The Thousands

Chip music is, at least in a symbolic sense, the house that Nintendo generally (and Koji Kondo specifically) built. Thanks to them an entire generation of indoor kids were brought up with 8-bit music ringing in their ears. The Super Mario Brothers theme and the Zelda overland theme wired so deeply into their neural pathways that they never bothered to pick up a guitar. They just stuck with the crunchy sine, sawtooth and triangle waves of early game consoles. The NES is their Stratocaster, the Amiga their Telecaster. With nerdery such as repurposed Commodore 64 MOS Technology SID chips, the Little Sound DJ gameboy sequencer, circuit bent Speak & Spells and, more recently, software emulators rounding things out.

The Blip Festival is unique in that the genre of music it celebrates is so niche that its 20-act lineup constitutes a pretty good representation of the worldwide scene. Including old-timers (relatively speaking) from the US such as 8bitpeoples co-founder Nullsleep and Trash80 alongside newer, local acts Abortifacient and Ten Thousand Free Men and Their Families. Get your bleep on.