Welcome to 2010. This is a time of major shifting in the geospasmic energies all around us. That is why I wanted to make an announcement as to my musical status. You see, for many years I have made electronic music relying on microprocessors and high speed RAM. Regardless, much of the sounds I create were inspired by my earliest days tinkering with electronic stimuli, the classic video game system.

I’d probably never have finished high school if it weren’t for the game Tetris on that I played incessantly on a Gameboy when the Great Nothing became too much to bear. Even ended up sampling the sound effects from it and sequencing bizarre experimental arcade melodies for a track from the 2001 Mister Harsh Guy album ( Track 2, Fear of Death ). This inspired me greatly because I’d never made something that had a combination of sounds so familiar put together in a new exciting way.

In a recent interview with electronic music podcast Solipsistic Nation’s host Bazooka Joe, he defines Bitpop as using “chiptunes as an influence but isn’t locked into Chiptunes conceptual framework. It wouldn’t be incongruous in a Bitpop tune to hear a Gameboy melody being played along with a guitar line, a cocktail drum kit and an accordion.” As a highly eclectic and individualized artist, I’ve struggled to define myself under a specific genre, but in this case it seems to fit quite well.

It used to be that I felt guilty for not making Chiptune on a genuine Gameboy with all the appropriate mods. But I’ve been using chip sounds for years in my music and don’t feel less valid for having generated it with my computer or combining those sounds with others for an interesting blend of whatever insanity I feel like making. That is why I hereby approve and fully condone usage of the Bitpop categorization, for it effectively reconfigures the paradigm of what electronic music should be here and now. For me, at least.