Upbeat jazzy techno

January 30, 2009 9:46 PM

Stupid question about a particular flavor of techno music.

I stumbled across this pretty hilarious remix of the Pac-Man music called Eat 'em up.

What I'd like to know is, the section that begins at 1:16 in the video linked above... what flavor is that? I never really learned what the various types of techno mean (i.e. trance, house, etc.). This one's got kind of a 70's disco feel, I guess, although not so funky (e.g. Jamiroquai). If there's no name for that style, it would also be cool to hear recommendations of other groups that have a similar sound.

Thanks!

posted by knave to media & arts (10 answers total)

You've got it. It's definitely funky house. Maybe acid jazz, though generally this sort of mindless happy is kept in the house category. Here's some more: September Remix!
posted by cowbellemoo at 9:54 PM on January 30, 2009

There is a great site called Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music that really helped me understand the sub-generes better.
posted by radioamy at 10:11 PM on January 30, 2009

It sounds like you want house music mixed with jazz elements. You could try the genre of West Coast House - names to check might be Mark Farina, Miguel Migs, Om Records.
posted by dydecker at 5:44 AM on January 31, 2009

where where to get an mp3 of that pac man song! That was great!
posted by Hands of Manos at 7:36 AM on January 31, 2009

You might like YMCK, a chiptune group from Japan. Like the song you linked to, they use sounds sourced from video games (hence, chiptunes) but the arrangements draw a lot from classical music and jazz.

Caveat: you've got to enjoy/be able to stand syrupy Japanese vocals. If there was some sort of modification I could hack into my brain that would automatically strip vocal tracks from every song, I would enjoy so much more music.
posted by Juliet Banana at 7:49 AM on January 31, 2009

That pacman video you linked to sounds a little bit faster (, cheesier) and more intense than normal house music. You might want to check out the genre called "Happy Hardcore" for something similar.

Check out http://www.happyhardcore.com/ for some samples.

The particular part at 1:16 just sounds like it has some jazzy chords mashed on top of it, but the underlying beat rhythm of the music is what ultimately what defines it when it comes to figuring out genre. Perhaps do a Google for happyhardcore jazz or happyhardcore disco.
posted by jameslavelle3 at 8:32 AM on January 31, 2009

A friend infoms me that this track is of a style called "16 Bit" that is currently popular in Germany and among bedroom producers across the Internet. It's an outgrowth of chiptunes and the 8-bit (and demo) scenes that's been flourishing for the past several years.
posted by rhizome at 11:38 AM on January 31, 2009

Thanks for the interesting responses, everyone. Ishkur's Guide is great stuff. I think I was actually asking the wrong question, but some of the answers were still on the right track. While the beat in the pacman track is cool, it's not just the beat that caught my attention... It's the fun jazzy chord progression that really makes the song work for me. Here's another example that has a similar feel to me. (In this case, it's borrowed from "Just the two of us" with a little bit of a Latin feel.)

Anyway thanks again, I've got some people to look into.
posted by knave at 1:04 PM on January 31, 2009

It sounds like you are just looking for regular jazz/disco house. My favorite CD in that genre is A night At the Playboy Mansion mixed by Dimitri From Paris.

Here is a youtube (albeit poor quality) of one of the songs from the CD, "Talking All That Jazz."
posted by jameslavelle3 at 5:17 PM on January 31, 2009

I'd call it experimental jazz with a house beat with a happycore flavor in terms of the sounds. It's a tomato tahmato situation though as genres aren't totally rigid, just a good way of explaining similarities. I'm not sure I'd call it happy hardcore, though, as it doesn't have the BPM or the driving bass drum, but it does share the fast, high register samples. I haven't hard the term 16-bit before, but that goes a long way to describe the source and inspiration of the ambient sounds.
posted by mrmojoflying at 2:19 PM on February 1, 2009