Anamanaguchi combines the raw, electronic tones of the NES sound chip with driving, melodic guitars in an indie rock/powerpop fashion. 18 year-old Peter Berkman began experimenting with the console in late 2003, swapping songs with friends from his hometown (fellow guitarist George Brower, Baken, and Kurt Feldman from The Depreciation Guild). In May of 2004, looking for a way to perform the 8-bit songs live, he got together a second guitarist and bassist to play along with the NES. Since then Anamanaguchi has been very active playing PulseWave concerts in New York and various shows on the east coast. In August they released their debut Power Supply on 8bitpeoples.

http://www.myspace.com/anamanaguchi

A Game Boy musician from Tokyo Japan, Aonami has performed in Asia, Europe, and the US, and maintains his own label called Intikrec.

http://intik.55street.net/aonami.html
http://www.myspace.com/aonami

Cory Arcangel is a computer artist, performer, and curator who lives and works in Brooklyn. His work centers on his love of personal computers and the Internet. He is currently a senior fellow at Eyebeam Atelier in Manhattan. He is a member of the artist groups, BEIGE, + R.S.G. His work has shown recently in the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Guggenheim Museum, New York, the MoMA, New York, Space1026, Philly, the Migros Museum, Zurich, Team Gallery, New York, and Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, Paris. Aside from gallery installations, most of his projects can be downloaded with source code from his Internet web log ---> http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/.

Bit Shifter explores high-energy, low-bit music composed and performed on a Nintendo Game Boy. The result is an unapologetically fun foray into an evocative and distinctive soundset traditionally reserved for video game sound effects and background music, all done on a console generally misperceived as being technically limited. Made possible by Oliver Wittchow and Johan Kotlinski's respective home-brew Game Boy musicmaking programs Nanoloop and Little Sound DJ, Bit Shifter's music adopts and subverts the playfulness inherent in the familiar Game Boy soundset, repurposing it into the service of novel idioms. Based in New York City, Bit Shifter has performed over one hundred shows worldwide, having recently circumnavigated the planet in a 20-date world tour with fellow chiptune compatriot Nullsleep.

http://bit.shifter.net/

Haeyoung Kim relocated to the US from Korea in 1992. With a background in classical piano, she has been focusing on experimental electronic music. Currently, under the name Bubblyfish, she creates "lo-fi," 8 bit sound works and experimental compositions. Based in NYC, Haeyoung has worked as a composer, sound designer, and audio engineer. Haeyoung's work has been presented in various art venues, clubs, festivals, and galleries including Centre Pompidou, The American Museum of the Moving Image, Eyebeam, The New Museum, Roulette, and Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater.

http://www.bubblyfish.com/

Chibi-Tech, a mysterious Filipino-American from California, is out on a mission: to turn the Nintendo Entertainment System into a singing superstar! Citing his influences from too much Denpa-kei serenades and near-car-accidents due to "performing," Chibi-Tech is the pioneer of MoéNES: the art of morphing pulsewaves into saccharine-sweet (and somehow intelligible!) jpop- esque vocals perfectly fit for your next hit 12-sister eroge soundtrack. The listener should approach with extreme caution, as the pseudo-vocal techniques have the tendency to turn its unassuming victims into submissive maid-costume-wearing café workers, who all eventually drone out nothing but the cryptic & puzzling phrase "Oniichan, daisuki~!" to any bystander or family member they see.

Chibi-Tech is also an official cosplaying nutcase, and is known to become extremely ecstatic when asked about Pinky Street & UFO catcher dolls.

http://chibitech.livejournal.com/

Some veejays need expensive high end pc's or macs to display a bunch of grey lines. The c-men only need 2 amiga computers, a 320x256 resolution in 16 colours and a couple of redbulls to send those graphic designer vj's home with burnt retinas. For 8 years the C-Men have been displaying their bright, comic styled, abstract and intricate visuals from Barcelona to Pusan, Los Angeles to Hamar, Tallinn to Brussels and Las Vegas back to hometown Enschede.

