Blipping Out: A Q&A with Anamanaguchi

Anamanaguchi's music comes from the same vein as the synth beat craze but they have a unique sense of nostalgia. Their melodies are structured with videogame tones from a hacked 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) that create those familiar arcade beeps and bloops that were constantly in the background for most of our childhoods.

In the 80s, chiptune music was only used for videogames, but now chiptune musicians take apart their sad, dusty gaming systems in the corner of their living rooms and turn them into instruments. Anamanaguchi writes their melodies, layers conventional instruments on top (like electric guitars, bass, and drums) and then feed them live through an NES while performing, as the crowd leaps and twists to their crazy technologic sound. Their fast Super Nintendo-like visuals give a neon tint to most of their sets, making the crowd look like they could be characters in a videogame, battling and dancing to the music.

One of the four band members, lead songwriter Peter Berkman, who’s also a member of the artist collective 8bitpeoples, has been creating chiptune music since 2003. Other members include bassist James DeVito, guitarist Ary Warnaar, and drummer Luke Silas. They formed in 2004 in NYC, and have since toured all throughout the US and UK. In 2010 they were asked to score the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game based off the series of comic books by Bryan O'Malley. They cite Weezer, Andrew W.K., and The Beach Boys as some of their influences, but their sound rests somewhere between organic and robotic—creating a perfectly balanced tone—much like our Creator Sulumi. We caught up with Peter Berkman and Ari Wamaar to pick apart their sound and to find out what they’re up to this summer.

The Creators Project: How did you you guys get into chiptune music?
Peter Berkman: I was 15 when I came across this article in WIRED magazine written by Malcolm McLaren (the notorious Sex Pistols manager guy). The article talked about these guys in Sweden that were making crazy music with Game Boys and wearing shirts that said “Fuck Pro Tools.” As a kid who grew up with a Nintendo and was coming out of the punk rock world, it seemed like actually the coolest thing in the entire world. I instantly went online and within a few months met an entire community of musicians that I’m still friends with today.

What is your music making process like, and how do you balance responsibilities amongst your band?
As a band, our roles kinda play out like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Leonardo leads (I founded the band/write most of the music), Donatello does machines (James plays bass and does hardware mods), Raphael is cool but rude (Ary is kinda in charge of our style and is by far “the cool one”), Michelangelo is a party dude (Luke drums shirtless like an animal that sweats Four Loko). It all definitely gels nicely, and I’m glad we’re basically turtles.

Who actually re-wired the gaming system? Why do you prefer hacked “synths”?
I mostly just operate on the software side of things, James was the one that did the actual modification to the Nintendo—he loves to take things apart. I think the idea of a “hacked synth” is appealing because you’re deconstructing its intended use. Anything you make these consoles play that wasn’t originally supposed to come out of them is going to instantly make you think about these sounds in a different way. Given that these 8-bit consoles have such a rich aesthetic vocabulary, it puts all of those images into whatever new world we want them in.

Does anyone in the band play (or design) video games, and if so which ones?
Luke and I are definitely the biggest gamers in the band—we’re the ones that love PC games like Deus Ex, crazy Japanese games like Vib-Ribbon and Shadow of the Colossus, and we could both probably beat 96% of people in Super Smash Bros. and Street Fighter. James plays a lot too—he’s big into indie games and sports games. Ary doesn’t play much except for racing games and Grand Theft Auto stuff.

As for designing, I used to make games on my TI-83 graphing calculator in high school—I’d take it with me everywhere and program at family functions and stuff. I made a fighting game called Amputee Boxing, a spaceship game, and a skating game. I was working on a massive side-scroller project when my TI-83 got stolen, [then] I stopped programming altogether. Game design is always something that has interested me in an extreme way—James and I took a class on it while we were studying at NYU.

If you could make a synth or another hacked NES console that would be perfectly tailored to your interests, whether it’s technologically possible or not, what would that system include?
Ary Warnaar: Something that’s tiny! I love writing music on Game Boys because you can take and use them anywhere. That said, what you can do with a Game Boy is quite limited—a richer sound palette would be nice. I would want my “synth” to be part of a whole production unit thing (kinda like a lil portable MPC). I would design something that is as small as a Game Boy, that could support sample playback/editing, and would also contain various sound chips (2A03, SID chip, an FM chip…etc). It would also have an analog drum machine built into the back of it (because I suck at programming drums on anything other than a drum machine.) Oh and it would cost $25 so I could lose it and not really give a shit.

Have you ever thought about adding vocals? Who would do it, and what would it sound like?
Peter Berkman: We’ve thought about it a lot. I really like turning the square wave of the NES into our lead singer, but I’m getting to a point where I want to see what other contexts we can put it in. We’d love to collaborate with like 100 different singers, it would be a dream to collaborate with anyone from Johnny Siera from the Death Set, or Best Coast, or Kip from the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. We don’t like to stick to one style for too long, so having one singer doesn’t really work for us.

Besides just creating a crazy dancing environment, what kind of experience do you want to create for your audience? What emotions or ideas do you hope your songs project?
This is the most important part of the process for me. I want to be able to take an audience into a certain “zone.” I like to write songs with these specific atmospheres in mind (almost like level design in a game). Immersion is the goal. I want to illustrate a setting of fantasy, surrealism, and nostalgia with each piece of music. I guess there’s a theme of exploring epic landscapes and traveling through them. I want the arrangement and dynamic to subtly guide the listener to “adventure” their way through these settings. Without lyrics it’s easier to engage and have your own personal experience with the music, this is why working with abstract live visuals is so essential to us.

We love your insane visuals during your performances! Who creates them?
We work with a bunch of different artists actually—there’s so much awesome stuff out there that we can’t really stick to one just yet. We’ve worked with Party Time! Hexcellent, Paris & Output, noteNdo, George Michael Brower, and Leia Jospe recently.

Are there any other chiptune artists we should check out?
Totally—I could go on forever honestly. Some recommendations: 4mat, Starscream, Unicorn Kid, Talk To Animals, Je Deviens DJ en 3 Jours, George & Jonathan, and Sabrepulse. Our drummer Luke also has a project called Knife City, which I love.

Are you guys going to play any festivals this summer, or do you have any other big projects on the horizon?
We’re working on an album over the summer, so that’s taking up most of our time. In September we’re playing an awesome festival, but we can’t announce it yet says our manager-bro :(.. It’s gonna be a party for sure though!

Photo Credit: Marjorie Becker