A poppy ‘now-tro’ cover image of moving Nintendo controllers and vintage pixellated icons style graphic insignia greets the lucky (or unlucky) finder of Germlin’s Youthpixxel. Kind of like what an Autechre vs Aphex twin soundtrack for a wacky pre-schoolers video game involving squishing rabbits in return for magic tokens might sound like, Germlin is undoubtedly crafty with his lo-bit Atari, Nintendo and Amiga soundscapes laid over syncopated occasionally break-core , more often than not gabba style beats. Youthpixxel occasionally falls into the sonic trap of a lot of breakcore, getting caught in the glut of stammering, mind altering beats but for most of the album Germlin holds a reasonably light grasp over his sounds. There is no real journey in the disc, rather an immersion in a weird ‘so nice it’s violent’s popular landscape. Germlin’s creator Joe Howe resides in Scotland and runs cd-r label Megapixxels and despite not being terribly innovative in terms of structure and thematic, there is a beautiful fusion of too many styles to count in Youthpixxel; the best and worst of Gabba, Power-pop, Synth-pop, electro, breakcore and Asian pop music. Peppered with the gabba/breakcore pre-requisites of news samples, hip-hop and ragga lines and quick cuts Youth Pixxel seems quick, it zips by your ears in a blinding pace and is over before it happens, in 30 minutes to be exact. Highlight tracks include Land Army feat. GRNR one of the only tracks where the lo-bit sound ceases being a gimmick and seems to be explored sincerely in the form of electro-pop. Timesprite is also a clever inversion of happy-hardcore style bass sounds with crunchy beats and more pure sine wave chip sounds. Kind of timeless but runs the risk of aging terribly.
Scot Cotterell
