple of years, I want to say in 2013/2014, there was a big anime aesthetic that popped up with vaporwave and stuff. In the chiptune scene, Slime Girls was really popping during that time. It was something that I always really liked too. I like a lot of anime stuff so I was like, maybe I'll combine something with that. I was also really into idol stuff for a while. I had thought of this concept of doing a chiptune idol duo. I would do backing music and then have somebody sing on top of it. I actually did it a little bit with my friend Amina. Amina went on to move to Tokyo and became one of the first and biggest Black Idol Stars in Japan. She does modeling and all sorts of stuff but when she was living in Detroit, she would sing covers of songs and I would write the covers on LSDJ and we would play them together. It was a lot of fun but we couldn't commit to a full project. The project was called Shoujo Kiss. I think most people recognize me as that initially but I never found a full-time vocalist. That's when I decided to switch over to something that was more straightforward. That's when I decided to go with skybox. Again, Shoujo Kiss, how do you spell it? There are actually two correct phonetic ways to spell it and people don't necessarily know how to pronounce Shoujo Kiss. When I play with The One Electronic people, they have a weird impression of what that's going to be. So I decided I wanted something very neutral so that I could expand my palate. I still get described as very happy and cutesy. It's good but I'm also looking to expand the skybox project and being able to do a wider range of styles and interests. It's one of the reasons I went with it. It doesn't limit me to just doing the cute stuff. 

skybox showing Kino’s dog, Macaroni LSDJ.

Chiptography: Tell me more about your experience in Detroit because you were living there before the gentrification, or maybe a little bit into it? 

skybox: Yeah, I would say that I probably lived there around the same time that it started to repopulate. Everyone was telling me at the time, "Oh Detroit, I feel it. It's getting better." It's definitely getting better for the people who moved there and had the money to make it better I guess. Gentrification is always kind of a double edge, right? It's nice that people with money can come in and increase the quality of living for everyone else there but at the cost of making things more expensive. It's weird 'cause this community and this neighborhood is really cool and really historic and important. I lived right next door to Hotel Yorba which, if you're not familiar with Hotel Yorba, got famous because there's a White Stripes song called "Hotel Yorba." I lived in that neighborhood and it's really interesting 'cause, West Grand Boulevard, the street I lived on, was all mansions. It was definitely a super nice, wealthy area pre-white flight. After everyone left, it kind of crumbled. I guess within the last ten years, people with money started moving back into that part of the city and they put their money in and raised all the values. All these places that used to be covered in bullet holes now have gastropub stuff. Within 3 or 4 years of me leaving, I came back and it was a different neighborhood. It was wild. I almost never saw any other white people. I'm half Mexican and I'm very white-passing so I get that world of either not being white enough or being too white. My dad is 100% Mexican and his parents didn't want him speaking Spanish. He never learned so I was never taught. I kind of learned some in high school and then I lost it all because I lived in rural Missouri where nobody spoke it so I was not able to keep it up. It was weird, you know 'cause people would talk to me in Spanish and I would have to struggle to remember how to talk back and eventually I would give up and speak English and they would have that very disappointed tone when they realized, "oh, your last name is Vallejo but you don't speak any Spanish." That was always a weird thing. 

Chiptography: Do you feel any connection to Mexico or Latin America? 

skybox: Culturally, I was not educated on it. 

Chiptography: Did you have any relationship with your grandparents?

skybox: I did. They lived in Kansas City but they Americanized themselves as well. It was that time when you had to be very American.

Chiptography: Do you have any relatives in Mexico? 

skybox: Not that I know of. My great grandfather or his father, was adopted so the family history is not there. I don't know anything further back than that. It's very mysterious. Living in Detroit was interesting because when I was there, I lived in Mexican town. I did feel like I was a little more culturally connected with the people on my Mexican side. A lot of them treated me just fine. It was mostly the older, older people who would speak to me and I wouldn't be able to understand. I definitely felt more connected with that side of my heritage.

Chiptography: Tell me about how you came to Seattle. 

skybox: I was living with Corey and we were playing a lot of shows now. It was late 2013, early 2014. We were traveling around a lot, going to Magfest, playing shows, getting booked. I was playing one or two shows a month every month for a while. In early 2014 I got laid off at my job. I was working at a warehouse and I was making really good money. I was really happy with where my situation was going but I couldn't find another job and I ran out of money. My parents offered for me to stay with them again. It was really depressing because I was leaving all my friends behind. I kind of coped with that by going to a lot of shows. That's when I was going to Orlando and I was brought out to LA to play Freq.Fest. I was going out to Chicago and Texas. I got flown out to Detroit a couple times. I went all over the place. It was the best years of me being booked for shows. I got invited to play a show in Seattle during Sakura-Con which is our big anime convention in the Spring. During that time my friend, Alex was living in Seattle and I was telling him how much I loved and missed Seattle. It had been about 10 years. Everything was really surreal 'cause there was all these landmarks and people and smells and all these things that I remember from my very youthful age of 17. That was such a  weird time 'cause I was totally shifted as a person over the ten years. That was before I was moving around and really unsure. I had just left high school and I was feeling good about myself. It was before I realized how hard things really are when you're on your own and you don't have that support. It was weird to revisit it and have the knowledge I have now. He told me, "Well, there's a spot opening up in my house. It's probably going to be the cheapest rent you're going to find in Seattle. You'll be with me and we can find you a job. Consider it." I was like, "ok, I'll think about it." I went home and I thought about it over a month or two. I flew out to Seattle one more time to visit friends, check out the house, make sure I really wanted to do it. There was a point where I dropped myself in the middle of downtown and just walked around Seattle, walked around the neighborhoods and I was just like yeah, I gotta come back. I went home, put in my two weeks, packed all my stuff in an even smaller car than the last time I moved and drove 2,000 miles from Kansas City to Seattle in a car with no air conditioning. It was right in the middle of the summer, the last week of July. I drove through Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Oregon. It was super fun. 

Chiptography: How did Pacific Noise Works come about? 

skybox: A lot of the experiences I learned from Piko Piko Detroit, I applied to Pacific Noise Works. 

Chiptography: For me, Pacific Noise Works is really different in that it's not 100% chiptune. 

skybox: Yes, so when I started this I really wanted to do more shows but I don't want to just keep playing chiptune shows. I feel like one of the limiting factors because we're so niche, we have this really nice tight-knit community but there's a point where, when I was going to shows I was always seeing the same faces, the same people. Either somebody was a performer or had performed before and nobody else was coming to these shows. How can you bring people if you're not inviting people in? It wasn't a gatekeeping thing. It was just the choices that we made and the people we picked to play shows were always the same people. So I wanted to do a chiptune thing that wasn't just chiptune. It ultimately became the three pillars of Pacific Noise Works. If you look at our logo, it says, "Chiptune, hardware and dance music." The idea was, we could bring people doing chiptune, hardware, Gameboy stuff with people who are using full-blown synthesizers and drum machines and people making really cool computer music. I really think it's resonated with a lot of people here. So it was originally me, Nikola Whallon, who was also part of Piko Piko Detroit, and Graz. We built the concept and we talked about what we wanted to see at the shows and what we didn't want to be there and a lot of ideas have been thrown around since then but I think what we're doing now is solid. We three started it and I brought Kino in. 

Pacific Noise Works Posters.

