Whereupon some of the finest minds in experimental electronic music lay down some edgy tracks that are based on, you know, the bleeps and blurps of 1980s video games. It's a brilliant concept, and in the hands of masters like Panicsville, Royal Space Force the entire set is unimaginably wondrous. I could go on and on about this, but let's just say anyone who spent any time trying to repair one of those crappy 2600 joysticks ought to go mind over fuck for this.

Chances are your first encounter with electronic music came from hours of sitting in front of the boob-tube playing video games like Super Mario Brothers, Tetris, Shinobi, Golden Axe, and Street Fighter 2? VGM Mixtape #8 is a project that evolved as a homage to the video game music and legendary video game systems of yesteryear, using the soundtracks from the games of such dinosaurs as the Atari 2600, Turbo Graffix 16, Commodore 64, Coleco Vision and Sega Genesis to create a variety of comtemporary dances tracks. The productions run through the full range of dance music, from electro, techno and house to IDM and gabber - making for one weird RPM record.

You've been there: After a marathon session in front of the flickering screen, fragging thousands of Halo baddies, you drag your couch -potato butt off to bed with bone-dry eyes and supersore wrists (from the joystick, dude, the joystick!), only to stare at the ceiling as the freakin' videogame theme does a merry-go-round in your head. We assumed this was a universal problem, but L2T has learned there are certain individuals who actually enjoy these musical machinations - so much so, they've dedicated their lives to recreating the Super Mario theme song when the console is unplugged. Introducing the hardcore gamers who've turned bits and bytes into pixel-heavy rock & roll.

Ever notice how popular old video game music is these days? How many people do you know who have the theme song from an old Nintendo game as their cell phone ring tone? No Sides Records realized the allure of cheesy old-school bleeps and bloops, and released this various artists compilation. All but one artist on this CD recorded their song solely with old 8-bit video game equipment, ranging from the Atari 2600 to the Gameboy, and even the Speak & Spell. The tracks range from experimental noise to danceable electro-funk, and there's even a number about robots thrown in for good measure. For fans of gaming and electronic music, these sounds of yesteryear are the essential listening of today.

This features a couple of dozen or so artistes crafting 70s/80s video game music using 70s/80s video game technology as instruments. These young geniuses bloop, blurp and bleep to their heart's content. Some folks add beats or more mature melody or lyrics but many folks here just make the music Frogger would listen to on his walkman if he had one and it is magnificent. Not to say the noises on this won't drive you mentally ill - they surely will, but it's worth it and it's better than getting sick by playing Gamecube, isn't it?

The source material is surprisingly recognizable on most tracks and you’ll instantly be scanning your memory banks to remember exactly which Super Mario Bros. that little beep is from or whether that distorted fiery sound came from a game you played when you were 10 or if it were from last week. This compilation is a nostalgia trip of the truest sense. Though the music sometimes can become a bit tedious, even for adventurous listeners, it switches itself up enough to never become boring, and with extremely strong tracks coming from Hi-Score, Role Model and Makunouchi Bento, it’s become one of my favorite comps of the year. Children of the video game generation rejoice, here is your soundtrack. Read more...

On VGM Mix Tape #8, some artists take their dedication to the limit, recreating realistic background music for video games that never really existed. Others use samples to create IDM or more conventional techno tracks, while others utilize their video game sounds in much more experimental ways. [...] The CD has already gotten press in numerous gaming sites, and seems to have struck a pretty heavy chord in the hearts of those who grew up begging their parents for one more attempt to beat that difficult boss, try to make that seemingly impossible jump, or shave one second off of their best time. Read more...

Pure nostalgie voor gamefreaks, waar de beatgeoriënteerde muzak van de spelletjes wordt omgezet naar leuke electroclash, acidhouse, breakbeat en drum’n’bass, maar soms ook naar vervelende, aan Anne Clarke of Giorgio Moroder neigende miskleunen. Veel Amerikanen in het deelnemersveld natuurlijk, maar ook Kong Karl Land uit Brugge, de Nederlander Jeroen Tel, Zweden, Finnen, Roemenen en we kunnen nog een tijdje doorgaan. 27 tracks verzameld op dit vooral ludieke schijfje, eerder een rariteit dan een echt boeiende luistertrip. Alleen afsluiter The Minibosses verlaat de elektro-paden en zet een stevig postrocknummer neer. Read more...

With twenty-six tracks, each of which require some careful speculation of the disc jacket to decipher what you are actually listening to, this collection functions as an effective "trip" down memory lane. The production is tight, the songs are all vintage, and yet the mix is eclectic and features a diverse number of styles. Any experienced gamer is sure to recognize a few of the tunes (some in their original form, sampled, and set amidst a slightly different background) from a number of legendary game systems. [...] Whether you are adventurous, avante-garde, a fan of the rich and often under-appreciated game music genre, or someone looking to dive in to a piece of history, the music contained in VGM Mix Tape #8 is a necessary part of everyone's game audio library. Read more...

Gathering acts from Japan to Romania to the States, VGM Mix Tape #8 is just what it sounds like: an assortment of songs created with video game music samples (or faithfully re-created to sound like VG soundtracks). This is the music of the 1980s and '90s, the highly-compressed, digitized plink-plank of Tetris, the hurried melodies of the original Super Mario Bros., the ominous static of Colecovision's Zaxxon. [...] If you're not having flashbacks of Contra and Castlevania while listening to this, you were born too damn late. There's something immensely satisfying about hearing the sounds of your wasted youth reinterpreted through ProTools and hipster ears. Read more...

Tangant entre Dub et électronica bien guillerette, on déambule dans tous les recoins du musée du jeu. Pas la peine de vous faire un dessin ni de citer les 27 groupes présents ici, c'est très poussif, joyeux, obsessif, enigmatique, débile, niais, au son caractéristique, expérimental ou pas, le disque est divisé en 3 parties, le world1, le level2 et le round3, inutile de vous dire qui va gagner, ca serait dénaturé le projet de No Sides (dont la précédente sortie était la réédition des singles de Trumans Water!!!). Read more...