Interviews are strange. Sometimes it’s almost like being a research assistant for the journalist — especially when it’s about chip/demo stuff. Unpaid work is always the best work!
But yeah, recently I was interviewed by a journalist who had obviously studied my Chipflip-timeline pretty well. That was a nice change. And one of the purposes of that list was indeed to educate researchers (though that might’ve been lost now, when it’s become so big).
Here is the article in English. It’s packed with references, many of which I’ve never heard about (which is good!). I like that Kjell Nordbo is mentioned as one of the most respected producers in the scene (my guess is that both 4mat and me mentioned him).
There are also three separate articles for me (English), Pixelh8 and 4mat. Here are some of the questions with my original answers, if u’re into those things. And if you want to know more, read here.
Q. Do you sometimes feel limited by hardware/software used?
The character of any technology lies in the limitations. If something is unlimited, it doesn’t even exist. : ) The fun part of playing a piano is to have two hands and fixed notes and so on. So yes, of course I feel limited. Often it’s in a good way of subconsciously feeling like “phew, I don’t have to make that decision” or “ah okay nice so I have to challenge myself to come up with a different solution than what I was thinking of”. Sometimes it’s just bad, of course, when you want to have more voices and so on. But then I’ll just record stuff and overdub.
Q. Where do you place the born of chip music?
Either
– 1951 with the first digital music
– 1977 and the first video game console with a soundchip
– 1989 when the term chipmusic first appeared in the demoscene
– 1999 with micromusic.net, record relases, concerts, etc
The origin of chipmusic was, I guess, rather expected. There were computers with software that you could use to make music. So people started to do that. And they distributed their music for free, to get maximum attention. Demos/intros/music-compilations started to appear on big floppy disks, sent around the world. Or – and perhaps more interesting – there were also modem-networks of hackers/traders etc who distributed these materials around the world.
Q. I noticed that people thinks that chip music is a derivation of some Warp ambient-techno, but you will confirm me that it’s not so (maybe it’s the contrary, and people like AFX has been influenced to the gaming culture).
Aphex Twin’s label Rephlex was one of the few labels who were connected with the early chipscene around year 2000. They released Bodenständig 2000’s album, which is one of the first examples, and still a fantastic album. Also artists like DMX Krew and Cylob were slightly involved with micromusic.net. But other than that – all the big labels like Warp were far too serious to have anything to do with chipmusic : ) In general, it’s quite rare to hear chipmusic that sounds like slow IDM. The C64-musician ED is a good exception though.