Chiptography: Where did you meet Kino? 

skybox: I met Kino online, just through dating stuff. Kino came to our first show and at some point, we realized that we needed an art direction for our fliers and Kino is an illustrator. Kino did a lot of our original fliers. They did the original flier from WAV.Fest last year which is phenomenal. I have it on my fridge. Kino became a vital pillar for our group. We ended up dividing the work so I do most of the curating for performers. I usually pick out who's going to play the shows, contact them, help book transportation and that sort of stuff. Graz does a lot of the online promotion stuff. Nikola talks with the venue and Kino handles the art side. One of the things that I've really pushed when we first started to do the Heat.WAV shows was I really wanted to have a variety of performers come in. In every scene, there are a lot of white dudes making music. There's just a lot of them. We didn't even know if people in Seattle were interested in chip stuff which had been dormant for almost 10 years. It was brought up to me very early on that we were playing too safe. By safe, I mean just booking shows for friends I guess. We had a big talk over the last year about who we wanted to book for these shows. I think it's really important that we have women, people of color, and queer folk all coming and playing and being seen and being heard. We're trying really hard to make sure that's a core element of Pacific Noise Works and the Heat.WAV shows. Even our illustrators that we're commissioning for fliers, we specifically reached out to local, queer and POC people who we see their art floating on the internet but they're not getting the local attention. It's amazing how much of it is present and somehow ignored. I feel like a lot of the visual art especially is sometimes forgotten about.  It's understandable when the event is supposed to be about the music. People come for the music but the visualist are so important. 

Chiptography: I 100% feel that. That's why when I'm taking pictures of a show, it's very important for me to try to get as many shots of the visuals in the photos. I get a little nit-picky about the fog because it impacts the visuals. 

skybox: I'm glad you brought that up. As soon as I told the guy from the venue to turn it off, he did. 

Chiptography: I mean, I get it. Fog is fun. It looks cool, but.... 

skybox: The shots look great by the way. I was actually just thinking how nice the visuals looked. They're so vibrant and you can see them illuminating from the back. Our very first show didn't have a visualists. Honestly, we got a lot of complaints about it. 

Chiptography: It's flat without the visualist. 

skybox: It really creates that dynamic that people expect or they get when they're at the show. It's the whole package. We want to make sure that everything matters. One of our sister shows is Vancouver Chipmusic Society’s Overflow show run by Bryan, bryface in Vancouver. His shows are so high production. They're fantastic. They do the works. They have really cool venue with amazing sound. The visuals are always showcased. They have a big booth for the indie game dev stuff. It's so impressive and it's a totally different vibe than our shows usually are. Ours is usually much more grimey and feels more DIY and, for me, it's more intentionally like that. We don't do video game showcase stuff. We talked about it. I don't think it's what our show represents. 

Chiptography: It's important to have your own identity as well. I appreciate both shows. I have fun at both shows and I like them for different reasons. They both bring a lot of value to the chiptune community. 

skybox: Absolutely, 100%. I've been lucky enough to do one of the curated open mics as well as played an actual set for Overflow. When I saw what he was doing, I knew that we had to raise our standards as well. He curates the fliers and the performers and stuff so I think being able to have that other group so close-by kind of keeps us both in check of what we're doing and how we can make our show better.

Chiptography:  Where do you see chiptune going in 20 years? 

skybox: I want it to be remembered by more than just the community that it's in. I feel like it's starting to get there now where it's being recognized as a thing. Bandcamp has a dedicated section for chiptune. When they do their ads and show all the different music styles, chiptune pops up. It's really cool to see it there. 20 years from now, there will be kids who are in their teens and they're listening to influential music to them and they can talk about, "Dude, there's this guy making amazing chiptune stuff. Sabrepulse, he's so cool! I wish I could have been around to see him play in his hayday!" We talk like that about jazz performers or the Beatles or that kind of stuff. I'm not expecting to have that level of fame or anything but for something that's so important for us to be remembered like that would be the most rewarding thing. As far as music, it could be dead and that's fine. I just hope that it's not forgotten. 

Chiptography: I really like that answer. Was there a life-changing element about chiptune that you walk away with or something that that turned your life a different direction? 

skybox performing at Square Sounds Tokyo 2019 on the same night as YMCK.

skybox: Honestly, it was finding Piko Piko Detroit, being invited in and doing Gameboy stuff. I have LSDJ tattooed on my arm. I got it the winter before last, December 2017. People were saying, "It's gotta be something really important, something that's so important to you that you'll never regret getting this tattoo." I actually thought it over for a long time and I thought, what was the one thing that really impacted my adulthood? What brought me to me now at 30 years old? It was making Gameboy music with my friends. LSDJ. If it wasn't for picking up the Gameboy and going to the shows and getting better, there are people who I know now that I would have never met. I would probably never gone to Japan. I went to Square Sounds twice now and this time I get a chance to play with YMCK, the group that got me into chiptune in the first place. Super crazy. We are playing the same night. It's very surreal. It opened up opportunities to meet people, start relationships both platonic and romantic. Every path that I made was possible because I was doing music with people doing chiptune.

Chiptography: It sounds like it's not just a cool hobby. This is your life. 

skybox: It's a direction. I wasn't doing anything before I started doing this. I had no idea where I was going with my life. I didn't know what I wanted to do. As far as career and stuff, it was just always so foggy but this has always been a clear path, winding with many weird forks, but it was never scary or uncertain. It was just following it and seeing where I end up and here I am. 

skybox after winning the live video game Colorful Numbers during YMCK’s Square Sound Tokyo set in 2019.

Listen to skybox’s music on Bandcamp and Soundcloud.

Follow skybox on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Photos by Chiptography © 2019.

Nikola Whallon

Chiptography: I'm sitting with Nikola Whallon. Am I pronouncing it right?

Nikola Whallon: I pronounce it "WAY-lin" and then "NIK-ko-la." I pronounce Nikola wrong. Apparently it's "ni-KO-la" yeah. 

Chiptography: That's what I thought... 

Nikola Whallon: Yeah, that's just how I say it. 

Chiptography:  So that's your actual legal birth name? 

Nikola Whallon: Yeah, like from Nikola Tesla ‘cause my mom is from Yugoslavia where at the time I don't know what it was, but Tesla was born over there. 

Chiptography: Oh! Interesting! A lot of people don't use their real name as their chiptune artist name. I wasn't sure if that was your actual legal name or if that was the name you preferred to be called. But it's your actual name?

Nikola Whallon: Yup! 

Chiptography: Why did you decide to keep it as your artist name? 

Nikola Whallon: Probably a combination of me being lazy and it's sometimes difficult to keep track of faces and names and artist names. I like to write all sorts of kinds of music and I didn't want to have to make a different project for each of them. I just wanted to be known as, "Hey, that guy writes music and sometimes it's really cool chiptune, sometimes it's totally different." 

Chiptography: What other types of music do you do? 

Nikola Whallon: I guess I started writing classical music and then I started writing rock music when I was in high school. I was in some rock bands. And then electronic music in college and then at the tail end of college is when I started chiptune specifically. 

Chiptography: Did you study music in school? 

Nikola Whallon: Sort of. I studied music a lot before college. When I went to University of Michigan, for fun I took a bunch of music classes but not enough to minor or major, just sort of to meet the people and learn some composition stuff. I have to say, all of the things, credit should go to my parents. They started me at violin at 5. Obviously I hated it for like five years and then by the time I hit middle school, I liked it. Right around that time, I started picking up other instruments because I realized that I really liked instruments. I took piano lessons, I continued violin lessons until I was 17. I picked up the guitar like everyone in high school does more or less. I just sort of went crazy. I started composing very simple tunes. 

