21 December 2021
Out Now!!!!!
ALCHEMULATOR – LARPING AT FAIRSNAKE HAMLET
A new ‘monniker’ from me, out now on The Hague’s HUNGER! recordlabel:
ALCHEMULATOR – LARPING AT FAIRSNAKE HAMLET
A fantasy RPG Larpsynth album all made with a Yamaha PSS480 FM keyboard. Comes in a two tape pack together with BAGLOVER’s – THROW DOWN THE GAUNTLET.
Artwork by Clara Lezla & Rebecca Joly.
The digital version is now available on bandcamp, the tape pack comes with a poster and is going to be shipped end of december/beginning of January but you can order them already! Also available with a supercool HUNGER! T-Shirt.
Revel in Alchemulator’s fantasy world of larping druids, brought to life with the infamous Yamaha PSS480 keyboard. The history of the Yamaha PSS FM range keyboards of the late 1980’s is fascinating and niche: a cheap consumer semi-toy home keyboard with spartan synthesizer functions based around a specially designed FM sound chip.
The chip, which is a low cost and cut down version of FM synthesis found in the mighty Yamaha DX7 – the digital synthesizer that defined pop music in the 1980’ – brings forth a mere sketch of its distant DX7 cousin. Feeble attempts to emulate the mighty DX7’s electric piano or staccato bass sounds on one of these keyboards are futile. Instead, a plethora of unique lo-fi tones resound. Unexpected artifacts are plentiful: cracks and hisses are present, giving the sounds a strange otherworldly and organic undercurrent, which are to be heard on the album.
This chip found its way in a number of 1990’s computer sound cards, scoring the music of many RPG adventure game worlds, exposing an entire generation of geeks and cyberpunks to its digital dusty yet crystalline warm spectrum of sounds. The instant association with fantasy adventures makes it ideal for old school dungeon synth composing. Escape this savage life and enter Alchemulator’s great gardens of Thalamere, located Southwest of Fairsnake Hamlet.
