Blip Festival 2008

http://blipfestival.org/2008/

Blip Festival 2008: The Promo from Richard Alexander Caraballo on Vimeo.

From December 4th-7th, the third annual Blip Festival will be held in Brooklyn, NY. Lo-fi visual arts and music come together for four nights in what appears to be a plethora of "nerd-moshing" and all-around craziness. The Bell House, a new club/lounge in the heart of New York City, is the privileged venue to host the festival this year. The 8-bit inspired environment is nostalgic for most of the 30-somethings who attend the Blip Fest, taking them back to the sights and sounds of 20 years ago when the digital age was soon to be born.

Some of the featured artists at the Blip Festival, like Swedish genius nordloef, use original GameBoys to create their own music. Sound familiar? Circuit bending is the means by which most of these sounds are created. nordloef used to be in a punk band but when he discovered a program Nanoloop, he became enthralled with creating music with his old GameBoy and computer. Many 8-bit artists have similar stories of getting pulled into this relatively new genre of music. What started as novelty a decade ago has evolved into a musical micromovement that now merits its own festival. Chiptune music, or 8-bit, is like video game music fuzed with electronica; I imagine it's like playing GameBoy or NES and raving at the same time. Sounds like fun to me! The only thing better than playing Tetris is probably playing Tetris while surrounded by hundreds of others in a club.

The only reason I have become interested in this weird music is because most of the artists give away music on their website. Otherwise, I would have never heard this stuff. This is proof that free giveaways are always the best way for artists to get exposed. For any of you who want to check some of this out, good musicians I've discovered so far are Role Model, Nullsleep, and said nordleof. Blogging about Blip Fest '08 has made me pretty sad that I cannot attend this year. Hopefully someday I will be able to experience the madness firsthand.

- Jordan Morsberger