I’ve said for a long while that 16 bit / 90’s sounds would make a comeback – most recently in the 16bit shows. We’ve had future aka speed garage and a sort of brief dalliance with 90’s deep house which remains to be seen if it goes overground…but unexpectedly the ‘Casio Kids’ have struck back, via J-Pop, video game music and a bit of 90’s Sweet Female Attitude.
PC Music have been getting a lot of curious buzz, mixed between ‘is it an ironic statement?’ or ‘love this shiny pop!’. Certainly mining the same areas as One Oh Trix Point Never, Burial and others it could be an art project from these Londoners in their mid twenties, but amongst the Sea Punk-esque poses there is the odd pop tune sticking out. Like label owner’s A.G.Cook’s “Beautiful’ above, or Danny Harle’s ‘In My Dreams’:
And Thy Slaughter with Bronze:
And Debussy meets fractured 90’s garage/house with Danny Harle’s Broken Flowers (the classical comparison is not an idle one, since both him and A.G. Cook studied at Goldsmiths). His wikipedia mentions the microscene Skweee which I’d not heard of, but I can also hear a lot of influence from the crazy PXTone mod chiptunes coming out of Japan still. And of course a little of the circuit bend.
A related act is Kero Kero Bonito, whose love of Casio SA keyboards (hey we were talking about my Casio SA-65 tonight! Only keyboard I can write tunes on…) and Japanese put them in familiar territory. One half of them is Kane West, whose Western Beats is well worth listening to…Here’s Park Crocodile:
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