Category: Virt

Artist: Virt
Title: FX 2.0
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk086
Release Date: 2002/08/29

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Ladies and gentlemen, back for an encore, and WHAT an encore, it’s our friend and yours, the incorrigible, indelible Jake Kaufman, also known as Virt, with the second installment of his astounding NES chip disc, now known as ‘fx 2.0’.

Since the mtk.release of the original ‘fx’, which was an entire imaginary NES soundtrack in pint-size .S3M format, Jake has been doing demi-deific stuff with Nintendo’s sound chips in his primary career as a game musician. His “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (Disney) and “Scorpion King” (Universal) soundtracks on Gameboys Color and Advanced respectively showcase his amazing skills, and his newly released soundtrack to Capcom’s “Shantae” on Gameboy Color is, quite frankly, one of the best ever GBC scores, as well as being one of the last.

But this time, Virt posed an intriguing question – what if he was given the job of re-scoring classic-era Nintendo titles from Konami? So, he revved up his Delorean trackball, took things back 15 years, and we have these absolutely astounding pieces of NES sound-chip nirvana, with completely new tracks made for classic Nintendo videogames as if Jake were actually soundtracking them at the time.

So, whether he be bustin’ moves out for “Gyruss” in the divine “Blastoff”, which comes complete with a ‘bonus beats’ mp3 version, arranged Playstation-remake stylee, or a new “Option” theme for the classic “Gradius 2”, it _all_ hits the spot. And carrying on right through to the afterburner-effect burn-up of “Bogey At Your 6” for “Top Gun”, a pair of Renaissance efforts for the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” games, and finally, a terse and triumphant “Contra” re-score in “Vile Red Falcon”, well.. this is one sequel that stomps its muddy little squarewave paws all over the original.

‘Nuff said – leech now, and if you’d like to read the release-text that Virt included with the .S3M versions of the tunes, with more info on each track and the idea behind the interpretations, then click here.

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Credits:
pic by virt

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Tracklist:
01 – Blastoff (Gyruss) [S3M] [MP3]
02 – Bogey At Your 6 (Top Gun) [S3M] [MP3]
03 – Vile Red Falcon (Contra) [S3M] [MP3]
04 – Pizza Time (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) [S3M] [MP3]
05 – Option (Gradius 2) [S3M] [MP3]
06 – Shell Shock (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3) [S3M] [MP3]
07 – Blastoff – Bonus Beats [MP3]

Artwork:
Front Cover

Additional Files:
v-fx2 [NFO]

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License:
Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial 1.0 Generic (CC BY-ND-NC 1.0)

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Artist: Virt
Title: FX EP
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk060
Release Date: 2001/08/14

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It’s not often that we rave so much about an artist that our eyes come clean out of their sockets and roll around at cheek level ’til we squidge them back in again. But in this case, we reckon the permanent vision degradation is worth it just to alert the world to Virt’s presence.

So, Virt, aka Jake Kaufman, is a US-based .MOD tracker and video-game composer with many Nintendo Gameboy and Gameboy Advance credits up the wazoo (including “Q-Bert” and “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”, niiice.) And we’re pretty sure he’s the Rob Hubbard of the ’00s. No, seriously.

Concrete proof of this is denoted by the issuance of the 6-track ‘fx EP’ on Monotonik, both as the original .S3M format (slight playback imperfections on WinAmp and some other players!) and as .MP3s (for perfect playback, whatever the weather!) So, to quote from Virt’s own nfo-file for this release:

‘these tunes are all part of a single imaginary game. picture castlevania meets gargoyle’s quest to explain the baroque/cockrock hybrid.’

So, taking influences from classic game soundtracks, Virt has sorta ‘faked’ the NES sound engine on a PC to create these amazing tributes to oldskool game-music. So, whether it’s the ornate arpegiating of “Good Morning, Dracula”, the deeply funky bass permeating “Waow”, or the amazing breakdowns in “Bzam”, you know you’re into something out of this world.

[And as for the bonus track, “Classical Favorites 2”, with the cheeky pause/unpause action and staggeringly complex instrument- programming under supa-extreme limitations – well, don’t even get us started. It’s yummy in our tummies, yet again.]

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Credits:
cover by rents

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Tracklist:
01 – Good Morning, Dracula [S3M] [MP3]
02 – Bewm [S3M] [MP3]
03 – Waow [S3M] [MP3]
04 – Bzam [S3M] [MP3]
05 – Zzap [S3M] [MP3]
06 – Classical Favorites 2 [S3M] [MP3]

Artwork:
Front Cover

Additional Files:
v-fx [NFO]

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License:
Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial 1.0 Generic (CC BY-ND-NC 1.0)

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