Goteborg, Sweden-based electronic producer Anders Carlsson has been an active member of the European chiptunes / demoscene for the past 15 years, the best part of a decade of which he’s spent operating under his Goto80 alias. After numerous netlabel mp3 releases and the emergence of his Papaya and Bushrunner 7″s on Bleepstreet and Penpal during 2001/02, Carlsson’s 2004 debut album on Rebel Pet Set as Goto80 Commodore Grooves, showcased, as its title suggests, his extensive knowledge of the C64′ legendary SID chip. Three years on, this follow-up on Luneberg-based label Pingipung Made On Internet sees Carlsson continuing to forge an 8-bit approach equally inspired by retro video game soundtracks and New Wave pop, and indeed, it contains some of his most immediately accessible tracks yet, with vocals entering the mix on several occasions here.
Opening track “Microcolorado’ easily provides one of this comparatively petite (just over 35 minutes) album’ most immediately arresting offerings straight off the bat, with skittering breakbeat rhythms and arcade game-esque synths ushering in a demented electro-cowboy hoedown, complete with lonesome cowboy and the crazed interjections of a Nina Hagen-esque backing singer, who screams that she’d like to kill the protagonist tonight (even if he never does get his long-lost horse back). “Error Energy’ meanwhile tosses some jerky New Wave funk into the mix, with Carlsson dropping some sneering indie growl into his vocals amidst punching 8-bit rhythms and Prince-ly video game synth vamps, before “Sweat Burn Touch Feel’ takes a bleepy Sinatra-esque turn, complete with Carlsson crooning over a glittering backdrop of thin-sounding arcade game tones and farty analogue sub-bass, that at points almost calls to mind one of Mike Patton’s lounge pastiches gone Nintendo. While the aforementioned vocal offerings easily show Carlsson throwing plenty of individual personality into his productions, it’s with many of the instrumental tracks here that Made On Internet falters. After “Microcolorado’s impressive opening salvo, “TV-Gamer’ can’t help but come across as the fairly functional slice of Super Mario Bros-ish background video game music it’s clearly trying so hard to emulate, a fate also suffered by “Happy Daze’ digression into limp 8-bit jazz. While the aforementioned moments are likely to be of chief interest to chiptunes afficionados, for more casual listeners to the genre, they sadly serve to drain this collection of much of its overall energy and momentum.
Chris Downton
