Superheros approaching...

A short clip from the wicked gig in Augsburg :)

8-Bit Festival Augsburg

Flyer 17.9.2011 Schwäbisch Hall

irq7 - Girls 'n' Gameboys EP

It's time for my next release called "Girls 'n' Gameboys".
After a lot of cover-versions on the "It's not me EP", I decided to have more own songs on the follow-up release and here you are! Well - there is at least _one_ cover-song on the EP. Sorry, but I could not resist ;)

First I have to mention the awesome cover-artwork done by Vera. This not only saved a lot of work for me - it also looks sooo much better than everything I did before.
Thanks for all Vera! :)

This EP is also featuring a song with my own vocals called "Jamie & Me". The whole thing was heavily inspired by my personal muse called Irina. She also fixed my bad English. Me like!

Another novelty is the usage of amen-breaks in some songs. Don't expect high-quality samples, but the breaks were well received on my performance at The Tank/NY :D
Of course all songs were produced with one Gameboy Classic and LSDj.

I also did a short C64-demo featuring the first song of the EP:


Tracklist:
1.) Bad Taste
2.) Terror Uschi
3.) Godmode
4.) Get Ready (cover)
5.) Jamie & Me
6.) Coma
7.) 1988

irq7 live

I got a lot of request for playing some live-gigs.
So check-out irq7 playin live in your city. I will regularly update the dates here and on facebook.

31.08.2011 ARS Electronica Center, Linz
This is not a real irq7 gig, but I can play some songs as a part of the famous Gameboymusicclub at the same event where I got the first contact with this nice people from Vienna:
The ARS Electronica!

We are playing at the opening-ceremony in the ARS Electronica Quater which is in the front of the ARS Electronica Center. The Tesla Orchestra is also playing! I mean check this out:




16.09.2011 chip - nyte, Frankfurt, Stereo Bar (irq7, Sabrepulse, Stern Fucking Zeit)
Whoooooomp! I have a gig with the awesome Sabrepulse and the Gameboy hardcore legend Stern Fucking Zeit :D

17.09.2011 Planet 8Bit, Schwäbisch Hall, Club Alpha 60 (irq7, Sputnik Booster)
The free German radio-station sthoerfunk.de is celebrating a big chiptune-night also featuring Sputnik Booster and a screening of the chiptune-documentation" Reformat the Planet".
Don't miss that!

irq7 live in NYC (I mean 'holy shit!')

I had the honour to play at the open-stage in The Tank / New York during the Blip Festival 2011. The crowd was just awesome screaming and dancing like there is no tomorrow. Seven days of chiptunes, I will never forget.

Kamerakind Irina did a cool and shakin' live-footage of my unreleased song "godmode".
Thanks to her and "The Agent" for the picture above!

Live in Germany !!!

irq7 - It's not me EP

This is the first EP released, after my debut-album "Revenge of the Calm". Instead of own compositions, this EP features cover-versions of some of my favorite songs.

All seven Songs were written on my Gameboy(s) Classic using LSDj. Most of the original songs are coming from the Commodore C64- and Amiga - world.


















The title-track "Alf" is heavily based on Zalza's brilliant "2204355 Song" which was released in the early days of the internet together with a funny animation. Of course it's also the theme of the TV-series with the same name.

Alf (Gameboy version of Zalza's "2204355 Song") by irq7

My second Track is a typically pushing forward cracktro-tune from the C64 used by Strikeforce. The same is valid for S-Express, but this song was already a cover on the C64 of a late 80ies dancefloor-act.

"Analyzer" is one of these really cewl Amiga-MOD's which consist of just a few patterns which loop to infinity. I also did a extended version of this track using a drum-machine connected to my Gameboy. Another song from the Amiga is "Lost Scrotum" which was programmed on two Gameboys to keep the complexity of this beautiful anthem.

After watching the "Silent Hill" movie, a little sad melody get stuck in my mind and I decided to try a own version. I added some drums which end up in a nice breakbeat - song.

At the end I like to say Thank you! to all the original composers for their songs which touched my soul and made me what I am.

