Musicians and VJs performing at Blip Festival Scandinavia

Bit Shifter (US) Chantal Goret (BE) Chipzel (GB) Cornbeast (SE) Maskinoperatör (SE) nordloef (SE) Nullsleep (US) Phlogiston (NO) Raquel Meyers (ES/DE) Starmelt (NO) The C-Men (NL) Videovalvontaa (FI)

Bit Shifter

Based in New York City, Bit Shifter explores high-energy, low-resolution music produced using the primitive synthesis of repurposed electronics as a deliberate aesthetic choice. In a distillation of the less-is-more philosophy, Bit Shifter operates with a standard Nintendo Game Boy to produce hard-hitting, high-impact music that seeks to explore the aesthetics of economy and to push minimal hardware to its maximum. Bit Shifter is the co-administrator of the 8bitpeoples label, co-curator and co-organizer of the international Blip Festival event series, has released music on Astralwerks, Hymen, Mirex, and 555 Recordings, and has performed over 150 shows worldwide. Website • http://bit.shifter.net Photo by Leah Goldstein

Chantal Goret

Chantal Goret is more like the creator of the dark P funk, like used to be said of Herrmutt Lobby’s members. It’s like the hugest bass and some darkness in a funky groove, which is not always perceptible…

Website • www.myspace.com/chantalgoret

Chipzel

Chipzel is the alias of 18 year old Niamh Houston, an independant Northern Irish chip-musician who indulges in the use of Gameboys to create energetic, melodic dance tracks. Through taking the original 8bit sound and manipulating it into something frantically hardhitting, Chipzel has seen crowds of all ages turn to “raving loons”, taken right back to their days of retro gaming with a thunderous twist. www.myspace.com/chipzel

Cornbeast

Cornbeast is a musician making music on nintendo gameboys, 80′s drum machines, modified toys, cheap synthesizers, DIY electronics, calculators, home computers, analog filters and stuff like that. The music follows no conventions and mixes influences from a wide range of sources, from alternative rock to electronic dance music. Mostly it involves heavy beats and fat lo-bit basslines, and it’s usually suitable for dancing. Gameboy arena rock? Electro? Chip music? Disco rock? Electronic lo-fi? Chiptune? Indietronica? Video game music? Punky electronica? Gameboy Electro Pop? Something like that – you make up your own mind. Cornbeast is primarily a live act. To date I have made more than 20 gigs, which always are very energetic and passionate, and features me “dancing”, sweating, joking and fiddling around with my music gear. Cornbeast is the alter-ego of Fredrik Stolpe who lives in Stockholm, Sweden. I’m also involved in arranging clubs, concerts and workshops in the field of experimental electronic music, chip music and circuit-bending, among them the now resting chip-/micromusic club Microdisko. You can also hook up with me on myspace and facebook.

Maskinoperatör

Maskinoperatör translates to Machine-operator and is the alter ego of Elliott Berlin aka. Elliott Deville aka Gustav Berglund. A Swedish 8-bit musician without neither nostalgic feelings for video-games nor a sense of direction in the new hip emulator-scene as seen on Fox news. FUCK THAT SHIT! Utilizing anything and everything that makes noise Maskinoperatör has toured Europe and Asia with analog synths, gameboys and broken down, out-dated computing hardware since 2005. From masterminding the infamous “Computour07″ with Goto80 & Rongfa, knee-deep in illegal drugs and disorderly, filling venues at Swedish festivals with Calis and Mio to being jet-lagged and fucked up as one of the first westerners to play chiptunes in China, he always did it for the money, not the culture. Anyway… In short, 2010 is YEAR ZERO and Maskinoperatör is on the move; Remixing & producing well out of the chip-scene he´s treading new ground blending the old school Demo-scene styles with modern heavy dance-floor beats. The future is now. Y2KX. New style, new hardware and more alcohol than ever builds the foundation for a new era of corrupt data and burned circuit-boards. In other words; trashy electro meets house & rave. Yep.. Power-links & disinformation; http://www.myspace.com/maskinoperator http://coucounetlabel.blogspot.com/ http://www.archive.org/details/MicromusicCoucou05-Maskinoperator http://www.archive.org/details/Maskinoperatoer_-_Datahelvete-EP-2008-polka

