The world of video-game music is just that, a whole realm unto itself, with its own rules, its own obsessions, its own stars, it’s own logic. Judging by the sheer density of video-game-music sites, there is a large group of people much of whose listening time is spent on pixelated tunes that, by tone and intent, might just as well have been recorded in the early 1980s. But where there is healthy obsession there is absurdity, and there is humor. And all that insular hyperactivity isn’t uniquely characteristic of chiptunes, as the 8bit-music world is called. It describes numerous rich subcultures, notably the world of manga and anime.
Thus it’s no surprise, except in terms of delight, that something along the lines of the The Drifting Classroom: The Game: The Soundtrack should exist. The album is a parody of a parody, or a tribute to a parody, or a parody of tributes, or something like that. What it is is an album of 8bit video-game music, purported to be sourced from an old Famicon video-game, based on the manga Drifting Classroom by Japanese horror legend (and a personal favorite of mine) Kazuo Umezu. Except there is not such Famicon video-game. What there is is a thoroughly imagined suite of shortz esrzatz video-game music, built around the theme of Umezu-sensei’s series, in which an entire school goes missing, leaving a gaping hole where it once stood. The titles of the tracks (“Mutant Mushrooms,” “Killer Cult”) are drawn from scenarios in the story, and the music is fully envisioned: rapid themes for fight sequences, minor-key horror-film cues elsewhere. There are 14 tracks in all. One favorite is “Stage 5 ”“ Underground,” a spooky, downtempo piece (MP3).
The collection is credited to Moldilox, aka Joseph Luster. Full release at beepcity.com. More at thejosephlusterreport.blogspot.com, including a photo of Umezu-sensei himself holding a CD of the ersatz soundtrack. Lots more Moldilox music at his page at 8bitcollective.com.
The title of the track is “With Broken Heart and Sharp Mind.” The album is the self-titled release by We Are Bright & Broken. Perhaps that mention of a “heart” helps explain the intermittent beep, a sharp bright ping that is not consonant with the light and slow guitar-like looping that is the majority of what’s heard. This beeping isn’t metrically precise enough — it doesn’t arrive at a regular pace — to be the sound of a heart monitor in a hospital, though it certainly suggests such a thing: electronic audio that symbolizes, that verifies, actual life. What that beep in the song really does is distract from other sounds whose textures are further belied by the work’s surface placidity, notably an emerging and rough noise, like a microphone being bullied by the wind (