Chiptography: Aside from chiptune, you're part of several musical groups. What are they and can you tell me a little bit about them?

Nikola Whallon: Ya! So I used to be in a couple bands before life got really busy (starting in 2012/2013?) - I've been able to keep doing my solo chiptune act during that time because you don't need to coordinate with other people, but I really love playing in groups so since I finished grad school I started playing with 2 klezmer groups, 3 orchestras (the Seattle Social Rock Orchestra, the Seattle New Baroque Orchestra, and the Seattle Video Game Orchestra and Choir), and a 10 piece rock band called Steel Beans. I play violin in all of these, except a little sax in Steel Beans and a little clarinet in one of the klezmer groups. It's a really full load, and I have to drop from some of the groups for some concert seasons, but having the opportunity to play all sorts of different styles in the different groups is really musically fulfilling.

Chiptography: Tell me about your family. Are they also musicians? 

Nikola Whallon: Ya! So my dad is a violinist, also just amateur. He does stuff for fun but he got me into it. My mom doesn't play music herself but she was a big reviewer of media back in Yugoslavia. She had listened to tons of music and has a lot of perspective from her background. My mom introduced me to my favorite band of all-time, Bosnia-based Bijelo Dugme, and their composer Goran Bregovic. She also introduced me to Balkan music in general, one of my all-time favorite genres. A lot of Yugo-nostalgic influences have made their way into my music as well - I do several Balkan numbers during live sets, and while sometimes those less familiar with the genre do catch on at concerts, if my mom and her friends are ever in the audience, they burst into dance to the 7/8 beat, it's really cool!

Chiptography: You shared the history of your family on both your mother's and father's side. Not only is it incredibly interesting, but it shaped you into the unique person you are today as far as your musical background and political passions.

Nikola Whallon: I try not to delve into politics too much on stage or at shows, but it'd be naive to think politics should be separated from art, and this is definitely an appropriate place to get into it. My mom is from Yugoslavia, and her parents were super OG life-long communists, and my dad became a university professor in the 60's, came from a long line of academics, and in many ways was your stereotypical hippie-socialist-academic type. This has definitely contributed to me being a vocal leftist for sure! And it gave me an appreciation for both boots-on-the-ground leftists and also armchair leftists.

 My grandmother on my mom's side fled into the woods after the Nazis burned down her home, and she joined the partisan movement as a secret messenger. After the war she volunteered her labor to build Yugoslavia's infrastructure, and my mom's dad joined the Yugoslav army - both working towards that whole brotherhood and unity ideal. My mom really enjoyed growing up in Yugoslavia, it was a lot different from the stereotypical view of authoritarian communist countries - Yugoslavia broke off all ties with Stalin in the 50's, even after Stalin tried to intimidate them bringing tanks to the border, but Tito wasn't having any of it. Yugoslavia also had a thriving art scene (music, movies, etc), and my mom worked in the media as an art critic, and also did stuff in theater-like directing.

 Chiptography: Wow, that is wild! What a different reality your grandmother and mother lived in. 

 Nikola Whallon: Learning about Yugoslavia really had a big impact on me politically - in the US we learn that "communism is bad, period" but there are bright exceptions out there. I remember it was either me or my brother who wrote a paper in middle school about Tito's Brotherhood and Unity in response to the prompt "write a report on why communism is bad". When explaining the benefits of Yugoslav society, the teacher's response in red ink was something like "oh, I didn't know that." I'm not saying I'm a communist, I firmly believe 21st-century problems need 21st-century solutions, but the blatant anti-communist propaganda in this country is pretty sickening, there are good ideas on the left. Anyways, Tito eventually died, and so did his Brotherhood and Unity - the Balkans fell apart in brutal genocide, and the rest is really complicated history.. I remember when NATO, backed by Clinton, bombed our friends and family in Serbia - my grandparents in a bomb shelter, some of my parents' friends narrowly escaping just because my dad called the day before to let them know we were gonna bomb them.

Chiptography: I can’t imagine the fear and anxiety your family had to endure during that time.

 Nikola Whallon: My dad has been an archaeologist for over 50 years and has traveled the world over decades, bringing back an appreciation for cultures and art and music and "old things" from everywhere he goes. I'm in the process of getting the saz he bought in Turkey in the 60s restored and recently have gotten really into ashiks (Turkish saz player/traditional singers), my dad used to go watch them play when he lived in Istanbul. His work travel is how he eventually met my mom, similarly, I met my wife during work travel to Japan.

Chiptography: History repeats itself!

Nikola Whallon: My other passion in life, science, comes from my dad. Both him and his dad were professors, and while I likely won't go down that route, I did manage to snag a PhD in Physics along the way. Doing that research is like super geeking out, and understanding the coding, electrical engineering, signal processing, etc that came from the research is actually really illuminating as a chiptuner and audio engineer as well. During one project in undergrad, I determined the waveforms of dozens of variable stars, and converted the data to WAV data, threw it into my sampler, and then I could play tunes from variable star waveforms with a midi-keyboard! Ultimate geeking out.

Chiptography: Did you grow up in Washington State? 

Nikola Whallon: No, I grew up in Michigan, in Ann Arbor. The first chiptune-y stuff that I did was with this group, Piko Piko Detroit. They were super awesome but one by one a lot of the members started to move other "more hip places" like me now in Seattle. I love Seattle so much. I want to stay here for the rest of my life. 

Chiptography: We're currently talking on your houseboat which is amazing! Tell me a little bit of how you found this houseboat and how you figured out that you wanted to be on a houseboat. 

Nikola Whallon: I was applying to grad schools and I got into a few. I started looking at the cities that the grad schools are in got it down to, "I like both of these schools, which place would I rather live in?" I was curious if it was financially feasible to buy anything which is very hard these days. The cheapest place I found was this houseboat. I looked at it and I saw the price tag and I was like, "This is the most amazing thing in the world. I have to live here." And so we figured that out and here I am now. 

Chiptography: Amazing. Were you with your wife at the time? 

Nikola Whallon: We were dating long distance. We were long-distance for five years 'cause she lived in Japan and I lived either in Michigan or later, here, Seattle. But we weren't like fiancee or married or anything. 

Chiptography: How did you meet?

Nikola Whallon: We met at a chiptune show in Tokyo at 2.5D. Hige Driver was playing. I got very drunk and we met and it was extremely cute. 

Chiptography: I love it! So then you started talking and became friends and decided to go long-distance? 

Nikola Whallon: Yup- kind of right away. We went on like three dates while I was in still in Japan during that trip 'cause you can't stay for too long. We decided to go long-distance right away and I came back three months later and went from there. 

Chiptography: You speak Japanese, correct?

Nikola Whallon: Yeah. 

Chiptography: Did you know Japanese before you met her or was it something you learned? 

Nikola Whallon: I knew before I met her but at various levels. I'm still getting better. By the time I met her I was competent enough that we could hit it off. 

Chiptography: Why did you decide to learn Japanese? 

Nikola Whallon: Let's see... I mean the honest answer is that I'm a massive weeaboo.

Chiptography:  What's a weeaboo? 

Nikola Whallon: A weeaboo is like a foreign otaku. Foreign from the perspective of Japan. Apparently it has a really weird history where it was autocorrecting the term "wapanese" on some website at some point and then it took on a life of it's own. It basically means someone who is not Japanese who is pretty obsessed with Japanese culture. 

