From his Facebook post:- https://www.facebook.com/8GB.r0x/photos … mp;theater
'2004-2014.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the 8GB project. 10 years is not something to understate so I will pat myself on the back for such a feat.
In the beginning it was 2 of us, my friend Bubblo and me, whom out of a shared interest in video and music, decided to do a -real- audiovisual live set (a rare occurrence still today). By that time, 2004, I had been experimenting with Game Boy music making for about 6 years after finding the works of stalwarts of modern chipmusic like Goto80, Role Model, gwEm, Eat Rabbit or Bit Shifter. Since I started making music in 1993 with trackers on my Amiga (wow, that was 21 years ago), LSDJ seemed like the perfect fit and I was having a lot of fun using it and trying to push the Game Boy to its limits. And that is how I joined the "contemporary chipmusic scene".
At the time chipmusic wasn't just about who sounds "more chip" or not, about what hardware/software people use or not and how "real" that would be. Above all, it was a shared ethos of breaking the limits of what is possible with the hardware/software we chose to use. We were, in most cases, never afraid to diversify, both in hardware (adding drums, real or synthetic, guitars, voice, other synths, etc) and in style (each and everyone made their own type of music and "chiptune" wasn't necessarily a synonym for a certain type of sounds or music even less considered a "genre"). People resembled it to punk in its rebellious, DIY attitude, and they weren't too far off.
I am very thankful about all that I have learned while being part of chipmusic. All the people I have met are incredible humans and very talented, friends that I will treasure forever. I managed to travel the world with this project and thanks to chipmusic events all over, the people that organized them and their unimaginable hospitality. I enjoyed very much trying to push the sonic limits of my old hardware and see how far I could go.
However, little by little, I drifted apart from this scene.
The departure of Bubblo made the project slowly lose its visual edge, which was a very important part of it all. I hit a ceiling regarding sound synthesis specially on the Game Boy, and I discovered better, more natural, faster and ultimately more satisfying ways to write music instead of using a tracker.
Chipmusic became more of a "genre", often not allowing any of the variety, openness and freshness that got me interested in the scene when I first approached it.
I played many gigs in recent years where I felt completely inadequate for the setting, which was usually based around performing with Game Boys, the connection to videogames and nostalgia and other things that were, just simply, never the motivation behind anything I did.
I decided to just keep on going and slowly shift my sound to where I wanted it to be. But the 8-bit "stigma" stuck to my music. Plenty of times I make tunes that have nothing to do with chiptune yet someone always wants to tag it as such, just because of past history. At the same time, this miscategorization leads to reduced attention from the only group that is mostly looking at what I release.
It really makes me feel all my efforts to better myself at music, to try to do something new every time, to expand my horizons, to release something with proper quality and in proper form, are for nothing. Working so much on a release and having it go largely unnoticed feels like a huge waste of my time.
I thought long and hard about how to solve this but nothing I have done before really worked, so after much thought I have come to the decision to kill this project on its tenth anniversary, that is, today.
8GB has always been about dancefloor-oriented electronic music above all, regardless of how it was made.
The project will die but I will never give up making music. In the past years I have created for myself a bunch of other aliases on which I have been more free to pursue my musical interests without the "pressure" or stigma of it having to be considered part of something it really isn't and as such, misjudged. I'm making whatever I like regardless of labels. I'm learning new skills like always, and apply them to more varied types of music. I am trying to diversify and to expand my limitations. I am working to get better at making music every day, in all aspects. And much of this is not possible as 8GB anymore.
I will still have a project focused on making dancefloor oriented electronic music, but at this point, I have no idea what it will be called and how it will sound (well, maybe I do have an idea of what it should sound like). I am trying to work this out. I am starting a new life, moving to a new country (again) and this is a perfect chance to start afresh. I will have many months to try to settle down into this new life and to find myself again music-wise and give my music new identities that I can feel happy about and where I can express myself freely without constrains.
If you actually read all the way to this point you are one of the few people that actually care about what I do and probably have been supporting me throughout all these years, attending shows, listening and downloading. I have to say your support has been key in my continued work and progress in what I do, and to you, I am forever grateful. Please find on the website linked below a pack with all the music I ever finished under this moniker and a few under some of the other aliases. Most of those have never been released to the public before.
Ladies and gentlemen, this marks the death of 8GB. But it's also its rebirth.
It's been hell of a ride these past ten years. Thanks for making them possible.
You know how to keep in touch. See you around,
- Akira / 8GB
http://8gb.kikencorp.com/ '
Last edited by CS (Aug 28, 2014 2:32 pm)
