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Anamanaguchi are a Brooklyn-based partish-time chiptune band. They've long been supplementing their work as a band with music-for-hire in video games and commercials and stage production/graphic design work for other music acts. At least, they were until recently. A nearly-finished, highly successful Kickstarter campaign meant to fund higher levels of live show and music video production as well as support their touring budget is rapidly approaching the $250,000 mark, far exceeding its original goal of $50,000. This outpouring of fan-based financial support should ensure Anamanaguchi's status as a full-time touring and studio act for the forseeable future. The band's summer tour in support of their newest album Endless Fantasy, released two weeks ago, is currently winding its way through middle America and will snake through Florida in late July with an Orlando show at downtown venue stalwart The Social on July 23rd.
Chiptune, Anamanaguchi's stock and trade, is a genre of music that uses the built-in digital sound processors of 1980s and 1990s video game consoles to produce highly dense, dance-able, retro-futuristic pop-rock that sounds like R2D2 making love to Johnny 5 while on whippets. Anamanaguchi uses modified NES and Gameboy consoles in almost all of their songs, but influences from pop and rock acts like Weezer and The Beach Boys shine through the bleep-bloop 8-bit soundscape. If H.G. Wells were alive today and liked to jam, this is what he'd jam to.
Anamanaguchi are a Brooklyn-based partish-time chiptune band. They've long been supplementing their work as a band with music-for-hire in video games and commercials and stage production/graphic design work for other music acts. At least, they were until recently. A nearly-finished, highly successful Kickstarter campaign meant to fund higher levels of live show and music video production as well as support their touring budget is rapidly approaching the $250,000 mark, far exceeding its original goal of $50,000. This outpouring of fan-based financial support should ensure Anamanaguchi's status as a full-time touring and studio act for the forseeable future. The band's summer tour in support of their newest album Endless Fantasy, released two weeks ago, is currently winding its way through middle America and will snake through Florida in late July with an Orlando show at downtown venue stalwart The Social on July 23rd.
Chiptune, Anamanaguchi's stock and trade, is a genre of music that uses the built-in digital sound processors of 1980s and 1990s video game consoles to produce highly dense, dance-able, retro-futuristic pop-rock that sounds like R2D2 making love to Johnny 5 while on whippets. Anamanaguchi uses modified NES and Gameboy consoles in almost all of their songs, but influences from pop and rock acts like Weezer and The Beach Boys shine through the bleep-bloop 8-bit soundscape. If H.G. Wells were alive today and liked to jam, this is what he'd jam to.
The Kickstarter has not only promised to enhance the live shows as well as provide even more insane music videos from a group already known for insane music videos, but also offers opportunities for chiptune lessons from the band, backstage passes, and merchandise such as t-shirts co-designed by Scott Pilgrim artist and author Bryan Lee O'Malley. One of the more exciting projects is the quarter-million-dollar stretch goal of an Anamanaguchi-inspired game jam. Check out the music videos for "Meow" and "Endless Fantasy," both tracks from the Endless Fantasy album, below. The latter features an incredibly hypnotic Space Pizza that somehow manages to make me simultaneously hungry and wistful. If the music inspires you to pick up tickets for the show at the Social, those are available here for a very reasonable rate. The album can be acquired as a reward for donating to the Kickstarter (probably the best way to buy it), or at local brick and mortar or Internet retailers.