geocities.com/thecmen

Melodic high-energy romantic Game Boy pop — influenced by the synth heroes of yesterday Covox brings this electronic love to the present. In 2003 he debuted with a 7" vinyl EP on Swedish label Rebel Pet Set and has since played in Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, etc, with tours in Japan, Holland, United States and Germany. In June 2005 the debut album Delete The Elite was released on Swedish label Socom, which was followed by a special Chinese version released by Beijing-based Shanshui Records. In October 2006 the Japanese edition of Delete The Elite was released by Fantabulous Music.

http://www.covox.net/

Mark DeNardo's origin involves three individuals with the initials JC: born an Italian/Puerto-Rican Catholic boy in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the hometown of John Coltrane, on October 30th, the same birthday as Jacques Cousteau. The first instrument that he was taught as a boy was the violin; the most recent instrument he has studied is the Game Boy. Integrating Little Sound DJ, a program designed to work with the 1989 Nintendo videogame system sound card, DeNardo weaves folktronic songs of robots and dreamy days. His collaborative project, OMAC, is based on the prophetic comic storytelling of Jack Kirby about the superhero of the same name. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

http://www.markdenardo.com/

The Depreciation Guild is a duo consisting of Kurt Feldman and Akira Hashizume. Think; cinematic, densely layered rock music. Now imagine some of those layers being delivered by a Nintendo sound chip instead of actual people. That's this band.

http://www.myspace.com/thedepreciationguild

Chris Burke makes 8 bit music using Game Boys which has been heard live in the US and Europe and released on the net labels Kikapu.net and Imnotok.com. His version of "Pocket Calculator" is part of the 8 Bit Operators' compilation of Kraftwerk covers on Astralwerks, due out in January 2007. His music is featured in the award winning internet series This Spartan Life. Chris has four other CDs in release, including Idioglossia and Sire Records' All Wave Super with his band Glorified Magnified. He has collaborated with Grammy-winning producer Don Was and with Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine.

http://www.glomag.com/

 

 

Bud Melvin uses the unique combination of Game Boy and banjo to create quirky pop gems and country and westen anthems to post-modern psychologial diaspora. His digital identity resides chiefly at www.budmelvin.com, while his corporeal pursuits often find him at the neighborhood bar. In concert, Bud Melvin drinks too much and talks too much.

http://www.budmelvin.com/

Jeff Donaldson (noteNdo) uses modified video game consoles to produce live visuals. You may have seen him as the theoretical house VJ for Pulsewave or maybe at Craptops vs. Laptops? In the words of Avant-Pop Pocket, "It is unanticipated art, don't you think?"

Jeff also plays in Wzt Hearts and makes lots of noise.

http://audiovideo.sevcom.com/

Nullsleep uses Game Boys and NES consoles to create conceptually unique music that blends subversive hardware hacking with powerful melodic pop. In 1999, together with friend Mike Hanlon from Detroit, he cofounded the 8bitpeoples: a collective of artists interested in the audio/video aesthetics of early computers and videogames. In the time since, Nullsleep has released a number of recordings through 8bitpeoples, his most recent work focusing on music created with the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System platforms. His constant push for new ways to force the most out of yesterday's machines and the unparalleled romantic chiptune intensity embodied in his music have gained him notice worldwide. Whether thrashing away on a keyboard hooked up to a Game Boy like an electric guitar or rocking hacked NES cartridges, Nullsleep consistently demonstrates his passion for pushing the limits of both the hardware and the heart.

http://www.nullsleep.com/

Pepino is a Game Boy rock band. That means we are a band which only uses Game Boys as instruments. We have an energetic Japanese singer and a busy Spanish Game Boyist. Some times we have twin vocals, some times we have heavy metal Game Boy solos, and some times we dance on stage in ways you have probably never seen before. We have performed in Spain, Sweden and Japan (where we live now), and we are very happy that we will be playing in the United States for the first time. In all the places we have performed at, people there were having lots of fun and laughing, so we hope that we can share a wonderful time with all of you.

