Summer’s hottest look is crying on the dance floor. And Battlemode has the soundtrack to help us move it – and move on.
The Boston chiptune pop trio is set to unleash new single “Playlist” on Thursday, July 18, matching the high-point of summer with one of the sweaty season’s most infectious and magnetic bops. The follow-up to January’s instrumental epic “MEGA,” the smoothed-out sonic electro-pop seduction of “Playlist” finds the Battle-dudes – Astrologic (Astro), Bifflecup (Biff), and Sam Mulligan – reminiscing over a lost love through the music that remains, while a hip-hop drop and sexy saxophone take this jam to temperatures hotter than the asphalt outside.
Despite being a song about heartbreak and how we cope with break-ups in modern times, it should sound like a synth-pop rapture when Battlemode perform it live all over the region this summer: including at O’Brien’s Pub in Allston on July 8; a mini-tour around New England in August; and during Hack The Planet Day, where the trio delivers an audio-visual live performance ahead of a special 35mm screening of Hackers at the Somerville Theatre on September 15, an event organized by Battlemode themselves.
“Lyrically, ‘Playlist’ is a breakup song where one party has moved on, and the other party – the narrator – is still in the headspace of that relationship,” says Biff. “The narrator is using a song playlist the ex curated for him to analyze what went wrong in the relationship.”
While curating a playlist is a personal action meant to convey human emotion, the ability to communicate sentiments of love and affection through technology is at the core of Battlemode’s creative ethos. The trio’s brand of glitchy 8-bit electronic-pop has a purely emotive side, and here, armed with a Gameboy music sequencer Little Sound Dj and Dirtywave portable tracker sequencer and synthesizer M8, they’re taking beats and treats and matching them with the latest pages ripped from their personal diaries.
“‘Playlist’ deals with a breakup or loss through music, and how songs and other unsuspecting things remind you of significant times in your life,” Astro adds. “The idea of having a love song about a playlist — something that exists in a digital format – also plays off of the idea of what our music’s message could be: We make digital music but still have a human touch, with Biff’s humanized instruments and Sam playing his guitar riffs.
Musically, ‘Playlist’ is all about mixing chiptune and pop to create a modern, 8-bit, original hit.”
Produced by Curt Martin, “Playlist” also positions itself as the perfect drop for the summer season, with its almost Yacht Rock-ian groove, that sexy saxophone inspired by honcho hunk Tim Cappello in ‘80s cult classic film The Lost Boys, and a vibe that’s pretty much Lisa Simpson and Bleeding Gums Murphy performing “Jazzman” underneath the stars at night.
“Battlemode is moving into a more mature phase with the next few singles and with them it feels like we’re moving in a more mature direction,” Astro admits. “Where our first body of work was exploring friendships and growing up in the city, the new singles explore inner feelings and personal relationships and use chiptune to express these themes in ways we haven’t used before.”
And like after any notable breakup, sometimes it’s best to just take a step back. That’s kind of what Battlemode did here on “Playlist,” though as the ambitious young band evolves — forming in 2020 after Biff and Astro’s prior collaborative chiptune project, Triheart, dissolved and rebranded as Battlemode, bringing Sam into the fold last year as guitarist after he previously co-wrote 2022 single “BFF” and then joined in for a Halloween cover set last fall as Gorillaz – it continues to add, subtract, push, and pull to find a proper sonic balance.
In every video game there is a quest, and Battlemode’s is to create the most pitch-perfect 8-bit electro-pop, with each member bringing very different iterations of chiptune music into this stirring Battlemode cocktail.
“Battlemode’s biggest strength and flaw is that we have a ton of ideas,” admits Biff. “In life, this means wanting to build Battlemode arcade cabinets, host video game burlesque shows, and establish movie theater DIY venues. Musically, this means cramming extra melodies and countermelodies into songs, trying to fit in harpsichord solos, and adding percussion improvisations over rap sections. I still think these kinds of musical ideas are interesting…”
Battlemode
Boston based chiptune, electropop duo
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