LISTEN: TREE WAVE’S HACKED-UP HARDWARE SHOEGAZE

During the Q&A that followed last night’s showing of Reformat the Planet, I noted a few questions that asked whether (as Lewis just reminded me) there was any slower chiptune material that wasn’t quite as, well, chipper, and acts that focused on something other than Game Boys.

Producer Paul Levering made special note of (I was happy to hear) one Dallas act in particular that I think fits both criteria: Paul Slocum and Lauren Gray’s Tree Wave, who list their MySpace ‘sounds like’s as: My Bloody Valentine / Stereolab / Lali Puna / M83 and Postal Service, and I can’t say it much better. Above is their video for their best track, Sleep.

Slocum’s a hardware hacker/music maker of some renown, in addition to creating Atari 2600 SynthCart and its C64 equivalent CynthCart, he’s also firmware hacked the Epson LQ500 dot-matrix printer you hear/see in the song as a programmable instrument (and created the excellent dual-paddle Monkey Ball/Marble Madness-esque game Marble Craze for the 2600).

You can order the duo’s debut EP Cabana via AtariAge, which it also appears has hit archive.org as a free download, albeit in abridged form (and without the hi-res version of the video above).

Tree Wave home [MySpace, qotile.net]

Previously:
Offworld: Music Archives