music for jostling commuters
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The glitch noise and cassette tape nostalgia of Nico Antwerp’s new album

“In the crowd of a subway station, commuters stand on the platform of an impersonal world, in a situation that may well stand as epitome of modern high-tech civilisation.” This is what Nico Antwerp had to say about the inspiration behind “music for jostling commuters,” a 2:32 track set for release later this year on audio cassette. Antwerp is a frequent collaborator with visual artists (see his work on Dreamland) and the collaboration with Benjamin Sammon marries the similarities of their craft. Antwerp’s music carries with it the strains of the -wave and -punk internet subgenres that have come before…

Paradise Lost
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Paradise Lost reimagined as a SNES game

The SNES JRPG aesthetic has always had a certain charm. From chiptune album covers to horror stories about haunted game cartridges, many artists seem to gravitate towards the pixel art found throughout Nintendo’s RPG releases of yesteryear. What appears as a simple solution to the console’s limited system RAM actually presents a design style capable of extremely complex and fascinating artwork. Just take a look at the gorgeous backgrounds seen in Tales of Phantasia (1995) or the character design behind Square’s Chrono Trigger (1995). London-based electronic music duo Delta Heavy is the latest artist to adopt that classic aesthetic, with…

Amnesia Scanner Chingy
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New music video looks like a broken videogame

The new music video from Berlin-based duo Amnesia Scanner dropped recently and, boy, does it deliver. For the past few years, Amnesia Scanner has been producing some of the most exquisite sonic ruminations on our descent into digital assimilation. The track in question, “Chingy”, is no different as a digital voice bleeds over trance synths, drowning among the kicks and snare. It’s an abrasive, disorientating, and totally potent attack on our senses. The accompanying video, created by digital artist Sam Rolfes, reinforces and furthers the aesthetic considerations of Amnesia Scanner, pushing it almost to the point of gravitational collapse. Rolfes…

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PUP’s latest music video is an alcohol-fueled videogame riot

If great art does in fact flourish out of restraints, then it’s no surprise that the chiptune melodies of early games have so firmly embedded themselves in the hearts of the generations that grew up alongside them. This is particularly apparent in the mutual infatuation that the realms of videogames and music videos share. Just look at Bonobo’s Silver or Royksopp’s Happy Up Here videos that each clearly borrow from games, for example. The opposite is just as much true in the case of Mobigame’s mobile game Truckers Delight (2010) and Buncho Games’ adaptation of Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity video. a manic, machinima mixtape of footage The latest video for…

Kill V. Maim
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Grimes’ new music video is the epic finale to a sublime YA trilogy

The wait is finally over, Grimes fans—Kill V. Maim, the epic final chapter in the Art Angels trilogy, is finally here. And, boy, does Claire Boucher deliver. (A fair warning—the following contains spoilers, enthusiastic though they may be.) What more emotionally resonant opening could Kill V. Maim begin with than a race across the ruined city of Neonopolis? Atop her Doomsday Cruiser, our protagonist Grimes looks out at her childhood home; everything she’s fought so hard to prevent has come to pass.  This is, of course, after she’s become a vampire. Oh, she may smile and jape with her brave…

Cool 3D World
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Cool 3D World’s virtual nightmare poetry escapes Vine in first music video

Why are there huge brawny, hairy men? Why, oh why, are they acting so intimately (and hungrily) with disfigured pigs? And why are they so often seen screaming with heavy anguish into the sky? These are all valid questions about Cool 3D World that probably don’t have an answer. The one question that can be answered, however, is this one: What is Cool 3D World? It’s a collaboration between two web artists. They are Brian Tessler and Jon Baken (who helped make Staggering Beauty (warning: flashing images)). I’m told that they met through mutual friends and discovered they were fans of each other’s…