I was in middle school. Anime and video games. It has to be anime and video games. The more you get into anime and video games…. first you see Toonami, and you get the video games from Toys “R” Us but you dig deeper and then all of a sudden you realize that this world of anime and video games is much bigger in Japan. Now it's not so much the case. Now our cultural exchange is much faster. But you know 10, 20 years ago there's always a time lag when we get to watch DragonBallZ and when they got to watch DragonBallZ and stuff like that. 

Chiptography: Wow. And now you have a Japanese wife and a baby. 

Nikola Whallon: Yup.

Chiptography: How old is your baby? 

Nikola Whallon: He is 7 months. 

Chiptography: Brand new! 

Nikola Whallon: Yup. 

Nikola and Rin.

Chiptography: Aww. And you have a Japanese cat! What's your cat's name again? 

Nikola Whallon: Rin. Short for Ringo. In Japanese it means, apple. He came here originally from Hyogo-ken and then to Tokyo and then his first stop was in Berkley, California where I was at the time. And then we went to Michigan and then we went to Seattle. So he's been all over the country and all over the world. He's really good in cars, not so much planes, but cars- he digs cars. He belongs to Yumi and she got him something like 7-9 years ago. So before we met and stuff. 

Chiptography: He's part of the family now.

Nikola Whallon: Yup.

Chiptography: What's your day job? 

Nikola Whallon: I'm a software engineer. I went to grad school for physics and that was great but there aren't a terribly large number of jobs in physics and some physics people from the University of Michigan that went on to make a start-up in San Francisco got a hold of me and said I could work remotely. That was an offer I couldn't refuse. So I do software engineering. 

Chiptography: What type of software do you work on? 

Nikola Whallon: A.I. We write models for natural language processing. Speech to text. I started a year ago, but because we have the baby now, it would be convenient to separate work and home more. A week ago, the company agreed to get me access to a co-working space which is right over there [pointing out the window]. You can kayak there. It takes about 20 minutes. It's on the water. 

Chiptography: You kayak to work? 

Nikola Whallon: That's right. I tie up to the floating office space but then I go inside to the building which is nicer. That's one of the reasons I love Seattle. We have two big lakes: Lake Union and Lake Washington. And then west of them, we have the whole Puget sound. You have mountains and you have a forest and you also have a gigantic city with everything that you would want from a city. 

Chiptography: It definitely sounds like the best of all types of worlds and environments. That's really interesting. That's really cool. I like it. I'm liking it more and more. 

Nikola Whallon: Maybe you should move here! 

Chiptography: As far as your creative process, do you have something already in your head that you're then just trying to pull together and in a more visceral way or do you take something and build on it and let it grow?

Nikola Whallon: I try a lot of different things. When I hear music in my head that I think sounds really cool and I try to write it, that is the hardest for me. I wish I could do it better because you often hear things in your head abstractly that are extremely cool but then putting it on paper or putting it on a sound chip is much more difficult. What ends up working much better for me, although I continue to try other techniques of being creative, but what ends up working really well for me is I'll grab and instrument and I'll just doodle daddle for an hour. I'll hit on some things that I really like and then I'll write them down and then maybe I'll build on them then. Maybe I'll just diddle daddle some more and a week later I'll go back and build on some of the riffs and whatnot that I wrote down. That's what works best for me these days. Because of that, I'm trying always to learn new instruments 'cause you have a completely different perspective the way that you do your diddle daddling. 

Chiptography: What types of instruments are you experimenting with? 

Nikola Whallon: I just this year, picked up the saxophone. It's extremely fun. Luckily I played the clarinet before and my mouth was somewhat used to making the noise. Flute for me is impossible. I can't make a noise. People are like, "Oh, I'll just blow on a bottle. You can make a noise." No. I cannot make a noise blowing on a bottle. My hard limitation there. I know, I've seen people do it.  I have started to make sound on brass instruments. I've played trombone a little bit but sax is going really well and I'm working it into my live stuff too. It won't be ready until maybe the end of the year because I need to work on stamina unless I just want to play one or two pieces. It's totally different than violin, totally different than guitar, totally different than keys. The production of the sound, the way that you do the fingering and whatnot. So the diddle daddles that I get out of it are different. When I write that stuff down it is different music. 

Chiptography: That's great. Tell me about being a dad. 

Nikola Whallon: It's really, really awesome. It was terrifying at first just because the baby is so fragile and you're afraid at every step but he's started eating like crazy and he grew very big. It's just so fun playing with him. He likes music! He's kind of picky though. He likes when I play violin and when I play guitar but if I play clarinet too loud, he's like, "No, I don't like that" and I'm like, "ok fine I guess I won't play that for you." His favorite is my tamburica right there, it's kind of like a mandoline but from central/south Europe. He loves it. He plays with it and he plucks it and stuff. I'm like, "You're already plucking it. That's so cool!"

Chiptography: Do you know if you like that as a kid? 

Nikola Whallon: I have no idea. I do know that when I started violin I hated it. That makes sense. Your parents are making you do work or whatever. 

Chiptography: It's also a really difficult instrument. 

Nikola Whallon: Yeah, it is extremely difficult and I don't like it when people who love violin will say it's the best instrument in the world. Well purely from an ergonomic point of view it's a terrible instrument. 

Chiptography: Yeah, I mean you have to hold both your arms up in the air for a long time.

Nikola Whallon: And your neck in this thing and there are techniques where you don't need to pinch it with your chin and stuff but then you have to focus on other techniques for shifting. The way that it's taught is totally different if you're doing modern classical where you pinch it so you can shift freely or older styles, either old classical music or like fiddle tradition. Then you don't shift as much and your neck is more free and that's nice but then you have sort of less things that you can do with it. Anyways, I love it as an instrument but it's very hard and it's not a perfect instrument. No instrument is perfect.

Chiptography: What is your favorite instrument? 

Nikola Whallon: [sigh] I mean, it's violin! It has to be! 

Chiptography: After all that?!

Nikola Whallon: Just ‘cause I'm most comfortable at it and I have the most experience with it. If I stand back for a minute keyboard is easily the most utilitarian instrument. It's unbelievably useful and great. I think saxophone is the coolest instrument. I read a book recently on trombone actually that claimed the two perfect instruments are the violin and the trombone and I immediately knew why they said that. They said that because you have a true sliding scale. You can play any note, any microtone. Guitars have frets. Keyboards have as many tones as they have keys. Saxes have keys. Clarinets have keys and holes and flutes have keys. Recorders have holes. So they're all discreet instruments. In other words, you can do techniques to bend around a basic tone but they're not nearly as versatile in tone in terms of microtones as violin or trombone. 

Nikola modifies and sells gameboys.

Chiptography: What about chip? Is that even more limited or is it less limited in the amount of tones? 

Nikola Whallon: Gameboys are great actually ‘cause they can generate all frequency. Not all frequencies literally but basically all frequencies you'd want to hear. 

Chiptography: But is it more on the level of trombone/ violin? 

Nikola Whallon: If you take the example of a keyboard where you can only literally play the frequencies that each key is assigned to, if you think of a very bad keyboard, you get basically a chip inside an Atari2600 which can play this set of frequencies and that's it. That doesn't even fill out a complete major scale or anything. It's extremely painful to work with which is why basically no one does. Or people who do are really cool because to be able to make something sound cool on an Atari2600 is a real feat. 

Chiptography: Let’s talk about tie-dye. When I think of you, I think of tie-dye and bright rainbow colors. What's the appeal of tie-dye?

Nikola Whallon: I used to wear tie-dye every single day exclusively and now I wear it more or less half of the time, on normal days but 100% of the time for performances. My dad at some point in his life (aka the 1960s) was a really hippie. I see pictures of him with long hair and headbands and a big beard and I'm like, "Oh my God, wow."

