The Saddest Key

Soundevotion Competition reached the end of round 61 on Monday and brought in six entries. The rules suggested punk rock, instrumental or industrial, but the style was open from entrants to explore. aged made a point of stating that his track was unfinished, repeatedly using the word “bad” to describe every aspect of the production; the track does however make effective use of bells, piano and mechanical rhythms topped with desolate vocal stylings. chunter wasn’t sure whether to title his entry in English or Spanish, and settled on a subtitle as he strummed along a series of delayed guitar chords with synthesized speaking. JustinCredible dropped acid bass alongside a solid snare, disported lead and floating synth lines propelled by a sampled speech. Knetter brought out the titular “Musicbox” for a dance session made exclusively from the elements included in the samplepack. Church tolls sound at the start of Shadowbane’s piece, joined by gloomy pads and fitted into an industrial shell with poetic monologue. 

JHCompo on Tuesday featured “Banquet” as its theme, much to the delight of entrants who coincidentally wished to have a heartburn-themed round. The listening party had a couple of inconveniences, as the first entry by FLD was put up as a test while the second by RAMPKORV served as an exercise in unlistenablilty. Afterward the banquet started off proper: Obtuse went to the land of funk and jammed around deft bass playing. chunter created a tune based on a clavinet riff building up to an electro rhythm. nikola exclaimed “LOL not enough time” and put together electronic loops with key and chord changes.

bjkmenu won the “chicken award” once again delivering his distinctive humor and by way of pitch-affected vocals. mu appeared and submitted “you”, a mellow groove culminating in a recitation of the alphabet. irrelevnt ventured into the studio to record himself on guitar whilst emitting various bodily sounds and applying synthesizers. StatusD uploaded a multipart track spanning nearly eight minutes of colliding e-harmonies. Bringing up the rear was Evil Shrubbery who slid in a keyboard session thickening out to a wide swatch of synths totaling a little over a minute. 

Thursday’s OHC had "The Game" as its theme, opening the door to jokes about the losing thereof. Following my vocal introduction, RAMPKORV decided that the theme was something else entirely. CJthemusicdude's choir pad and militaristic percussion pervade his story of "That Ninja Game", a tale of love and glory. Hapi-San encouraged others to relax in the early stages of The Game, offering ambiance as a way of cooling down via crashing waves. Serisium made his first OHC entry, consisting of a handful of lo-bit harmonic elements ending with the crackle of a noise channel. frkygp continued the 8-bit incursion with a sparse beat grooving through a circuit. More chiptunage appeared courtesy of  Jimmy, whose entry is reminiscent of Mega Man. Obtuse in an unusual change of form created chip music of his own, which by his description is tinged with medieval and tango elements. 

sci's scenario implies that he is more adept at composing than at game design, submitting a slung synth-filled beat. mv went off the beaten path by referencing chess, and his tune reflects this game using strings graced with dense trip-hop. Forty-Two wrote about the video game trope of "That Snow Level", melding piano and pads with headbobbing bass and chimes. Arcana's entry was uploaded by DDRKirby(ISO) as he had to leave; since the tune was created with an iPhone, it is entirely possible that Siri the digital assistant had a hand in it. jarski as part of the r00t3d collective presented an 8-bit arp that met other harmonic elements and eventually laid down the unts. Sadsic inserted quarters into the "Jungle Game" (unrelated to Jumanji) and brought upon a disjointed ascent into madness. Destroid saw fit to reestablish the theme with a game that is probably not produced by Milton Bradley.  

Hapi-San Again put up an entry, disqualifying it due to being a revised version of a a track from last week. DDRKirby(ISQ)'s track also recalls Mega Man before slamming into an extended disco-bit session. Shadix brought the house down and the lighters up by showing off a R&B song complete with vocal harmonies. Zovi went the abrasive chip route, at one point filling the soundscape with a wall of crushed noise. munchi blew on his cartridge and made his way though the levels to the eventual e-guitar solo. SupaSpeedStrut put sidechains to use, accentuating the kick drum to reach the phased-out end of "lvl 1". natsukashi stood in the "Castleyard" at the end of the listening party delivering a Baroque approach to chip, punctuated by thuds.