Caws Radio

Press Start for Art pt. 2

I've mentioned them in the past, and...now I am mentioning them again. The Super Madrigal Brothers is a duo of two fine young men who produce 8-bit Nintendo-inspired music. Their album, Shakestation, a collection of 8-bit 15-17th century madrigals and remixes, was completed without the two ever meeting face to face. Oliver composed the songs and sent them over the internet to John, who in turn made mad-crazy remixed versions of each song. In case you can't imagine it for yourself, the album is rad. Also, check out their versions of Donovan's "Sunshine Superman", downloadable on their website.

These guys both played video games as kids, and the simple 8-bit musical scores made such an impact that here they are emulating them in the new milennium (as Oliver says, "Nobuyuki Shioda's electro-ragtime-calypso-gameshowmusic soundtrack to the second Mario game for NES is a gift from heaven"). They absorbed the accompanying music to electronic logic-puzzles so long ago, and now they are channeling the sound and feeling of this "video-game music" into their art. It's kind of lke a young boy who goes to a bunch of silent films throughout his childhood and has the accompanying functional piano music burned into his brain, only to recreate that music years later with a sense of artistic respect after silent movies have gone extinct. Art that was not necessarily produced as art is being revived through the expression of a new artist. And thus, video games get a little more artistic props.