Chiptography: My dad too. He's from Germany but he was a total hippie. He hung out in the town center and played his sitar. 

Nikola Whallon: My dad had this instrument, a Saz. He got it in Turkey. It's pretty exclusively a Turkish instrument. He got that, he had this long beard, this long hair. He had a fez. I'm like, "You are so stereotypical."

Nikola Whallon performing at Pulsewave in NYC on March 20th, 2013. Photo by Chiptography.

Chiptography: Do you think your love for tie dye comes from the influence of your father? 

Nikola Whallon: Yeah, for sure. I mean it's a big mishmash. There's the hippy stuff. There's the classical stuff. There's the ethnic stuff from Eastern Europe. 

Chiptography: And of course, Japanese culture. 

Nikola Whallon: Yup, that's new to the table. That didn't come with my parents but now that is going to be passed on to my kid so he's going to have an even more mishmash of stuff than I did. 

Chiptography: Where do you see yourself in let's say, 25 years.

Nikola Whallon: In 25 years, the kid will be in college or whatever he'll be an adult. Well, probably Yumi and I will get a “house house,” hopefully in Seattle. Probably, we'll give our kid this houseboat. That would be cool. I'll have a bigger studio. I'll have more instruments, a real collection. And I'll have, I don't know, half a dozen albums that I'm really proud of. Probably I'll be working a similar software engineer job. 

Chiptography: What I'm hearing is you're really happy with the way it is right now and you just want it to grow. 

Nikola Whallon: Exactly. I'm in a really good place and I'm eternally thankful that that has happened and I know that's not the case for a lot of people, especially a lot of musicians. The hustle is real for sure. I'm pretty happy. 

Chiptography: Pacific Noise Works is a fairly new chiptune group. How long as it been going on?

Nikola Whallon: A year and a half. We started in January of 2018. 

Chiptography: Were you one of the founding members?

Nikola Whallon: Currently it's me, Mikey (Skybox), Graz and Kino. Kino does a lot of the art. Graz is super big on the promo. Mikey does a lot of the curation booking and I do all the relations with the venue and a lot of local promos. I hit up media outlets and try to do some interviews and some stuff. This group, like most effective groups, works really well as a team. You need a team effort to be able to put on really cool events like this. 

There's an interesting short story about how we started at Substation. Actually more or less how the whole thing started. January 2018 I was just like, I want to play somewhere. I send a message to Substation booking and I was like, "Hey can you get me a show on some Thursday this month." The dude's like, "Well this next Thursday or in two weeks, whatever it was, we don't have anyone booked if you want to book the whole night." I was like, "It's now or never." So we got the crew together. We're like, "This is it. We're going to do this night and then we're going to make Pacific Noise Works." And so we did. That was a really good chance that lead into something.  

Chiptography: Who played that show?

Nikola Whallon: It was me, Skybox, Graz and now I have to remember.....  PTYNX! From Olympia. 

Nikola shows me some CRTs he fiddles with to make visual art in his office.

Chiptography: That brings me to my next question. How did chiptune find you? Tell me about your first exposure to it and how you came about integrating the Gameboy into your musical life.

 Nikola Whallon: Chiptune for me is intrinsically tied to VGM (video game music) - I know and totally respect that this isn't the case for everyone, but it is for me. I loved the music in the video games I played growing up and at some time I discovered OC Remix - that's where the majority of my iTunes playlist would come from in middle school and high school. It wasn't long before I discovered the VGM cover band scene, and then Magfest. Then I discovered the live chiptune scene when I saw Zen Albatross perform at Magfest... 7? I think it was 7 (it was quite a ways back now) - I thought it was the coolest, hypest music. That, and more or less simultaneously discovering 8bc and Sabrepulse at the recommendation of a friend, inspired me to try to write some chiptune in 2011, that's when I made Massive Squarewave Party, my first CD/release, it was fakebit though. I had been writing music (mostly classical and rock, some VGM) up until that point, but chiptune gave me a chance to create a solo project I could perform live.

In 2012 I started messing around with LSDJ, right around the time I met Corey (SNESEI) and Yuuya with Piko Piko Detroit (I actually met them in my favorite cafe because I saw Corey "playing" an original Gameboy, and I just knew he had to be using LSDJ or something). I tried playing a few shows with them and very quickly decided to throw live instrumentals in, mostly because playing instruments to me is so fun but standing behind a table staring at a screen felt awkward and embarrassing, so instead of queueing up sequences or whatnot, I get euphoria from running, jumping, and wailing on some strings instead (I think those stage antics show out particularly at shows too).

One of the tunes I wrote on Gameboy in 2012 was 8-Bit Hypnotized - it was a remix of Metal Hypnotized by the Earthbound Papas, Nobuo Uematsu's band, made for one of their competitions. I had met Uematsu and his band at Magfest in 2012, and after nervously telling them how much I appreciated their music in Japanese while they were on their smoke break, I got a selfie with the band and they later recognized me as "the guy with the cool tie-dye t-shirt" when I was in line with hundreds (thousands?) of others for their CD signing. Their kindness and openness really inspired me too, and so I entered their remix competition and got an honorable mention.

The rest, you could say, is history. But I'm still evolving as an artist, I have yet to release a big production of Gameboy + live instrumentals (though I finally released a final final version of 8-Bit Hypnotized this past summer with guitar and violin), and I have some plans beyond my next release already, we'll see.

Listen to Nikola Whallon’s music on Bandcamp and Soundcloud.

Follow Nikola Whallon on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Boaconstructor

Chiptography: You decided to be photographed in a neighborhood park close to where you live. 

Boaconstructor: It's on Capitol Hill and it's not so much a park as like a little corner that looks out over Lake Washington and it's just like a drop. Like a bunch of trees and forests. Sports were my life growing up. That was my thing. That's what my dad cared about. I was a very good athlete. When I was 16, I hurt my back playing football and made it worse wrestling. I grew up on the east side in Redmond, where Microsoft and Nintendo are. 

Chiptography: Oh so you actually grew up here, in Washington State in the Seattle area? 

Boaconstructor: 15 minutes east of here, just right across the water. 

Chiptography: You were pretty much born and raised? 

Boaconstructor:  I was born in Alaska. 

Chiptography: In Alaska! 

Boaconstructor:  In Anchorage, yeah. My mom and dad, once they graduated college, they both got jobs out there. 

Chiptography: What were they doing? 

Boaconstructor: My dad worked for IBM and my mom worked for Xerox, both sales marketing stuff. I think I moved here when I was a year old so this is just home-home for sure. 

Chiptography: No memory of Alaska?

Boaconstructor: No. I think I went back once when I was five. I don't remember shit. So I hurt myself and luckily it was hyperextension of the ligaments that surround my spine from pretty much top to bottom and I would go to a kinesiologist two or three times a week right on Capital Hill. One day, I'm 16, I get done there and I drive my car up around the corner. I see this gorgeous view and it became my routine to grab a cheeseburger from Dick's, which is our local burger place, and just sit there and eat it and smoke some weed. Just look out over the view. It's relaxing.

Chiptography: I totally get that. I live in Brooklyn and there's Fort Greene Park which is about 4 or 5 blocks away. It is a moment of peace and serenity to just go, take my dog, sit in the grass and just let my mind go where it needs to go. That might be nowhere. Just a place where you feel safe and it doesn't have to be awe-inspiring and gorgeous and beautiful but I definitely understand that. 

