Surasshu and I recently contributed a piece to FZ: Side Z, an official FEZ remix album. We ended up musing freely on two themes from Disasterpeace’s FEZ soundtrack: “Beacon” and “Forgotten.”
Amazingly, this was our first collaboration in person! It was great to play off of each other face-to-face. The end result is different than what we’re both used to – much more loose and improvisatory-sounding, as you’d expect from two people making music in a room together.
We named our arrangement “Come Back” in reference to both the words “beacon” (a guiding light) and “forgotten” (something you’ve encountered in the past, but have lost.)
Noisechan & Nugget: Adventures in Chiptunes
I helped with surasshu’s song, “Midnight Stroll” for Noise Channel’s charity album. It’s about Noisechan (the cute green-haired girl) taking Nugget (the puggle) for midnight walk in the city. It’s a sassy song for a sassy dog!
aivi & surasshu – Lonely Rolling Star (Missing You)
Normally, surasshu and I collaborate across the planet from one another, but this week has been special. Surasshu has been visiting San Francisco and we’ve had a chance to make music together in person! This is our music video for “Lonely Rolling Star” from Katamari Damacy, heard on our album The Black Box, with me on keys and surasshu putting his robotic powers to use as the one-man lights crew.
Our cute ‘n’ bass arrangement was inspired by m-flo’s “Miss You”. This is also the debut of our new aivi & surasshu YouTube channel.
(P.S. This video demos the visualizer feature of nutrax, a new tracker being built by DJ Bouche. It’s cute, isn’t it?)
AIVI & SURASSHU: THE BLACK BOX – Out Now!
I’m very happy and excited to finally share the album that surasshu and I have been working on for nearly a year: The Black Box!
This is my first album release ever, and it’s been a crazy adventure! We’ve both poured so much love and passion into writing these songs, and we hope that it’s a delightful journey to listen through.
The 14-page comic that comes with the album is by the wonderful Diana Jakobsson. She really blew our minds with her beautiful art, and it’s been honor to work with her!
Special thanks to Diana, C-jeff of Ubiktune, and DJ Bouche (who has been developing a new tracker that we briefly preview in this trailer video.)
Tomorrow, surasshu and I will finally release The Black Box, the piano/chiptune album that we’ve been working on for nearly a year! To quote surasshu:
We really wanted to go all out on the art, using a Belgian comic aesthetic to tell a story related to the music. So we brought in Diana Jakobsson and she’s been knocking it out of the park! She’s going to post various updates throughout the week with art, and we’ll be posting one more trailer before the release of the album on Ubiktune, this Friday.
I don’t know how I’ll manage to sleep tonight… I’m extremely nervous, and extremely excited. This is my first album – I’ve been pouring my heart into it for the past year, and we’re finally setting it free!
Time to fight some monsters! This is a mid-boss theme that I composed for Cryamore. Like I’ve said before, the reception to our kickstarter has been incredible – I even received a compliment from a kind engineer at Nintendo on the soundtrack, wowidon’tevenknowhowtobegin… ♥
Love and thanks to Chris|Amaterasu for lending his wonderful violin playing, surasshu for his help with the mix, and Rob for giving me feedback as well. I also have a ton of other people to thank for the journey this little song has gone through – I started this idea when I was 17, and it’s taken a few different forms before what it is now.
aivi & surasshu Concept Art
WOW! CRYAMORE HAS BEEN FUNDED! Our Kickstarter is being received incredibly well and I can’t believe how many of our stretch goals we’ve already met. Thanks for all the love!
Another exciting project that’s drawing near is the release of me and Surasshu’s collaborative piano/chiptune album. The wonderful Diana Jackobsson has conjured up amazing concept art inspired by Belgian comics. The album will be released in March.
Cryamore’s Kickstarter has officially launched – come see what Esmy’s adventures will be all about and support our development of the game!
Over the past several months, I’ve had the honor of working with two extremely talented artists/programmers named Robert Porter and Alan Wansom, as the music composer for this lovely RPG. The game pays tribute to the SNES/N64/PSX-era RPG’s that we grew up with, so I’ve found my groove blending acoustic/orchestral sounds with some synths and old-school chiptune.
To celebrate, here are some tunes that I’ve written for the game (with some help from surasshu). Each of these also happen to have a different illustration from Rob – a bonus handful of Esmys!
