Fuzortion - Adventures Beyond

      Adventures Beyond is an album which contains 14 short instrumental pieces. The majority of these pieces were composed using the "Final Form" organizational system. Other tracks use experimental techniques. "Final Form" is discussed in further detail separately on this blog. I will use this article to explain the concept, inspiration and origin of the album. Individual pieces will be discussed in separate entries.

      Many years ago, a friend recommended a rock group to me. When asked to describe this group he said: "they sound like video game music." I did not ask him to elaborate further as I thought I understood what he meant, and purchased this band's album as soon as possible.
      Upon listening to this group, I quickly realized that (while amazing and technically proficient) their music did not conform to the definition of "video game music" that had begun to form in my mind. Decades later, the time was right to analyze video game music's unique characteristics. The result of this analysis is "Final Form."
      As I was studying and listening to thousands of tracks from the golden and silver age of video game music, I began to wonder why there were no bands writing this type of music using tactile instruments. There were groups which created music using digital sounds, many of which fall under the genre called "chip tunes." Some musicians cover classic video game tunes like the Overworld Theme from Super Mario Bros. or the Jungle Theme from Contra using instruments, but there was a dearth of groups composing new music, in the "Final Form" style using non-digital sounds. With Adventures Beyond I hope to change this.

       The instruments used to record this album are: Drums, auxiliary percussion, conga, bongo, electric bass, mando-guitar, electric keyboards, soprano saxophone and tenor saxophone. This lineup best emulates the synthetic sounds used in classic VG music using traditional instruments.