Boaconstructor: Consistent, clean, yeah, not your home where you have things to clean and put stuff away and all that kind of stuff. It's not too far off but you're still able to disconnect. 

Chiptography: I think disconnect- that's a good word.

Boaconstructor: I've done a lot of disconnecting in my adulthood. Probably one of the key words since I turned 18 or 19. 

Chiptography: When did you leave home? 

Boaconstructor: Graduated high school in 2011. Got into Washington State University which is all the way east in Pullman, pretty much Idaho. It's a party school. I flunked out in the first semester. It's good that I flunked out so quickly. I wasn't there to learn anything-way too distracting of an environment. So I came back, moved back in with my mom. She got sick of me. I was 19. Moved in with my dad 'cause he had just gotten his own apartment. He got super sick of me. I was going to Bellevue College, a community college right across the water. 

Chiptography:  What were you studying? 

Boaconstructor: Just basic, nothing in particular. 

Chiptography:  The core courses? 

Boaconstructor: Rudimentary, yeah. Didn't care, wasn't going to class but this was also the time when I started taking music seriously. I was making friends. The chiptune community in Seattle was a crazy party scene and I thought it was like that everywhere but no. We had this hip, punk, people getting wasted 5 nights a week, house parties. At one point we had 3 monthly chiptune series that lasted for a year. I was getting into the music stuff. I've been partying since high school but now the partying was attached to something greater, like a community kind of thing. I was doing bad. My grandma and grandpa on my dad's side live in Yakama, which is central Washington. It's where they grow all the apples and hops and stuff. So I lived with them for 3 or 4 months working for my grandpa. They're old and they grew up in a non-democratic major city so we butted heads and I left. But while I was out there I planned to go on this tour. I was like, "ok, some people have recognized my music." I had played at South By Southwest, a little unofficial showcase. I was making friends and I was like, "You know what, fuck this. I don't want to go to the country. I'm going to book this thing.” The original plan was my friend, JD and I were going to do it together ‘cause we've been working on a lot of music together. We clicked, it was working. He had left to go commercial fishing in Alaska and he was like, "Yeah dude, all I want to do is music and this when I get back. If you can get us a tour, we don't have to worry about money and I'm coming back with all this." And I was like, "Cool man. Don't worry, I'll try to save but that's good to know." So I think I got like 10 tour dates but all spread out over the course of almost 2 months. We played the Seattle kickoff. He came down to Portland, we played that. And then he lied and made up some shit, and he's like, "Oh I gotta take the bus back up to Seattle. My brother, hospital.." He just, yeah, he bailed and I was like, well, I'm going to keep going. 

Chiptography: So he bailed pretty early into the tour. 

Boaconstructor: Like day 1. He had other priorities for sure. I was trying to go see stuff and it's the best decision I ever made. Driving across the country by myself, I mean it was hard. I was broke the whole time. This was a point when I wasn't even asking people if I was going to get paid for shows. I was like, "Oh, you're willing to book me?"

Chiptography: And this was as Boaconstructor?

Boaconstructor:  Yeah. 

Chiptography: Doing chiptune at chiptune shows?

Boaconstructor: Six years ago. 

Chiptography: Ok. That's pretty recent. 

Boaconstructor: Made a little bit of money. I've been on the road for three weeks, almost a month. Lexington, KY, first time I met you.

Boaconstructor at BRKfest in Lexington, KY where we met for the first time in 2013.

Chiptography: BRKfest.

Boaconstructor: The one, yup. That was it. I was like, "ok, I'm broke, fuck. My grandpa on my dad's side, he lives by himself in St. Louis. He owns a music store, trumpets, and school music kind of stuff. So it was only 5 hours away from Lexington. He can put me to work, give me a couch to sleep on while I finish out my last couple tour dates. I ended up staying 6 months because I just didn't want to go home. I didn't have much for me here [Seattle]. Just a bunch of people that I made bad decisions with and family members that I was not getting along with so it's like, I'm going to try to stay away. Then time goes by and my grandpa had a 1-bedroom apartment so I stayed on his couch. He got sick of me and I get it. So I moved to Detroit because I had met all the Detroit Piko Piko people at BRKfest. They had already booked me for a show in Detroit a couple weeks later. I went up there, stayed with them. Made friends with Jon, he used to do visuals as "WalkinCircles" and now he DJs as "Jonnn." He got a house a few miles north of Detroit. Two-bedroom for less than what I pay for my room here. He's like, "Yeah dude, I got another room. Come on up. It's cheap and it's not your grandpa's couch." So I moved up there, stayed up there for a year. During that year I did tons more whatever booking I could get. I'd go play it. 

Chiptography: Was that your main source of income? 

Boaconstructor: No! [laughter]

Chiptography: What were you doing?

Boaconstructor: Delivering pizza. While I was in Detroit. I don't know if it was naivety or more of a realistic genuine opportunity, but it was like, "ok, I can turn this [music] into a source of income. There's already this much traction. I have these connections and people who I can work with. I started the record label and I put out my first EP." Working with Trey, (Trey Frey), Alex (IAYD), and Luke Silas. I had this dream and this concept. It's the people who make the chiptune that's separate from nerd-video game. It's all about trying to push the limitations of this stupid little hardware for kids. I did think that we would be able to turn it into a source of income, especially with how well certain album sales did for a couple of releases. 

Chiptography:  What was the name of the record label? 

Boaconstructor: Thebasebit Recordings. That's TBBR. It's good times. I did think that it would be money involved with the music. 

Chiptography: So you're in Detroit. You start this record label. You're living with your friend and you're still going on tours. Tell me about the Piko shows. I've never been to one of those. They don't really happen anymore. 

Boaconstructor: That was before I had moved there when things were, we were still having shows and whatnot, but they were much more active probably a year before I was out there. Out here, Seattle's chiptune scene has died and come back from the dead at least three times just since I've been around and a part of it which is 10 years now. It'll be big and active and vibrant but it's a small scene. I'm sure you know how all the small scene politic shit goes and then people get angry at each other, they don't want to talk to each other, they don't want to see each other. They're not showing up to the shows. They're not booking each other for shows anymore. Then things just peter out. Then somebody will come around and put out a cool release. The internet cares and they're like, "Oh wow- life! Let's all hop back onto this." It's fun for a bit. This is like the third resurgence that I've seen and it's cool because as far as the Heat.Wav people, Anthony (Graz), he's local. He's super duper duper duper OG. He's been around the Seattle electronic music scene since I was in elementary school. So he is local and has his roots here. But Mikey and Nikola are from Michigan. Well, Mikey is from Kansas City. It's interesting to see folks, transplants, being capable of successfully bringing this thing into existence. The last party they did a few months before this one, there were a couple of out of town artists. It was a great line up, great acts but no headliner draw booking by any means but it didn't matter. The room was still packed and everyone was having a great time because they've managed to curate just a good party. It's like, "Hey, this is our brand, trust us, keep coming back." And it's working. Very open-minded, just sort of nice big, safe space, I think, largely. Super inviting. 

Chiptography: It seems very different from your previous experience in Seattle. 

Boaconstructor: For sure.

Chiptography: So we're still in Michigan right now. When did you move back to Seattle at some point? When did that happen? Were you someplace in between and why did you move? 

Boaconstructor: November of 2014, the end of that year that I had been spending there, my best friend (he's like my older brother), his name is Yanni. He had been running the sound system at a nightclub that's up the street from here. A really nice sound system and he was involved with designing it and getting it set up. So he was there monitoring sound four nights a week while working full time at Microsoft and he just couldn't do it anymore. And he's like, "Hey- if you move back here you get to work at the nightclub." So I did that. I came back, moved in with my mom.

