#kubbi

today's chiptune song of the day is In The Halls of the Usurper (Just Shovels & Nights Version) by Kubbi !!

Here are some (a lot actually) of my thoughts about the albums I've collected so far:

I will say that my favorite is The Black Parade because I've played it to death. I have so many stories attached to this CD. I'm starting to believe this album makes memories. I can't be the only one who thinks this too.

I seem to like nearly anything that Paramore releases. Riot is still my favorite album from them. I'm thinking about adding After Laughter to my collection later because "Rose Colored Boy" is a bop. This Is Why is also one of the CDs I ordered recently and I can't wait to play it on my stereo when it arrives.

Some of the albums here that are definitely an acquired sound are Kubbi's Ember and Taiga as well as Fragile by Yes. Kubbi is a chiptune/electronic artist but these albums are some of his best work. They're very thematic too in terms of composition.

If you've seen Jojo's Bizarre Adventures then you know "Roundabout" from Fragile. The album is about 40 minutes long but it's essentially 3 long songs and the short tracks surrounding them are there for thematic purposes. Still absolutely great to listen too.

Green Day and Fleetwood Mac are both fantastic artists as most people already know. It's not American Idiot, but I really like Saviors. It's a very solid album, so if you like Green Day's sound, would recommend giving it a chance.

Rumours is just iconic. I have so many memories of long roadtrips as a child, falling asleep while listening to "Dreams." I'm looking out for a Tusk CD too. I know I can get CDs online quite easily but I kind of prefer buying them in store.

Flipping through stacks of CDs for a good deal at FYE in an 80 degree mall has to be the most time consuming yet satisfying task I've ever set myself too. It's like dumpster diving for treasure, except it's not free.

I really wish The Crane Wives were still selling the CD for Safe Ship, Harbored; I can't seem to find it anywhere. Might put a hit out for it.

For The Whole World To See is Death's only album but I like it for how it shows the development of punk rock as the genre began to emerge. Also, Wendell And Wild must be mentioned.

If you clicked for Lemon Demon, I have Nature Tapes and Dinosaurchestra on the way. I need to blast "Two Trucks" at full volume in my house at least once. I really just want my family to walk by my room and go "WTF are you listening to?" which is their reaction to any Lemon Demon song.

I like to call Bury Me... by Mitski the math album, because the CD cover art is just graph paper with no text at all.

I have a similar issue with the CD of Paramore's fourth album. It's all black with the title just barely reflecting light at all. They both throw me off when I see them while flipping through my case. Maybe that's the point actually.

I still listen to P!ATD but I don't think I will buy any of their other albums, except maybe Death Of A Bachelor. It's not high priority on my list at all.

This may be a controversial opinion but I know some fans see it this way; A Fever You Cant Sweat Out is their best work. And if you only hear this album, you will be spared the disappointment of listening to them falling apart.

This a nice segue into All We Know Is Falling which further proves my opinion that everything Paramore releases is great. And I really love how they call back to their earlier songs in later albums. It can be such a minor detail sometimes, unless it's "Oh Glory", but when you notice it's very satisfying.

I'm pretty sure long time Paramore fans appreciate the nostalgia so much more, because unlike them, I have the luxury of just buying the albums without waiting years in between each release.

Throughout the late 2000s and well into the 2010s, nostalgia for the 1980s “8-Bit” aesthetic made popular by the likes of Nintendo was all the rage. Sprite-based games dominated the video game market, and chiptune music that emulated the sounds of Nintendo’s limited sound hardware rose to immense popularity. Naturally, some artists innovated on the chiptune trend in unique and interesting ways. One of those artists was Vegard “Kubbi” Kummen. The Norway-native, 28-year-old composer-producer (according to his biography from last.fm) has a fairly extensive discography dating back to 2012, much of which is available on a “name your price” basis.

