This weekend, RetroNots Micro, Tails of Brave Writing.

Have you ever heard a band for the first time only to find their music already feels

intimately familiar?

For me, that experience happened a few years ago when I picked up a couple of albums by

Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Fans of Japanese game music probably already know the name YMO, they've been a huge influence

on several decades of game composers.

More recently, they've helped inspire bands like Anamana Guchi and the decidedly referential

YMCK.

The connection should come as no surprise.

While other musical acts of the 70s are attempted to incorporate video game sounds into their music

as a touch of novelty, which in the late 70s is basically what video games were seen as,

YMO made it their mission to build their entire sound around the essence of video games.

Compare something like gentle giants time to kill, which began with pong sounds and what

felt like a bungled attempt to reproduce the cash register effect of Pink Floyd's money,

the YMO's computer game theme from circus, the first track on their 1978 debut album.

Gentle giants was a sort of half-hearted endeavor that tied into the lyrics, but did nothing

to improve the music.

YMO's work on the other hand made the musical stings and jerges of Exodus, circus, an integral

component of the track.

Building rhythms and melodies around the sounds of the computer chip and creating the

game audio is a sort of light motif.

...