chiptune – Set Side B

Chip Tanaka’s Fourth Album: Desatar

rodneylives — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Chip Tanaka is the most recent pseudonym of one of the best, certainly one of the most influential, game composers of all time, Hirokazu Tanaka, a.k.a. Hip Tanaka, who made contributions to many NES-era games. His most distinctive soundtracks are probably Metroid and Kid Icarus, but he also worked on Dr. Mario, Super Mario Land, Tetris, Mother and Earthbound. After those he helmed Pokemon co-producer Creatures Inc. for 22 years, until just last year. His most recognizable contributions from an outside perspective, though, are probably still his musical works.

We’ve linked to at least one of his songs before, the Hammerhead Shark Song from his second album Domingo. Its video was animated by Toby Fox, the Undertale/Deltarune maker, and it does a good job of combining the charms both of Tanaka’s music and Fox’s art.

The new album Desatar combines chiptune waveforms with real-world instruments to produce a distinctive mixture. There’s a sampler up on Youtube (3 minutes, embedded below), and the whole thing can be heard on Spotify (though it requires making an account).

rodneylives

A Very 8-Bit Christmas

rodneylives — Sat, 24 Dec 2022 15:00:00 +0000

We’re still pretty loaded down with other things and so are in low-effort mode. Please enjoy this collection of chiptune Christmas songs found from Metafilter.

rodneylives

Sundry Sunday: Chip Tanaka’s Hammerhead Shark Song

rodneylives — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 14:00:00 +0000

Hirokazu Tanaka, a.k.a. Chip Tanaka, who used to go by Hip Tanaka, has had quite the career. He composed music for many Famicom games, including Kid Icarus, Tetris, Mother, and Mother 2/Earthbound. Especially he composed the music of Metroid, which did a lot to establish the feel of that entire game. He currently serves as President of Creatures Inc., the company that produces Pokémon. He has a personal website.

And he’s still making music! His second album came out in 2020. The above video is a song from it, which has a music video made by Undertale creator Toby Fox, and sprites by Temmie Chang. Give it a listen, why not?

Chip Tanaka / Hammerhead Shark Song from 2nd album “Domingo” (Youtube, four minutes)

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