http://www.pepinismo.net/

Fuckin Portalenz are made up with USK who was in the most fuckin hardcore pop insane hospital and Maru who care him with fuckin drunk. They run away from the fuckin hospital without anywhere to go, but bought 2 fuckin Gameboys with $10 which they only have at the fuckin time and then they started LIVE PA on the fuckin fuckin fuckin fuckin fuckin fuckin fuckin street where SUCKS. yes,, this is the fuckin beginning of the fuckin success story of TSUJI TECHNO which is fuckin world recognition for the noise pollution fuckin... and sorry for everyone, I won't listen anything about this fuckin Engrish! HARDCORERIZE YOU!! TAKE OFF!!!

http://www.usk.cc/

 

Rabato, Game Boy musician from Spain, started fiddling with the Game Boy tracker Little Sound Dj in 2005. He is part of the 8-bit collective MicroBCN. Rabato's music goes from early '90s electronica to electro with emotional melodies.

http://www.santamagdalena.net/

Random started his chipmusic career in 2002 with the joke-band randomshitmotherburger, but quickly discovered that his interest in chipstyle sounds was no joke. Branching off as Random, he started making music with Game Boy in 2004, after being introduced to Carillon Tracker by Karawapo (of Pepino). Not long after that, Random was introduced to Little Sound DJ, and subsequently traded his soul to the Devil in exchange for supernatural tracking skills. But Random had the last laugh, putting all of his soul into his music — and the Devil, scorned, was robbed of his prize. Random has performed live in Sweden, Holland, Belgium and the US, and is one of the organizers behind Stockholm's Microdisko.

http://www.randomizer.se/

Receptors is Jeremy Kolosine (formerly of Futurisk, Shakespace),who uses an array of handheld controlled 4-bit / 8-bit sound chips to make original music compositions and video, primarily thru the use of Game Boys, Atari 2600 and Commodore 64-driven homebrewers' synths, a stylus-controlled NES vocoder, and an occasional circuit-bend. The debut 7" split EP with side project Mommy Was An Asteroid is due for a 2nd pressing, and Receptors' full length CD I Wanna Hold Your Handheld due out in 2007. Also planned in early '07 is a full length MWA album on Germany's Retinascan label, and 8-Bit Operators, a lo-bit microchip various-artists Kraftwerk tribute CD/Vinyl on Astralwerks!

http://www.receptorsmusic.com/

One of the earliest non-commercial Game Boy musicians from Japan, Saitone releases chiptronica with quiet but radical grooves made with Nanoloop and Little Sound Dj. He is also known for his music contribution to Konami's Pop'n Music 13.

http://pianobusters.com/saitone/

Track bicycle fetishist and Creative Commons advocate, Jordan Gray founded the Mp3Death netaudio label in 2004. M3D has since been recognized by VORC and De:Bug for cataloging the sounds of handheld techno and the chip tune avant-garde. K9D's own music fits somewhere in between — body conscious beats and mind-melting basslines crafted on pocket-sized consumer electronics. Blasting speakers with scene-built software (LSDj & Piggy Tracker), Starpause has represented at events like SCRIBBLE THIS (West Bank Arts Quarter Collective, Minneapolis, USA), LAB30 (Augsburg, Germany), and MICRODISKO (Stockholm, Sweden).

http://mp3death.us/k9d/

 

TouchBoy is the chiptune project of David Stevers from Toronto, Canada. DJing electro and disco for the last 7 years, coupled with a passion for retro shoot 'em up video games, has heavily influenced the TouchBoy sound — lo-fi introspective melodies riding highly charged unrelenting rhythms. The effect, a micro disco cosmic assault: deadly and funky. Composed on the Nintendo Game Boy, TouchBoy's debut ep Are Type Eyes delivers ten old-school-shoot-'em-up themed tracks played live and sequenced for dancing. TouchBoy is currently writing and recording his second release, Game Boy EFX and 505.

http://www.touchboy.ca/
http://www.myspace.com/touchboy

Jake "virt" Kaufman is unusual among contemporary musicians in his study of early Japanese game machines. He studies the deceptively difficult techniques used to pull spacious-sounding music out of their simple hardware. His FX concept EPs capture the spirit and technical precision of Konami's soundtracks of the early '90s, expanding the style with progressive metal songwriting.