Chiptography: Because you were delivering pizzas, right? 

Boaconstructor: Right, I mean not to mention there's more for me here. This is where my entire support system exists and so it's like, I had been away for a while. I love all my friends in Detroit and everything but Detroit's not the nicest place. Even if we're just talking about weather. That midwest shit is extreme. Sure, it rains here all the time and that makes me sad but like fucking 5 feet of snow for three months straight and swealtering heat and flash floods in the summer. Nah- fuck that shit. 

Chiptography: So you're back in Seattle and you're working at this nightclub. 

Boaconstructor: That only lasted for 6 months. Some political bullshit. The new creative director guy didn't like my friend who got me the job so he tried to push me out by association so whatever, I'm glad I got out of there. That's another community and industry that I don't particularly care for after getting very much behind the scenes. Nightlife communities are lame. It's this big stupid popularity contest for kids who weren't very cool in high school I think but then became adults. They were like, "Oh I don't have to be home at a certain time and I don't have to do what my mom and dad tell me to. Oh cool, I can just get drunk and do coke and listen to music and I make all these friends." It's alluring and easy to get sucked into but unfortunately I think the people who are the most consistent players who are with the highest visibility, their motives are questionable. 

Chiptography: What did you do after that? 

Boaconstructor: I was also delivering pizzas part-time already. Then I lost the job, then my car died so I lost my other job and I was just staying at my mom's with nothing going too good. I went to rehab after that. I was just drinking too much and while I still do drink pretty regularly, it was different and while that was not the place for me to be, I was not stuck on this. I wasn't addicted to heroine and get sick if I didn't take heroin. I have obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety disorders, stuff that had been going untreated that I was trying to self-medicate and I wasn't being safe or smart. I didn't care. I didn't give a shit. 

Chiptography: What was your experience in rehab? Difficult to be there?

Boaconstructor: Going there, spending the month being like, "ok- this is terrible. I'm never ever ever going to come back to a place like this ever again for the rest of my life." Via coming to that conclusion, it was good that I went. I'm too good for this which is kind of an egotistical way to address substance abuse and mental illness but it helped me solidify the fact that I didn't want to go back to a place like that. I keep myself in check now. 

Chiptography: I feel like that's a recurring theme where you find yourself in a situation that doesn't seem to fit and so you moved somewhere else, tried a different location and different job and different community. If it doesn't work, you make the choice to leave and try a different thing. 

Boaconstructor: Something else, yeah.

Chiptography: Maybe at that point in your life it was just some really tough decisions and a really low place. 

Boaconstructor: For sure. 

Chiptography: You chose alcohol to medicate yourself. 

Boaconstructor: Still do but differently now. It was more that I just had nothing going right for me in my life. I dropped out of college a couple of times. No money, no job, no car, bad relationships with my family at large. My parents were like, "hey listen, here's your chance to go figure your shit out." I went there and I did it. I'm glad that I did. That shit sucked ass but it was good. I started going to school again up at Shoreline Community College about 10 miles north of here. They have a really good music and audio program so it's like, "Ok this time I'm going to go to school for something that I care about." I was living by myself and fresh out of rehab and trying to stay sober. Doing that and school. The freedom of "Oh- I don't have to wake up if I don't want to today." No one's going to come check on me. So I would just sleep in, not go to class. I failed out again. I didn't even fail. I had great grades. I just quit going. Then from there was when I moved down to Rainer Beach, 3 years ago.

Chiptography: So you work at Microsoft now. 

Boaconstructor:  Two years as of a couple of weeks ago. Longest I've been at any job. 

Chiptography: What do you do for them?

Boaconstructor: Specialized IT, mostly hardware support. We have tons of labs filled with servers and desktops and mobile devices. Anything that they're creating software and shit for, they push automated test runs every single day, all day long. 

Chiptography:  It sounds pretty impressive for a college drop out. 

Boaconstructor: Ha, for sure. Yes, I'm lucky to have the job that I have without a degree. Most definitely. 

Chiptography: Where did you get the know-how?

Boaconstructor: Chiptune stuff helped for sure. Having to troubleshoot all this wonky, shitty third party software and hardware and modifications and opening up boards. It actually, it really helped. 

Chiptography: So you went to the school of Chiptune.

Boaconstructor: Pretty much! I excelled quickly at work with no IT or computer training background.

Chiptography: Tell me about your artist name. 

Boaconstructor: My dad has a cabin about a little under 2 hours east of here in the Cascade Mountains on Lake Wenatchee. It's off of highway 2. When you're driving from over here on the west side through highway 2, just outside of Monroe, there's a reptile zoo. I have a younger sister who is 20 now. She was probably 5 or 6 and we're driving past the reptile zoo for the 50th time but we had never gone. She wanted to and she goes, "But daddy, I wanna go see the alligators and boaconstructors." And I was like, damn, sick! Boaconstructor, huh? Nice. I liked it. 

Chiptography:  That's awesome! I love it. 

Boaconstructor: She just didn't know how to pronounce it. I think it's a cool fitting name for what I do I guess. People love to play around with the concept behind a snake and a boa and constriction and construction. It didn't mean any of that to me but I stuck with the name because it works. It fits. 

Boaconstructor: When I really thought that TBBR (the record label) had a chance of being something that was going to be financially viable it's because I wanted it to be pretty much extended into a clothing line. Just merchandise for the label but a heavy on focus on merchandise for the label. Not just like, "Oh yeah, once a year we put out a t-shirt with our logo on it." No, I wanted to hire my pixel artist friends. I love pixel art. I love that shit. Sure, I had a Gameboy when I was growing up. That was pretty much my whole video game experience growing up until I got that Gamecube when I was 13. I played sports all year long. Every day after school, every weekend, I played sports. That's all I did. Doing the Gameboy when I was in the back seat on the way to fucking sports practice was video games for me. I don't have the nostalgic memories of like being on atari-ST and looking at the really cool 16-bit pixel art scenes that are in these interactive games and stuff that I see all these screenshots on Instagram now that are just amazing artwork. Once again, "innovation via limitation." All of these harsh little edges and taking the time, it creates the coolest layering that I can imagine. Drip designed my, The Zig-Zag guy, you know zigzags, the rolling papers? One of my t-shirt designs, I had her do it and yeah, I really wanted to work with all of these pixel artists that I love so that I could regularly be releasing streetwear that I enjoyed that's just really good art kinda under the guise of, "We're a record label with an ethos that's similar to, we're putting out the audio art the same way that we're putting out this physical visual art." I've always wanted to just have a clothing company but I think it made sense for them to be one thing. They can feed off of each other. The music gets more attention when the clothing is doing well. If we can't put out a release every month, we could put out a new t-shirt design every month. I think it just makes sense. I mean think about fucking craft beer companies and stuff. They're the ones that actually care about hiring artists to make beautiful can designs and box designs and stuff. It doesn't matter what your actual product is. You can always care about art when it comes to the packaging and release of it. I just really wanted to pay my friends to design clothes that I would wear and buy from these cool stores but it's just pixel art. Whereas you don't see very much of that. The pixel art streetwear crossover I think is still an untapped market. I'm not organized enough. 

Chiptography:  I've seen similar designs but they're based on already, like yesterday I was wearing a Pacman shirt from Uniqlo. Cost me $20 or something but it's nothing compared to what the artists like Drip are, that type of art. 

