Interview: Shawn Phase of Temp Sound Solutions

If there is a counterculture within VG music then Shawn Phase is at it’s forefront. But this is to understates his importance. The notion of a counterculture tends to imply a reaction; a response to a movement that precedes it. To the contrary, through his own Temp Sound Solutions and innumerable collaborative efforts, this prolific artist’s work has been celebrating and challenging game music since the day of the games themselves, before the emergence of a recognized chip music scene. But far from the the prototypical understatement of most stylistic forerunners, Shawn’s music was boldly re-imagining the possibilities for 8 bit sounds before the games that delivered them had even left store shelves. I got in touch with Shawn to discuss his unique sound, the emergence of the chip scene, and it’s future.

Megabeep: Let’s start with your roots. Your music is a collage that draws equally on classic VG music, electronic dance music and rock, so which came first? Which style or combination of styles inspired you to start making music? Were there specific artists or composers or recordings in either style that inspired you in particular? What did your earliest creative efforts sound like?

Shawn Phase: For me, math rock music was the first style I felt strongly compelled to write in. It seemed like after doing more angular or dissonant styles with guitars that using a computer was the natural approach, and then put them both together once I built a natural foundation in songwriting in a tracker (i used scream tracker 3 and then later impulse tracker). When I started to get into writing electronic music, I paid attention to many game music composers such as Hip Tanaka, Takeaki ‘Kinoko’ Kunimoto, and well known demoscene greats such as 4-mat, skaven, and maktone. So I tried to put the tone and execution in creating a good song first and used that ethic I saw in their music to create my own style and tweaked that style. Some of the oldest TSS releases are still available at www.inpuj.net, archive.org, or at tempsoundsolutions.com.

MB: In a related question, I always ask artists to try to put a percent value on their identity with three categories: gamer, composer, and sound engineer. I, for example, am probably 60% composer, 20% gamer and 20% audio/midi engineer. What about you, and what’s the story of how these sides have led you to the eclectic style you work in today?

SP: I would have to say that I am 33% gamer, 34% engineer, 33% composer. For me, I try and stay well rounded in both writing original music as well as remixes of all types, as well as playing a good variety of games. But for as much remix work that TSS has done, its hard to stay motivated unless you stay into popular culture as much as you can and absorb what is out there for all of us.

MB: Though rooted in VGM, IDM and various strains of rock, to me the distinct flavor of your music is a kind of irreverent experimentation. Traditional melodic hooks are always deliberately unstable, precariously teetering on the edge of structure, sporadically collapsing into sheer sound exploration, then returning. Is this avant garde element something you have deliberately cultivated, or did it come naturally to your sound? Is there a challenge in doing experimental music that has it’s roots in the often highly conventional style of classic game music?

SP: TSS as a functioning unit has always been a game of chess with various different countercultures of music. As with any broken melody, you create a certain dissonance in a beautiful sound and you get comparisons to a wide range of artists, which i think is good if you want to keep things fresh for yourself as a performer, it allows us a lot of leg-room. The music we have made over the years has gone through a lot of different transformations and had more different members than most bands, but I feel like the juxtaposition of some more delicate styles of music we have stuck with such as chiptune and/or industrial music or math rock is something you’ll see more and more of as time continues on and maybe we had a jump on it more than most. There are somewhat improv elements to our project, but its almost always well rehearsed, and we do certainly go back to our roots naturally due to the way we combine some of the styles we choose. We try as a band to leave ourselves several ways to play songs when we can, so maybe with TSS it’s best said we try and blend electronic and rock music and blur the lines as much as we can.

MB: Publishing since the nineties, you were creating game inspired music before there was a scene of self-identified chiptune artists. Talk a bit about your relationship to the chiptune scene as it emerged and evolved.

SP: In the early 90′s, it certainly was a difficult time to cut your teeth as a chiptuner, but it was easier as well in some ways if you embraced yourself in the small, fairly critical scene. You either had to use a site such as tripod or angelfire and make a webpage and break out on your own with whatever equipment you could work with and hope for the best, or you embraced the demoscene and that way I feel was much more enriching and I maintain many of those friendships even today.

IRC channels like efnet #trax and #ansi were prominent for people looking for new artists to write music for games or demos, so you could always meet new people and learn a thing or two, or have someone to bounce your music off of and get better too. Art groups such as ACID would always hang out with the musicians, and there was a good scene promoting a lot of high-res art made on lo-res systems. It was really a golden age for people to make connections to some great artists. As time progressed in the late 90′s, and people were able to afford webspace more reliably, a lot of people began to break out on their own, started doing music work for production, such as purple motion or basehead, even virt began to cut his teeth with production work that long ago.

There were a lot of people I knew from the earliest days of #trax who went on to do great things, for instance, Karl (of Kosmic fame) went on to release music on Rephlex Records under his real name, Bogdan Raczynski. Sweden’s goto80 still continues to destroy audiences worldwide, and even young Akumapan from Igntion (now Alex Mauer) writes music for EA. What a world, right? The best thing about the early chip scene was that it paved the way and set the bar very high for what was to come, something we are still surely at the beginning of.

MB: As a musician who has had a hand in shaping the modern chip/VGM scene, where do you see it going from here? Do you think 8-bit music has established itself as more than a novelty, or is there still work to be done in this regard? Is the appeal of 8-bit music bound to the nestalgia of our generation, or will it continue to grow and be embraced across as a genre?

SP: From here, I see the chiptune genre going to a place that embraces more emotion and more function as a genre that can stand on its own with other genres. As with any new form of music that comes along, there is a bit of proving that goes into it and the time for this has happened with this music. There is generally an eight year cycle that happens with any form of music, but chiptune has no doubt twice outlived this cycle. Perhaps chiptune is the only fully visceral style of music that can truly innovate and shift upon a simple platform, yet still keep the kids scared and coming back for more. One can only hope this can continue for decades to come, maybe chiptune can save music in general.

For a real taste of the ‘fully visceral’ side of chip music, check out Temp Sound Solutions’ expansive catalog, as well as their Bandcamp, currently featuring Now You’re Playing With Powar X: Endgame, his latest in a comprehensive series of VGM cover releases.