From an ultra-meta cover of Lana del Rey’s “Video Games” on video game consoles to poignant chip ballads and Underworld covers, plus “8-dimensional” spatial electropop, if you don’t know Seattle-based synthpop music artist Leeni Ramadan, now is the time. Oh, and if that hasn’t already made your day, stick around for “doom-wop” covers of Britney Spears.
Even before we enter the Game Boy music, here’s an elegantly composed improvisation for the instruments of LA’s Vintage Synth Museum – Yamaha CS-70M, Jupiter 8, Oberheim OB-8, Prophet 5, and Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo. This should get the alpha waves flowing – ingeniously spare and dreamy.
Then there’s a treasure trove of synth and chip music from the artist. Leeni’s done plenty of ethereal synthpop, like 2022’s Violet.
But this is just too good (always thought this was a deceptively beautifully written song, with its drooping melancholic harmonies and cleverly asymmetrical phrase structure – and I think this version bests the original instrumentation):
I have nothing but admiration for people who can sit on the rug in front of a camera in their room and nail a live performance. Lana might even be jealous of this one, complete with two Game Boys running LSDJ plus Nintendo DS using a PixelH8 cartridge. (I guess I covered that back in 2008! I really need to write a script to fix those vintage YouTube embeds, cough.) And for some lush goodness, add in the Hologram Microcosm. The cat is Greeni.
For those of you who weren’t with us for the booming 8-bit scene of the noughts, here she is in a 2007 interview, though thanks to the timelessness permacomputing nature of this medium, it’s just as relevant now:
And damn, this is just … sick, both the track and the exceptional pixel art by Niina Koivusalo and Ville Konttinen. I just wish I had a CRT to watch this on:
This single of hers, which I copped for the headline, is just too sweet – like the ultimate nerd heartbreak cure:
The economical electronic impact from chip music seems to translate to Leeni’s other electronic compositions and 16-bit-and-up electropop. Violet is available with these ultra-trippy music videos remixed in what’s described as “8D” sound. The instruction to put the headphones on should be taken literally here, as you’ll get music in some hallucinogenic saturated spatial audio spinning through your head, a bit like the brainfreeze from an extra large blue ICEE just kicked in.
But there’s more – like how did I not know about this extraordinary video for a remake of the entire 1996 Romeo + Juliet soundtrack? (I can see from comments that gradually all of us are discovering its existence – like the algorithm is just spitballing this at us and we’re asking where it was all our lives, or what we were doing in … 2019?)
Or…
“Yeah, yeah, LOVEFOOL fine but you promised us Britney.”
I did. You’ve journeyed through this post with me yet again, so here you go – treat (and there’s more doom-wop on that link, just in case you weren’t sure this cat’s from Seattle). That “Toxic” cover, basically. (pitch-perfect reveal of the genre inside that song that was waiting to get out…)
If Bandcamp ever dies, and we don’t have a replacement, I fear for our civilization.
Well, after all that, I am definitely going to practice harder on my Nintendo Switch. Respect.
I’m going to really have a hard time not playing “Toxic” repeatedly all week.