iSv - SCI

Chiptune is often seen as something that's happy and giddy; a lot of people will remember childhood days spent playing Super Mario Bros. with the ever so catchy theme song playing as a constant in the background. However, that's not to say that the genre can't be twisted and molded into something much more darker than ever seen before. And, that's exactly what Remy Brecht has done, and has been doing, with his project iSv for quite some time.

If you don't know his name, Brecht is behind a variety of different names and personas when making music (which there are probably too many to list at the time being). He is also the head of Slave Indvstries Collective, which is home to the Evil Sinema series (Check out the reviews for Evil Sinema vol. 2 and Evil Sinema Vol. 3 by clicking the links) which I found highly entertaining.

Anyway, the work he presents today, as I've said, is under the name of iSv, a post-industrial chiptune project which has been active for quite some time. I know that material has been written under this moniker since 2000, however, I am not too sure when the project was actually born. Either way, this is the first album in a bunch that shall be headed to the respected audience throughout 2015, and it is titled SCI.

Now, over on the artists Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/aggroatari), there are all sorts of interesting notes on the album and even individual songs. Inspiration, memories, and some history behind the tracks are all written within those little notes, so rather than having me explain how and why each track came to be, I suggest you go look at the artist's page for all that. Besides, his word is better served than mine. At least in this case.

However, back to the whole post-industrial chiptune thing I was discussing a few paragraphs ago. From the minimalist sound design of the first track 013 straight down to the last noise based WBM [watch battery melodies], this entire has done well to please me from start to finish.

RiO BEC sounds like it belongs in a campy horror film straight from the 70s/80s trickling down an excellent rhythm. TEK's robotic like structure sounds like it'd be fit for a retro game of pong, while 014 slowly speeds up until it sort of has a crash. But, the crash was intentional by the artist, sounding as if a meltdown occurred, and the result is a process going corrupt. I will admit that the noise presented was not all too nice on the ears, but it served its purpose.

RED LCD keeps the wheels turning, offering a heavier dose of bass response in comparison to previous songs, while still maintaining more of an experimental atmosphere than prior. NFO SOC gives off some metallic sounds, and comes off quite rhythmic. 015 came along and took off on another minimal approach, only including a slight beat to a portion of the song.

KEY LOG echoed its synth line, almost like an electronic ballad for werewolves of the night, though drum machines and later electronics hover over all else. KGB I found boring. A lot of the other songs were experimental; they moved and drifted from one end of the spectrum to the next without worry. However, this one was streamlined, and didn't move around much at all.

016 sounded as if it were formed through musical lifelines of patients hooked up with all sorts of tubes at a hospital. JRL RIP is actually based on Johannes Brahms' (German composer, pianist, 1833-1897) Wiegenlied: Guten Abend, gute Nacht. It's pretty much a stripped version of that in musical form with some watery samples put in. It was nice, but short lived. And, as I said earlier, the final track on the album is just a fuck ton of noise. If you're into noise, you'll like it, and, if not, you'll probably come off as saying, "I don't understand what this is."

Anyway, for music that was written between 2000 and 2015, all of it sounds swell for the most part. There was never a time where I wanted to stop going through this album, as each song focused around not different genres, but different sounds. Perhaps that's the result of all of these tracks being written at different parts of the musician's life, but, whatever the case, it came off very nicely. Mar 14 2015