Random Band/Musician Follower: Ben Landis

Ben Landis is a Los Angeles-based chiptune and pop rock artist who found me on Twitter within the last two or three days. My initial reaction was "this must be a spam account", but upon further inspection, I realized that this guy is legit. He is following almost half a million people and has over half a million people following him, so I figure that at least half of those followers must be real people. So I headed over to his Soundcloud page to have a listen.



Now let me first state the fact that I listen to chiptune/8-bit music, not as regularly as I used to, but I'd still call myself a fan of the genre. With that being said, I've heard a variety of artists who fall under in this genre, and Ben Landis sounds pretty generic to me, unfortunately. His songs sound like they literally came out of a video game, which is kind of cool in one sense, but very lackluster in another sense.

I'll give him credit though. He's done a nice job making everything sound smooth and not like a jumbled mess of chiptune sounds. It's not that easy to create chiptune music, especially considering the various equipment most of these artists must invest in to make their sound at least somewhat unique. Maybe he's still fairly new to the chiptune world, and that could be the reasoning behind his songs not sounding too creative. New listeners of chiptune will probably enjoy this as it produces a wave of nostalgia, most likely resulting in people scrambling to find their Game Boys and Nintendos.

His album Adventures in Pixels comes with a comic book of sorts as well, it seems. Now that is a creative idea indeed. Essentially, Ben Landis creates music that would be perfect as the soundtrack of a classic game. I'll be waiting for him to create tunes that I'd casually listen to while driving around town and such. Who knows, maybe Ben will be one of the forerunners of the next wave of the chiptune scene. He's got potential.

Random Band/Musician Follower: Halfmoon Mad

I've decided to do this new thing where I do a mini review of the random musicians who follow me on Twitter at least twice a week. Many of them are just looking for numbers, ya know, so they end up unfollowing you after a day or two, but some do stick around. So, I'll start with the random band who found me today.

Halfmoon Mad is an alternative rock band from good ol' Chicago. They're fronted by Joanna (who also plays guitar) who's joined by lead guitarist George, drummer Maxwell, and bassist Steven. I just listened to their song "Waiting", which can be found on their website. I'm not sure how I feel about Joanna's voice- I don't think she's a bad singer, it just feels a little odd for the sound of the band. Her voice isn't completely misplaced, but part of me feels like she could sing stronger, if that makes sense. They remind me of older Incubus in ways, older Pearl Jam, pretty much the '90s alternative scene. Regardless, the band isn't too shabby, so have a listen if you're into alternative. 

If you're in the Chicago area, their next show is this Saturday, July 20th at Beat Kitchen.