Opening with the sound of 8-bit beach waves before launching into flares of chiptune percussion and tone-drags, this concept album keeps things upbeat, crisp, and colorful, whether wobbling along on pitch-shifting warbles, bouncing along on rainbow-like arpeggios, or driving hard into the breaks. Track titles like “Solar Beam // Unicode Dream” and “Glitch Love Fantasy” provide an extra sense of direction to the (mostly) instrumental tunes, and while the composer keeps things compact (with just the last song, “Everlasting Magic Sea”, breaking the four-minute mark), there’s a nice feeling of depth to each piece.
The effects, tones, and beats are layered extensively, but they’re kept from muddying the clarity and impact of each other with some capable channel-juggling. Pleasant and lively, and successful to a surprising degree in accomplishing its aims of merging the vibes of a hot summer day at the beach with early-’90s entertainment electronics.
Scrambled Brains 