Jake works in New York City as a composer and sound designer at Gameloft, a leading mobile game studio, and has worked on over 30 published titles from Game Boy to Playstation 2. An outspoken supporter of hobbyist game music, he runs VGMix.com, a community site where young composers share their fan arrangements, honing their skills and exchanging feedback.

Jake is also an outspoken supporter of tacos, puppies, and disco.

http://virt.vgmix.com/

Paris Treantafeles uses his background in mathematics, physics and analog synthesis to create geometric, algorithmic and audio-triggered visuals using only open source tools such as Pure Data (with Gem, PDP, PiDiP) and Gephex. In spring 2006 he completed a residency at the Experimental Television Center and has applied the knowledge of this experience to emulating early video synthesizers in Pure Data. He recently gave a talk on this subject at Piksel 2006 in Norway. Collaborations include experimental analog video, music videos for William Duckworth's iPod Opera 2.0 and regular performances in the NYC area with chiptune musicians.

http://www.parisgraphics.com/

Originally a guitarist, Herbert Weixelbaum soon became interested in drum machines, synths and sequencers. Played guitar in a band called Axulyth. Plays electronics together with B. Fleischmann as duo505. Plays Game Boy with the people from Dot.matrix.

http://www.herbertweixelbaum.com/

Dan Winckler is a video, visual and/or networked artist, visualist, VJ, performer, and/or improviser. He and/or his works have been called versatile, experimental, handsome, abstract, passionate, impressive, impressionist, expressive, and/or expressionist. In his work, he uses hardware and/or software, his body, other people's bodies, toys, cameras, junk, lights, lens, and/or crafts to make, perform, show, and/or teach improvisational, theatrical, visual, and/or networked performances in collaboration with the crowd, fellow musicians, sound artists, visualists/VJs, and/or the Internet. He is interested in and/or enjoys cutting the edge. He has (in some cases remotely) performed in or at SHARE, { R } A K E, EyeWash, Bushwick Arts Project, the International Chiptune Resistance, ISEA 2006, and Second Life, and is currently on tour with Jamarama Live, a rock show for kids and/or adults. More information, videos and contact info can be had at danwinckler.com.

http://www.danwinckler.com/

R0k with the underground, chill and talk opcodes, enjoy the finer bias of life, Chris Kann, aka x|k turned to the networks to bind meaning to his existence while discovering the demo scene and taking on the challenge of embedded systems engineering while creating the first MIDI interface for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The result of his first project Midines thus became the key tool used worldwide by electronic music producers wishing to incorporate the NES into their acid, breaks and drum-&-bass tracks. The effectiveness of Midines as a studio instrument for professional use has been proven by the likes of Venetian Snares, Bogdan Raczynski, Virt, The Depreciation Guild, Dispyz, Shawn Phase, x|k himself as well as numerous others.

Chris continues to support the burgeoning open source hardware scene, and is currently working on the worlds first open source drum machine and sampler the MACH-01. Chris talks about his inspiration for open source hardware and the MACH-01: "In HS I was never shown this stuff (computer engineering), so naturally I thought theres no way I'll ever be able to build that kind of stuff, I wouldn't have tried to learn if you paid me, but after I started chatting with a few experienced people I realized the stuff was easy once you got the hang of it, learned the tricks. So open source hardware is the ideal modus to say to a younger generation of artists and musicians, 'Hey here are the basics, its not that difficult, and its affordable thanks to modern technology. Heres something positive to do and develop some skills that will enrich your life.'"

http://www.wayfar.net/

YMCK is the 8bit pop unit formed by 3 persons. The most prominent feature of the band is the 8bit sound that reminds people old game consoles, which attracts the enthusiastic support from wide range of generations. The 1st album, Family Music released in 2004 made a big hit and made their popularity unassailable. Their unique style of live performances using 8bit pixel animation is also highly acclaimed. Their activities are not limited in Japan but also made successes in performing at international music festivals around the world: in Sweden, Thailand and Taiwan, and CDs are released in United States, Thailand, and South Korea. Besides those things above, YMCK does a wide range of activities, such as remix works, video game sound tracks, DJ performances, development of 8bit sound plug-in software etc.

http://www.ymck.net/