Kubbi combines the “chiptune” aesthetic with a plethora of other styles and influences to create a unique and intriguing listening experience. The variety of his stylistic influences is exemplified very well by his 2015 release “Ember”. The album draws influence from rock, dance, dubstep, and arguably even some sects of hip hop, among other genres. Kubbi combines elements of these genres with the signature digital “chiptune” sounds to create a sound world full of joy, passion, fun, and intrigue.

One of Kubbi’s greatest strengths demonstrated in this album is his knack for writing memorable melodies. The opening track “Pathfinder” creates a laid-back atmosphere and Kubbi floats a simple yet ever-memorable melody on top. The bouncy, dubstep-inspired “Cascade” immediately grabs the listener with an endlessly catchy, syncopated riff and later in the song gives the listener another memorable melody to latch onto. These memorable melodies create a sense of satisfaction within each song, and even between different songs on the album, but we’ll return to that idea later.

Another strength of Kubbi’s found all over “Ember” is the masterful treatment of rhythm. The energetic title track “Ember”, with its frenetic 8-bit drum beats and its chugging electric guitars, is full of rhythmic syncopations that insist the song forward. However, Kubbi has no intention of overwhelming the listener, so he frequently shifts into a “half-time” feel to allow for a satisfying exhale after all the pent-up tension and energy. This technique—used often in rock genres—is found in other tracks including “Firelight”, “Compass”, and “Overworld”, and it proves just as effective and satisfying each time it happens.

A more directly audible way in which Kubbi demonstrates inspiration from other genres is through instrumentation choices. The chugging electric guitars of “Firelight” and “Restoration” obviously invoke rock. The constantly shifting 8-bit timbres during the forever-stuck-in-my-head beat drops of “Cascade” invoke dubstep. The use of orchestral strings in “Firelight”, “Overworld”, “Restoration”, and “Formed By Glaciers” invoke a lush, cinematic sound akin to classic sweeping film scores. Kubbi assigns particular instruments different roles in different songs, and sometimes the roles that he assigns to some instruments are roles not always typical of said instruments. For example, in “Restoration”, Kubbi almost exclusively uses electric guitars for a “rhythm guitar” function, while a lead synthesizer plays expressive solos that sound like they could easily have been played by a lead guitarist from an 80s band. This role reversal distances the track from the typical guitar solo trope.

Kubbi also uses this idea of instrumentation and “roles” to create contrast between parts of certain songs as well as between different songs on the album. In “Ember” (the song), the drums transition smoothly between the electronic chiptune timbres and more traditional acoustic drums (or at least, electronic approximations of them). This blend of electronic and acoustic is a key element of this album’s makeup. Combining acoustic orchestral strings (violins, cellos, etc.) with synthesized “8-bit” sounds as Kubbi does, in “Overworld” in particular, allows him to essentially create a new type of hybrid “instrument”, one with the natural. resonant sound of a violin, but the crispness of a digital chiptune synthesizer. Kubbi uses this blend of the electronic and the acoustic to establish an expectation across eight songs of the album. This blended sound is the sound of “Ember” (the album), and it is the sound of Kubbi.

...and then there’s “Formed By Glaciers”. Described in a review on RateYourMusic.com as “by far the greatest composition Kubbi has ever gifted”, this closing track takes everything about this album and twists it in a completely different direction. The chiptune aesthetic that courses through the veins of this album is pushed to the background. The bouncy syncopation is forgone for an insistent pounding of straight rhythms. Kubbi brings the non-chiptune influences to the forefront in this absolutely stunning album closer. Immediately upon starting the track, the listener is presented with something that feels both new and familiar. Wha… what is that? It’s “Pathfinder”. Kubbi bookends the album with the same melodic theme, but sets “Formed By Glaciers” apart by setting this familiar melody in 3/4 time instead of 4/4, as the rest of the album has been. As mentioned previously, the fact that the “Pathfinder” melody is so memorable makes it all the more satisfying when it returns here in "Formed By Glaciers" and the listener can remember and identify it.

DAY 1: "Concrete" by Kubbi, from 2012's Circuithead