Thursday, November 20, 2014

Band Review: Professor Shyguy


Professor Shyguy creates music that you could classify as Chip Pop.

I have reviewed one Chip Tunes composer before (Ben Landis), and was completely unfamiliar with the genre previously, so this is still pretty new to me. There are two things that stood out.

One is that with Professor Shyguy there seem to be more non chip elements introduced - at least it does not sound all 8-bit. Because of the beats and melodic features there is more of a dance/electronica feel. This in no way detracts from the game influence, as various songs reference games like World of Warcraft or Minecraft. (Well, I think they do, but that is also unfamiliar ground for me.)

The other thing I noticed was that in club music there is often a lot of sampling which may not be the reason for the monotony, but I suspect it doesn't help. There is a note in his Facebook bio:  "Composing every note, no sampling, all original."  Perhaps that is why the music sounds fresh.

There is a fair amount of collaboration. If you click on the Facebook music link you will get an album that is not all Professor Shyguy. He is on many of the tracks, but often working with others. It is still a good introduction, so I recommend checking that out and also the video for "Guilded Love - A Song about The Guild and World of Warcraft", available on the main site.





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