YMCK

Happy Friday, folks! As we head into the weekend, lets kick things off on a cheerful, jazzy chiptunes note. There are plenty of artists out there that make nifty music inspired by the sounds of old 8-bit video game consoles, but my favorite of the bunch is definitely YMCK. Based in Tokyo, the trio consists of Midori on vocals, Yokemura handling music, lyrics, arrangement, while Nakamura works on the videos.

The group formed in 2003, and have released three albums in that time: Family Music (2004), Family Racing (2005), and, most recently, Family Genesis (2008). I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that one of Japan's biggest record labels, Avex, was willing to take a chance on them for their latest release.

What I like about YMCK in comparison to other chiptune acts is how they combine the video game vibe of their music with something a little more jazzy through their vocals. It's like combining Pizzicato 5 with an old Nintendo game console from the 80s. A very neat mix of sounds. However, I do find that their sound is drifting more towards straightforward pop arrangement-wise with Family Genesis, albeit with chiptune instrumentation.

One thing that is really cool about the band is that they've made a VST plug-in that is freely available for download from their official website, so anyone interest in writing some chiptunes of their own can go ahead and give it a shot. I've tried it, and the sounds are quite good. The only difficulty that I've run into is that I haven't figured out how to force my tracks to run in mono instead of stereo when using Ableton Live, so I get a lot of noise in the right speaker a lot. Once I get that under control, I'll be very happy indeed. ^_^

So, in the meantime, I hope you all get your weekends off to a good start, and if you want, check out some of YMCK's music over here. If you really like it, you will be able to find their Family Genesis album on the US iTunes store as of July 29 of this year, but it may take some wrangling to track down their older stuff. USAGI-CHANG, the band's former label, has the albums listed in their catalog, but they don't ship overseas, and recommend using Amazon Japan or HMV Japan instead, both of whom I also think may not ship overseas. If you decide to track down these older albums, something most definitely worth doing, you may have your work cut out for you. Best of luck!