Chiptunes 4 ever!

irq7 live @ Chip Hits The Fan / Nuremberg

What a great 8-Bit event last saturday!
Workshops, tutorials, lectures and many live-acts like Sputnik Booster, Firestarter, Agikakaluna! and Pornologic.
I also had the honour to play a liveset that evening:
























Gameboy Workshop for LSDJ

irq7 Radio Interview

(Switching to German ...initializing - los! :-)

Ich war vergangene Woche zu einem Interview in Graz eingeladen. Anlass war die Sendung bitte8bit auf Radio Helsinki, die sich in Folge 63 (shit, Folge 64 knapp verfehlt ;-) meinem Alter-Ego "irq7" widmete. Die Sendung wurde bereits am letzten Dienstag ausgestrahlt. Wer sie versäumt hat und mehr über mein Gameboy-Projekt, meine Vorliebe für den C64 oder die Entstehung der Noizebox erfahren will, kann die Folge anhören oder gleich downloaden. Ich bedanke mich jedenfalls bei "bitte8bit"-Thomas für den tollen Nachmittag in Graz!

New irq7 album "Revenge of the Calm"

I'm very proud to present you the first irq7 album called "Revenge of the Calm". I never learned to play a "real" instrument - so the Gameboy is maybe my first one =) and I never liked the Gameboy nor any other Nintendo console when I was a kid. I had a C64 and I loved the sound of it's soundchip - the SID 8580 (yeah, and _not_ the SID 6581! ;-)

All tracks on the album were made with the software "Little Sound DJ" on a Gameboy Classic, except the beats on "Beast V2.0" are coming from a Korg ES1 linked via MIDI with my Arduinoboy.

The last song is not featured on the web-release, because it covers Trio's "Da Da Da" from the 80's. Track number 7 is heavily inspired from a song by Irene Grabherr of the Gameboymusicclub Vienna. Thanks for the permission Irene!

The album's name "Revenge of the Calm" is pretty old. Years ago, I decided to write a whole album with my first Hardsid. I choose the name of the album and wrote down song-names for each track. Then I started to write a first song which was pretty hard for me and then things came entirely different. The whole set-up of my equipment was too complex for writing just a "quick song". So I decided to get a more mobile and simple hardware which is easier to handle and to take with me. Then I remembered a concert of the Gameboymusicclub and I bought a Gameboy-Classic with a programmable cartridge plus the tracker-based software LSDj. This album contains songs I wrote on this, nearly 20 years old Gameboy over the last 3 years. I released only a few of them in the meantime. For the album, I re-recorded most of them while doing some live-action. Most of the tracks were not mastered at all, as I want to sound them as raw as possible.

Lets the the tracklist:





















Each song has it's own story and I want to tell it now to you:
1 Intro7
Initially I wrote Intro7 just for live-performances but I start to like that tune and decided to put it on the album. This is the time to turn up the volume!

2 Train
This track was mainly produced riding a train and parts of it even in a plane to Helsinki.

3 Skin
A short, but funky tune with a catchy melody. With this song I started to play more instruments within one voice.

4 Break
I love appegios - the chords for "the poor". They meet a melancholic melody and build together a very dancy tune.

5 Acidboy
Instead of following the invitation to a techno-party in Italy, I produced this track. I'm not very into techno, but I like the sounds that can be made with the noise-channel of the Gameboy.

6 Beast v2.0
Beast v1.0 was shit, so Mr. Frankenstein goes back to his laboratory and create a new mutant. Three evil machines helped him to make it alive. The Gameboy, the Korg-ES1 and the Arduinoboy which connect their brains together. And now be afraid, be very afr...aarggg!

7 Rambazamba
I heard this lovely song from Irene Grabherr only two or three times. She was playing it live on a Nintendo DS. As I couldn't find it on the net, I decided to make my first cover-song just out of some memory fragments I had of the track.

8 Star
I was experimenting with basslines for a drum'n'bass song. The result was pretty different.

9 2nd Gen
One of my elder songs and an atypical rhythm too. I did some live-action during the recording to make it sound different from the original version.

10 irq7
A short try on the minimalistic speech-synthesis of LSDj. The robot say's "I R Q 7" at the beginning of this song.

11 Workshop
I was visiting a Gameboy-Workshop in Linz and ask one nice guy of the GBMC I he can tell me how to make a good bassdrum. I came back with the new bassdrum and did this teutonic techno song. Dance my puppets!

irq7 Live in Linz at ARS Electronica

I had the honor to play as irq7 together with the Gameboy Musicclub at the ARS-Electronica 2009 in Linz. This is a picture of the crowded Stadtwerkstatt during the gig. It was really fun and the people went crazy on our Gameboy-songs. Thanks to the Gameboy Musicclub for the great evening and "Musikkreis MS20" for the fine concert afterwards.

This is not me but a nice guy of the GBMC performing on a Gameboy Color with Nanoloop: