Sunday, March 22, 2009

the aesthetics of triumph

If I were ever to find myself in a position in which I needed to commission artists to write the score for a video game, one of the first people I might turn to would be Parts & Labor keyboardist Dan Friel. The noise-pop miniatures found on his solo release Ghost Town don't make direct use of 8-bit "chiptune" samples (there are enough other people doing that already, often to great effect) but a track like "Buzzards" nevertheless perfectly captures the essence of old-school video games, evoking an aura of propulsion, navigation, collection, and triumph.