Mario Party: Breezesquad

Lets talk about that Moscow Club compilation again for a second. By titling it something an insert-character away from being the same as the famous NME C86 tape, dudes pretty much gave the impression that the music within would lean towards indie-pop. For the most part, it does, but with a few diversions into electronic sounds. The most jarring inclusion on that collection came courtesy of Fukuoka’s Breezesquad, who makes chiptune music. Ahhhhh chiptune, a genre that sometimes results in some really great ideas, but also frequently comes off like an exercise in “hey guys, check out what I can do with video games!” Around these parts, the only chiptune artist we’ve written about extensively is Osaka’s 99 Letters, who pushes the style into an apocalyptic direction.

Breezesquad…for fun, pronounce it the same way Waka Flocka Flame says “Bricksquad!”…isn’t particularly aggressive, although the opening charge of the new Drastik/Fancy EP might make you think this wants to go on some daring adventure across the 8-bit fields of Hyrule. What Breezesquad does, though, is try to launch a really swell dance party through the filter of an Atari system. The goofy Frogger lurch of “Grey Mountain” transitions into something a bit more crowded, but it never loses dance appeal. The most obvious dance cut, “I Fancy Not,” isn’t far removed from being an 80Kidz song. It can at times see a little too corny, but this is chiptune thought out well beyond just “remember Donkey Kong?” Get here, or listen below.

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