- "Thunderdome" (chip part), Ultrasyd
"Thunderdome" by Checkpoint is a 14-minute Atari ST demo that won a 2014 compo in Poland. One of the main attractions was a 5-minute opening rave techno track using the Atari STe's additional PCM audio chip, but what interests me is the score in the second half, which works the hell out of the ST's unusual original sound chip. Great sound design and an intense energy like something straining at its limits.
- "illogical", Jack Howell
"Music 2000", released in America as "MTV Music Generator", was a complete and apparently highly capable DAW released as a commercial video game for the Playstation 1.
Jack here has a YouTube channel where for 15 years he has consistently uploaded nothing but Gran Turismo 2 recordings and songs made in Music 2000. He uploaded this one last weekend, and it rocks actually. Grinding rave techno with 303s and Juno hoover.
- "audioreactive generative visuals with pure data", Artiom Constantinov
PureData is a flow-based visual programming environment, Max/MSP's weird open source little sister. I think Ryoji Ikeda uses it? Here it simultaneously generates music and a captivating, glitchy visualization (warning, some flashing). Pours enigmatic, alluring sounds all over you for two minutes, then abruptly stops leaving you imagining a half dozen possible truncated futures
- "Seven", Koreless
A fun little electronica track. Has enjoyably strange sound design and a peppy, shuffling beat, as if you'd caught Burial on an up day. The video (which is not a still image) actually seems to encapsulate the track pretty well, something that the longer you look at it starts to seem fleshy and organic in an unidentifiable way.
- "Samsara", Diode Milliampere
This is a song for the OPL3 FM chip (found in the Sound Blaster Pro and contemporary PC sound cards), composed (and here played back) in Adlib Tracker II for DOS, for an album the musician recorded in 2014 and released in two formats: As MP3s on Bandcamp; and as 84kb of datafiles on a 3.5" floppy disk shipped in a tiny pizza box.
The song begins with strange FM beeps that slowly coalesce into chill trance music, with spacy, futuristic vibes. Very quiet but has a strong energy.
⬇️ Click below for modular synth music in two flavors: "Sounds like a Radiohead remix" and "Noise" (also: crimes against Boy George) ⬇️
- "Buring The Summer", Sorrowless
A bubbling energy simmering under a sea of pads. It's based around a sample I can't identify that sounds like one of the various Radiohead knockoff bands from the 00s, but the song that results actually sounds like real Radiohead, like this could be an unused King of Limbs remix or something. Atop this some nice-sounding 0-coast beeps/gleeps and clicky Elektron beats.
- "yea, but can it ,*#*\_! ?", mononoo
I'm never sure how "weird" I can get away with getting, with the track suggestions here. But can I ask you to trust me on one? This track sounds like just random noises but there's a pattern here, there's a design. Imagine a lake with stones sticking out of it and you're leaping from stone to stone, moment to moment, sound to sound, stringing together more and more fluidly until suddenly you're swimming
"BONUS TRACK"
- X. "Do you really want to hurt me (dub)", Culture Club (Quivver remix)
This YouTube poster claims to have picked this up as an unlabeled white-label record in Miami in 1998. Culture Club was Boy George's breakout band, with "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" dropping in 1982; "Quivver" was a name a workman English producer named John Graham was using in the mid-late 90s (and is now using as his SoundCloud username); "dub" probably refers to the production process, I.E. this was a limited acetate run just to get this remix into the hands of DJs (although there are also some kinda dub reggae feels in the back half). So what we have is sometime in the 90s a random producer makes a dance track on the side using heavy unauthorized sampling of a 1982 pop hit, pushes it through whatever channels get it to the club DJs, and gets out of town before the labels find out. Cool. And sure enough, this sounds exactly like something weird you'd hear once at a club and never be able to find a copy of later.