April 1st 2011 - Gamepak Dublin & Boy Scout Audio present:
HERV: Portable Music Vol. 1 Album Launch
Admission €5 / €8 with limited edition Cassette
O'Byrne's Beverage Bar(map), Capel Street, 9pm - 12.30am
With: HERV (live) plus Bluefood / Glotchbot / PR! / SU7A7S / WuffaH
Herv is one of Ireland's premier and pioneering exponents of chiptune, with tracks such as 'Party Gaff' (from the album 'Customer', Go Away/Reconfiguration Records, 2006) standing out as one of the scene's most loved floor-filling choons. 'Portable Music Vol. 1', sees him return to the world of hand-held gaming devices and to a new generation of gear uniquely suited to the adept knob-twiddling he has demonstrated on previous releases, and sees him train his hyper-active musical mind to focus on minute subtleties within square-shaped vignettes. On every track, he squeezes the last drops of musical juice from a Nintendo DS, battering the synthesised daylights out of the bare-bones Korg DS-10 software that is the sole sound source of the record.
Portable Music Vol. 1: a record that was composed on buses, train platforms, and in friends' houses; concocted while commuting and on the go; a record that beats the clock and dodges your boss's CCTV. This is Portable Music, released on April 1st by Boy Scout Audio, on limited edition cassette tape for your personal stereo walkman!
Herv has always had a thing about free music. His anarchist aesthetic becomes clear when you notice the number of free releases available on respected net-labels such as Acroplane, Net-Lab, Cock Rock Disco and The Centrifuge. By no means simple promos, these records are a match for his swarm of physical format releases on Irish and international independents, including labels Risc and Go Away Recordings, while remaining true to the net-label scene's DIY and chiptune roots.
But Herv had another reason for switching to portable methods: giving away music for free is all well and good, but a man's gotta eat. Returning to full-time day-job hours away from his studio, he soon realised that increased restrictions on his time would mean drastic changes were needed if his musical output was to endure. Adapting his methodologies to this end, he traded studio gear for portable devices.
Also in high demand as an old-skool-rave referencing DJ (check out this free-download mix on Brighton label Wrong Lab), his production advances stylistically prog-influenced wildly modulating chord progressions, which jostle and balance jauntily against razor-sharp beat programming to melodically eccentric effect. Herv's music grabs hold of your channel-hopping attention span, bashing it against the speakers to the battle-beat of its perversely contrarian itinerary.
We've watched his music evolve from the experimental folktronics and concrète of his 2002 debut 'Snap Hands' into the full-frontal punk assault of breakcore excess. With later releases such as 'Gang Molded' (The Centrifuge, 2010) re-integrating his rave roots, his noise urges are now simultaneously and comprehensively satiated, not only in the layered subtleties of his Herv production aesthetic, but in the company of his alter-ego Muttermal and as part of duo Gland & Conduit.
And so, on April 1st, Gamepak Dublin and Boy Scout Audio are proud to celebrate the release of 'Portable Music Vol. 1' (BSA003). The release is available on strictly limited edition Cassette for your Personal Stereo Walkman, and on digital from April 14th through boyscoutaudio.com.
Support on the night comes from Bluefood, (Ghettoquietly, !Kaboogie) serving up a specially-concocted selection of rhythm and squelch, bass and breaks, bloops and bleeps. He'll be joined for a live jam by Gamepak's Xyme, donning his Glotchbot hat to jam out some generative sample-based 8-bit goodness, using cellular-automata as sequencers, armed with a couple of Nintendo DS's. The showcase of local chiptune talent continues with Dublin-based instrumental musician 'PR!' using a laptop, a gameboy and some sampled toys and video games to make distorted hip-hop songs. Meanwhile, founder of triphop massive Siam Collective, 'SU7A7S' will bend ears with warped NES and DMG tones, and some of the oddest circuit bent goodies for good measure. And in the bar on the night, the enigmatic WuffaH will be laying down some deep and dubby 8-bit tinged vibes in the Bar area with a special vinyl DJ set.
