I’ll have to freely admit that I have never attended a ‘Chipmusic’ event and, being perfectly honest, I know very little about it — but I want to learn, and Blip Festival Australia, Australia’s first chipmusic festival, may be a good place to start.
Blip Festival Australia takes place in Melbourne, at the Evelyn Hotel in Brunswick on February 17 and 18, and features chiptunes artists from overseas in addition to local Australian outfits. Joshua Davis AKA Bit Shifter and Jeremiah Johnston AKA Nullsleep will be there, as will European performers Patric Catani, Lazerbeat and _ensnare_.
Those names might mean very little to those who aren’t knee deep in the chipmusic scene (myself included) but I’ve heard from folks I trust that chipmusic nights are an awesome amount of fun. I’m hoping to head down myself, speak to the people involved and get a better insight into this rapidly growing music… thing!
“There is a really thriving chip scene in Australia that we’ve been admiring from afar for several years,” said Mike Rosenthal, the co-founder of Blip Festival. “We figured it was time to stop simply exporting their talent to the other Blip Festivals worldwide and instead come join the party”.
According to SoundBytes co-founder, Eugene Davoren-Britton, this will be the first Australian performances for many of the high profile chipmusic artists on the bill.
“There are some exceptionally exciting artists on the line up, and we are especially excited to be bringing many of the artists not just to Australia for the first time, but also to their first Blip Festival performances,” he said. “We have a bill full of heavy hitting veterans of multiple Blip Festivals as well as fresh new talent that Australian music fans are going to love”
For those new to the whole chipmusic scene, Blip Festival Australia appears to be the perfect entry point.
“Some of these guys have been making music since before there was a name for “chipmusic” and many of them are well known as leaders within the chip community,” continued Davoren-Britton. “Bringing them all together for an event like this is not only going to make for a fantastic live music experience, it’s going to be a great learning experience for locals who may not have had this kind of exposure to so many talented artists at one time, not to mention the international audience who will be able to tune into our web stream.”
For more info on the line-up and the event itself, head to the official website.