Phasers on stun, centipedes on steroids — the mushy 8-bit noise of “300bytes,” a super-lo-rez bit of video-game tomfoolery by Lazerbeat, is a ripe slice of electroid revisionism. Released on the superlative hexawe.net netlabel, home to all manner of experimental old-school video-game sounds, the track has all the trademark elements of a period piece: the blippy forward momentum, the background static, the slow spiral of a death knell. But what makes it work is how all that stuff ends up tossed in a vibrant blender that emphasizes friction over nostalgia, tension over good vibes. It’s the sound of a game arcade on fire.
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