Boaconstructor: For sure. Art art. Not just this nostalgia-laden like, "I'm wearing this because it reminds me of a time or it's something that I enjoy." No, it's stand-alone art. It speaks for itself. There's this clothing company that I really enjoy from Tokyo called Cav Empt and, it's funny, I only recently discovered them but the designs that they release like, this is what I always had dreams of paying my friends to do. Pixel art designs like these and releasing them onto t-shirts and sweatshirts and shit. I never really got to do it. 

Chiptography:  Is that still a dream of yours? 

Boaconstructor: I think so. Yeah, I do think so. It's hard.

Chiptography: What are the challenges? 

Boaconstructor: Time, money, believing in myself. I used to think that if I could just have somebody invest in it... I got the motivation. I got the dream. I've learned my own limitations, unfortunately, and I have lots of shortcomings. While I do think that I have cool ideas that would be viable if I really had the chance to put them out there, I also don't trust myself.

Chiptography:  Fair enough.

Boaconstructor:  I failed a bunch of times at a bunch of different things which, sure, that's a part of life. I do recognize the absolute value in curation. If you have a good eye and a particular taste, it's worth money for sure. It shows the best with clothing design is the most immediate place you can see it. That sweatshirt there I'm going to wear when we take pictures, it's this company called BAPE. A Bathing Ape, also out of Tokyo. I mean, high quality but nothing too special, but they're just iconic. They do these shark hoodies like the old bomber planes and stuff and obviously good attention to detail. Point of no return, that's their series this year that they're doing. Somebody just had this idea and was like, "I'm going to make these sweatshirts." They also were the first ones to do the full zip. They created that kind of. I totally recognize that if you just have that cool idea and you really believe in yourself and have the other people to believe in you then, yeah, that curation is very valuable. Mikey [Skybox] recently said the nicest shit ever to me. I was feeling introspective and I tweeted about... effectively I said my rise to chip music notoriety has been a result of tons of tons of time spent in a way that capitalist society totally disagrees with. Taking financial risks I could not afford to take and at the end of the day just believing that my taste is good. It's like, "Oh I fuck with this? It's good. I trust that." And he responded to me, "When it comes to music and clothes and food, I see you as one of the best tastemakers and curators that I ever met." And I was like, "Wow." It's weird talking about yourself in a good way or something. I'm pretty self-loathing. I guess I do still have dreams. Thanks for asking me about this stuff. I don't really think about it anymore just because life has kind of beaten me down into not thinking about this stuff. 

Boaconstructor’s first gameboy.

Chiptography:  Was there anything, an experience at a show or with another chiptune artist that was a life-changing moment for you? 

Boaconstructor: Playing in Tokyo. Quarta 330 is one of my top 5 producers period, not even chiptune related. I was listening to him before I knew what chiptune was because I'd gotten into dubstep. It was like 2008, 2009 and that's when dubstep in America was really picking up traction. I downloaded some torrent that was like 100 really good dubstep songs or whatever and I would just listen to it in my car on my iPod. There were two Quarta 330 LSDJ songs on it. I was like, yeah this sounds different than the other songs on here, but it's dubstep. It's bass music. If you got a subwoofer it's going to rraarr rraarrr rraarrr. So I was listening to him before I even knew he was making his music with a Gameboy. I get introduced to chiptune, start making it, see his name again. Realize that the shit I was listening to a couple of years before was being made on Gameboys. [When I] get to meet him, I'm like, "Dude, I'm a huge fan. You've inspired me so much." He's a part of this label called Hyperdub which is arguably one of the more established, forward-thinking, underground bass music labels in the world. Kode9 from the UK runs it. He released LSDJ through this Hyperdub label like 10, 11 years ago and then more recently, I think it was 2017, he put out his pixelated EP. So Quarta works for Elektron which makes all the really good high-end electronic music hardware. Drum machines and stuff. So now he mostly uses more modern things but the sound is still there. He continues to be one of my biggest inspirations because he still has the chiptune-y sound, he still incorporates Gameboys but he's taking it... He doesn't need the chiptune narrative to sell his product or his music. It's just fucking good and it's grown and its gone on. I feel the same way about Henry Homesweet for sure. When I got to play with him in Melbourne and meet him for the first time, that was like another one. End of the day, closing statement, I do view myself as successful and fulfilled even if I die today and never do any more music stuff just via getting to meet my heroes and by the time that I'm meeting my heroes, they're just treating me like a peer. They're like, "Dude, what's up man? I fucking love your music." It's like, what are you talking about? I was a 17 year old in my bedroom listening to your album on repeat before bed and shit. 

Chiptography: That's amazing. I mean, where else would that ever happen? I don't know.

Boaconstructor:  I get to go to these places and meet my heroes from when I was a fucking kid. Ashley (Sabrepulse) he used to just like call me when he was drunk on the weekends out with his friends and just be like, "What's up dude? What's going on man?" Jules,(jddj3j) we used to talk on the phone all the time. He would talk to me while he was riding his bike to work. Just like, "How are you man? What's going on?" Which is so cool cause I mean, cTrix will just hit me up and be like, "Oh hey man, dude, you been working on anything? You got any demos I can hear? I just put a sound system in my car and I want to listen to your stuff." And it's like, OH MY GOD. I wanted this though. I wanted to be known. I suppose that's a desire that a lot of humans have. From day 1 I was just like, "I'm going to try to make the biggest, hardest, heaviest hitting stuff out of these little Gameboys that anyone's ever heard." I wanted to be the best for sure. I care much less about that now. It's just more, I'd rather just be my personal best and push forward and feel fulfilled while being able to measure my growth. Whereas early on it's like, fuck I want to be that guy. I want to be up there. I want to play shows with these guys. I want to do this. I want to do that. It's interesting how now that I've kind of gotten to that point where I get to do that it seems kind of superficial I suppose, to have that be your source of inspiration or drive or motive or whatever it is. We probably wouldn't be sitting here talking if I hadn't felt that way and tried so hard and booked that tour and spent all my money driving across the country six years ago. It's worth it. I haven't fucked anyone over. I haven't been a bad person. I haven't ever had to throw someone under the bus to get ahead. I don't feel badly about anything. 

Chiptography: Your risks were purely your own. 

Boaconstructor:  Yeah. 

Chiptography: That was a choice. You did what you thought was right in the moment. 

Boaconstructor: It's worked out well enough I think. I got to have fun. Oh yeah, so meeting Quarta. I don't think he had actually heard my music but he's like, "Oh I've seen your name. Nice to meet you man. Thank you. Those are really nice things to say." He played the day before and because I reached out to James (Cheapshot) and I was like, "Dude can you please book 330 on the same night as me? I really want him to see my set" and he's like, "sure, I'll put him on." and he goes, "Actually he has to work on Sunday so he's going to play on Saturday and you're playing Sunday and I was like, "Damn. Ok, whatever. I'll get to meet him. Maybe I'll reach out online. Send him some stuff." We were talking in the bar and stuff and some other people came up and they were like, "Quarta! No no no- you don't get it. This guy, you have to see him play tomorrow." He's like, "What time do you play?" and I was like "Later." and he goes "ok I think I can make it." He got there a half an hour before I played. I played my set and at the end of it, he was at the corner of the little backstage with a bottle of champagne and I was like, "Yo." and he goes "Oh! You say you're my big fan? No! I am YOUR big fan now!' I was like, "Cool." Those rewarding moments make everything worth it at the end of the day. 

Listen to Boaconstructor’s music on Bandcamp.

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