By Jeremy Ray Jewell
In its ninth album, YMCK exhibits that it’s turning into self-aware. They’re now not simply avatars we’re to establish with, but additionally (satirically) the company entity behind them, an organization preoccupied, like all others, with innovation.
Whereas chiptune (a.k.a. 8bit) has flown under the general public radar for many, this strategy to synthesized digital music has not solely earned a religious fanbase however, once in a while, has impressed mainstream tradition. Beck, Kesha, Nelly Furtado/Timbaland, and Eminem have all sipped from its fountain. It’s onerous to name it a style, per se. In its purest kind, it’s no kind of than the artistic use of programmable sound generator chips culled from the earliest computer-age shopper tech. In ‘70s and ‘80s, Commodore 64 dwelling computer systems and Atari arcade cupboards modified the soundscapes of artwork. The then recent however more and more acquainted bleeps of the arcade discovered their manner into a variety of music, serving to form the way forward for electro and hip-hop sounds. Japanese digital music pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra not solely sampled game sounds starting in 1978 but additionally had their own music featured in a 1982 arcade game — by way of an appropriately modified kind.
Critics had been nonetheless unconvinced by what the market labeled a “fad” with the video game crash of 1983. In the meantime, amongst hobbyists a tradition of cracking and modifying present software program emerged. They took the know-how significantly, and this gave rise to demoscene culture, which produces our present technology of sport improvement studios, in addition to the 2000s revival of chiptune. The attract of simplicity — impressed on the time as a lot by Steve Jobs because the White Stripes — known as for doing extra with much less. Devoted to demonstrating how programming methods might problem {hardware} limitations, demoscene tradition advanced into an train in minimalism: the impact was to level out the assorted inefficiencies of massive software program builders. The chiptune revival that adopted, approaching the heels of auto-tune’s grand debut, appeared destined to undercut massive music producers in the same manner.
YMCK is a Japanese group from Tokyo that emerged throughout that 2000s revival. Its three members, Takeshi Yokemura, Midori Kurihara, and Tomoyuki Nakamura, wholeheartedly embrace the minimalist impetus. They market themselves within the type of three pixelated figures. Movies by Nakamura — shared on-line and accompanying reside performances — help the aesthetic. The members of YMCK, some years earlier than Nintendo launched their Mii avatars, didn’t need us to consider them as artists manipulating machines. They inhabited retro know-how. As characters, they’re practical and agreeable in the way in which the outdated “Jumpman” sprites had been: generic figures we are able to challenge our experiences on.
In contrast to purely tracker-based music, YMCK composes its songs with devices earlier than changing them into chiptune kind. For those who hear fastidiously, you may hear their dedication to conventional musicianship. Chiptune has all the time drawn from numerous genres, however YMCK’s stylistic sensibilities lean towards technopop, swing jazz, and different genres that closely impressed the earliest Japanese online game composers, reminiscent of Yuzo Koshiro or Koji Kondo. They differ from different teams in that they welcome the sound of a human voice. Singer Midori Kurihara remembers the bossa nova-inspired vocals of early J-pop genres city pop and shibuya kei. She playfully delivers Yokemura’s lyrics, which usually inform upbeat tales endemic to the world of retro gaming.
Family Innovation is YMCK’s ninth album, and it displays a change in tone. Lots of the group’s established conventions proceed, reminiscent of naming every album after the formulation “Household _____” (a nod to the NES/Famicom, or “Household Pc”). But the temper is now extra essential and infrequently ironic. The music is, at instances, cynical about its worth. Nonetheless, the group is extra self-conscious concerning the previous than ever. “ひこうき雲のフォトグラフ” (“Photograph of Airborne Clouds”), an try to seize the fashion of ‘80s Japanese idols like Seiko Matsuda and Akina Nakamori, makes two appearances on the album, as soon as in a city pop version (mirroring a current trend). As Yokemura suggests in an interview with Real Sound, he by no means beforehand noticed chiptune music as associating with nostalgia.
In “レトロ・リバイバル” (“Retro Revival”) we discover reflections on music as a product. The tradition has modified over the past 20 years: “Infinite music archives from all via the previous for ten {dollars} monthly. Your opponents are actually the evergreens and the masterpieces.” It may very well be that chiptune nonetheless gives a option to escape the enterprise cycle, powered by what Yokemura has known as a “good thing about inconvenience.” He informed Real Sound: “On this age of digital books, the act of constructing a zine utilizing offset printing is identical” as making music with older know-how. This will reply the questions posed by the catchy and upbeat “コンビニエント” (“Convenient”), a meditation on our motivations for using know-how. “イチオクブンノイチ” (“1 of 100 Million”) is concerning the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami which induced the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The tune means that it’s excessive time to reevaluate simply how helpful our modern conveniences are.
This leads to what’s, unquestionably, the album’s strongest gesture: “グローバル・イノベーション” (“Global Innovation”). Taking goal at “Globalization: the monetary energy that covers up the globe,” we’re warned that “we’ve got no option to make. Look, right here comes massive capital!” A world record of cities follows and we’re informed that there isn’t a escape. (This can be a curious reversal of the message on the 2012 video for “Go YMCK, Go!”, which celebrated the group’s earlier worldwide success.) AI will little doubt exchange us, however we could not obtain the promised comfort of innovation. As an alternative, we might want to work more durable and produce extra. “Similar to uncle Karl [Marx] warned us earlier than,” the track warns.
Household Innovation signifies that YMCK is turning into self-aware. They’re now not simply avatars we’re to establish with, but additionally (satirically) the company entity behind them, an organization preoccupied, like all others, with innovation.They’re now not simply avatars we’re to establish with, but additionally (satirically) the company entity behind them… an organization preoccupied, like all others, with innovation They even pressed the purpose dwelling by selling the album with a efficiency dubbed “Innovation Convention 2022.” Nakamura jokingly instructed that Yokemura “seem in denims with a black turtleneck.” The transfer remembers Devo’s creation of a corporate anthem or Yellow Magic Orchestra’s sarcastic self-hyping cover of Archie Bell’s “Tighten Up”. On the similar time, it echoes “uncle Karl’s” reverence for the “wonders” of capitalism, whereby “the intellectual creations of individual nations become common property.” Nonetheless, there’s something very Japanese on this technique that faucets into the idea of ma (間), or detrimental area. “That is the place we’re,” YMCK appears to be saying — earlier than the group leaves the area open for us all to kind it out.
Jeremy Ray Jewell hails from Jacksonville, FL. He has an MA in historical past of concepts from Birkbeck School, College of London, and a BA in philosophy from the College of Massachusetts Boston. His web site is www.jeremyrayjewell.com.
