VERSVECTORLO & THE TETRIS EFFECT

As J mentioned below, Jacknife's music collection is rather epic. Thankfully, he was kind enough to put together a playlist for us to explore and I'm currently enjoying working my way through it. Right now; Vector Lover's album 'Capsule for One.'

When discussing the influence of gaming on contemporary music for an interview a while back James pointed out that beyond the obvious 8-bit scene, there's a lot of music that far more subtly and perhaps even subconsciously adopts the sounds of computer games that soundtracked many young adults' childhood*. Some Vector Lovers' tracks, to my ears**, sound like a paradigm example of this, so I was amused on initial google based research to read that he is indeed an ex-games designer. For those not familiar with V.L. check out 'Arrival, Metropolis' (the melody that comes in at 1.10, to me, brings to mind the credits for something like Streets of Rage). For those who know his material, where should I go after Capsule for One?

The name, Vector Lovers, apparently represents the two contrasting elements of the music; 'the logical, mathematical process of synthesizing sounds and the sentimental element of the melodies.' I find a similar meeting of opposites between the nostalgia inducing effect of the gaming sounds and the otherwise futuristic metropolis soundscapes they are found in. Indeed in one interview he talks of a 'nostalgia for a future that never was' induced by the realization that our childhood ideas of the what the future had in store never came to pass.

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*In an interview for the same feature, Cassette Playa made a very similar comment regarding the aesthetics of gaming and her fashion design; 'We're the generation who grew up on gaming, our minds are built out of tetris blocks, so they're the shapes our imaginations will build.'

**These ears are far from well educated on this subject, so apologies for naive or off the mark ramblings.

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In other news, when DJing on Radio 1 earlier this year, we had the honor of the first play of Frank Turner's forthcoming single 'Photosynthesis.' Below is the recently unveiled, and rather charming, video for that track.