nordloef

nordloef takes his background in various punk rock bands and his love for electronic music to create melodic upbeat pop songs while at the same time squeezing out as much music as possible from the limited hardware of the Nintendo Game Boy. nordloef has played at all kinds of shows ranging from secret clubs in farms to techno parties in forests and his shows are best described as a mixture between a one-man punk show and a sweaty DJ set. But instead of using two turntables he uses two original Game Boys. The music is rearranged on the spot and the Game Boys outputs are fed through external effects and tweaked live. website: www.nordloef.com Photo by Peter Holliday (http://www.peterhollidayphoto.com)

Nullsleep

Nullsleep is the alias of Jeremiah Johnson, an electronic musician whose style could best be described as post-cyberpunk: a combination of distorted synthpop, electro, and industrial produced with repurposed low-bit electronics. His approach embraces the politics of appropriation, leveraged limitations, destructive process and data corruption. The result is a wall of digital noise driven by a heavy beat, expanding and collapsing in a series of glitches and drones emanating from cheap plastic devices. In 1999 Nullsleep co-founded 8bitpeoples, a collective of artists interested in the audio-visual aesthetics of early home computers and video game consoles. He has since released a number of recordings through 8bitpeoples, Astralwerks, Aniplex and others. Based in New York City, Nullsleep has performed over 150 shows throughout North America, Europe and Asia, including successful world tours in 2006 and 2009. Website • http://www.nullsleep.com Twitter • @Nullsleep Photo by – Simon Wedege Petersen

Phlogiston

Eirik Suhrke a.k.a. Phlogiston has been writing music for videogames for about ten years, and chiptunes under the Phlogiston moniker for about five years. Most recent projects include Mossmouth’s “Spelunky (XBLA)” and Lazrool’s “Warlock Bentspine”. He also co-founded and co-runs music portal Pause (http://iimusic.net), which has in recent years become one of the main go-to places for videogame influenced music. Phlogiston as a live act is an alternate reality Phlogiston all together, incorporating a backup band to varying extent, and spicing up the chiptunes with guitars, drums, synths/keyboards, and whatever else presents itself at the time.

Raquel Meyers

Raquel Meyers (1977) is a Spanish videoartist who often makes use of low-res graphics or pixelart to create surrealistic images in a dark atmosphere. She created viedeo-clips, and veejay sets for prominent chipmusicians, including Glomag en Bubblyfish. She also collaborated with electro/noise acts Rubeck and Tubular Bells. Her work is also characterised as densely layered, cute-brut. Currently she brings her audience confusion and pleasure with het work with very different artforms. Website • http://www.raquelmeyers.com

Starmelt

Using Nanoloop as his weapon of choice, Starmelt unleashes a blitzkrieg Techno assault that would put even the most revered producers to shame. Dirty basslines slink along underneath punchy kicks and percussive noise, which are topped off with layered melodies that will send shivers down your spine.

The C-Men

maximum chrominance maximum luminance maximum field dominance since 1998.

Videovalvontaa

Everything started back in 2005 when 2 dudes (Dkstr and Keff) began experimenting with different hardware and software. Result was Videovalvontaa. Their heavy and steady beats mixed with wall of different synths and loops inspired of trashy horror movies and games quickly got it’s own genre – DOOMBASS. When performing live, no 2 gigs are the same. Band constantly change their hardware and likes to experiment with their songs on different contexts. Songs melt together and mutate to whole another songs. One gig can contain parts that go from heavy blastbeats to post rock-influenced beauty to full time crowd pleasing dancefest. This is far from press play and look cool-performance. With over 50 gigs under their belt, Videovalvontaa is essentially a live band with lots to offer. http://videovalvontaa.bandcamp.com

Artists