TEAM DOYOBI ARE AN ELECTRONIC MUSIC DUO FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM.
>>>>>>>!!!!!!! ORCH V - OUT NOW ON SKAM !!!!!!!<<<<<<<
ORCH V REVIEWS :
This distended EP of erratic computer acid and malfunctioning beats marks a triumphant return by Skam favourites Team Doyobi. The scattershot arrhythmia of 'Orch 5.4' immediately plunges you into the duo's singular paradoxically hyper-technical 8-bit universe, laced with crushing pixellated percussion and the kind of fuzzed-up heaviness that's usually reserved for Team Doyobi live sets. The tone of this blistering opener continues over into 'Plastic Vampires', which stutters aggressively like some proto-hip hop videogame soundtrack from the '80s. As the EP continues you start hearing more and more melodic elements, seemingly wrenched from the overheated soundchips of an overheated C64. The furious melange that is 'Skylight Red Omega' offers another demonstration of the complexity and meticulously crafted detail these two put into their productions - all while maintaining an aggressive, borderline psychedelic low bitrate aesthetic. A real sensorial barrage from beginning to end.
ORCH V review by Boomkat, UK. 2009.
I've seen or heard anything from Team Doyobi since about 1998 yet they've been knocking out a steady line in 16 bit style electronics on various labels for years now. I've somehow let all this good shit pass me and now i realise the error of my ways as 'Orch V' is totally mint. I'm assuming they are still manipulating 16 bit technologies (?), it certainly sounds like something produced on an Atari ST's with mad old skool tracker programs i don't understand. 'Plastic Vampires' sounds like a big fuck you to the current crop of Dubsteppers with it's parodic wonkiness and daft brass stabs. It's mental hyper sequencing at it's best, mashing up hip-hop, acid, 80's electro and a little dubstep to create a tune that really fucks with the old noggin'. 'Rephrase V' has all the makings of a classic Atari/Amiga game like SWAT or Xenon. The appegiated bass line kicks ass and you get little acid fried John Carpenter moment as things draw to a close. Other stand out moments are 'Sector 7' with it's ridiculous acid interpretation of jungle dynamics (the sequencing is insane-o!) and closing track 'Skylight red omega' that comes of sounding a like an improvement on the Running Man theme. Is this possible? I might be exaggerating but either way it's an amazing take on 80's style arp-rock. Also reminds me of the theme to Gremlin graphics Supercars II!! I'm welling up, i couldn't be happier!! Play Supercars II and buy the new Team Doyobi single. Limited to 500 copies so don't dilly dally folks. Out on Skam? Not bad.
ORCH V review by Business Lady, Norman Records, UK. 2009.
Mega limited (500) comeback twelve for Skam veterans Team Doyobi. Orch V is a tour de force in scatterbrain electronics, dismembered 16bit noise, 80s arcade percussive motifs and mentalist melody lines. Excitable, hyperactive machine destruction for those folk who straddle the Braindance axis.
ORCH V review by Bleep.com, UK. 2009.
Here is what some people have said :
• "If you haven’t heard Team Doyobi, the arrival of their third LP marks the best time to check them out. They’re in top form on The Kphanapic Fragments, with a more focused sound that lasts throughout the album.
Similes describing Doyobi’s sound render acid-drenched visions. Confusing reviews liken it to, sound “processed through a scanner by a half-asleep stick of memory”, or, “Distorto-step turbo distention, Knight Rider plastic paneling out on tinfoil autobahns.”
On first listen, these acid-trip, dream-world, labels seem to stick; but they’re randomness belies the amount of programming and precision needed to create each track. If the sound had to be likened to anything it should be a neon Rubik’s Cube; at first glance it’s colorful and complicated, but after you spend some time with it you begin to figure out the puzzle and immerse yourself in Team Doyobi’s world.
Unlike their previous full lengths, The Kphanapic Fragments doesn’t throw you in without the clues to unlocking their science.
Two opening tracks take up half of the album, introducing Doyobi’s sound through melodic tones. Here, the programming isn’t really focused on the beats as the tracks act out a mini-adventure within the album.
The album opener “Hipatropic Doyobi Drive in Freefall”, when compared to other track titles, sets up a narrative: the arcing sounds suggest a spaceship touching down on an unexplored world and the following cuts “Dinosaur Green Grass Revisited” and “Dawn of the Apes” take us through what’s found on this new peaceful planet.
Then, in “Heavy Light Cylinders”, the fourth part of this mini-adventure, something strange appears in a bright light. Heavy beats emerge, breaking up the melodic mood with an industrial roar. The track winks out of existence on the robotic refrain “listen and you will receive”.
Out of this industrial fuzz steps the third track, the “Metabeast”. From here on the narrative lets loose as the beast’s rhythmical stomp breaks-up the peaceful surroundings of our new world. Its roar becomes overpowering; almost too late we make an escape from its snarls in the safety of a gnarly tune.
The last minute of this cut is packed seamlessly with fine details in multiple layers, really demonstrating the mastery Team Doyobi has developed over their equipment.
Our adventure continues on throughout the remaining tracks as we attempt to make it back to the ship in one piece. Along the way, “58008” and “Test008” challenge whether we’re strong enough to continue on. But, between these tests we witness a battle with the pixilated low-fi Golog which spurs us on.
The album ends strongly with two of the most fully realized cuts Doyobi have released, “Song of the Metabeast” and “Mostly Harmless”. Both of which continue on the narrative and round it out with strong hooks and a definite conclusion.
Strangely, their second lp Choose Your Own Adventure has a title more appropriate to the storyline of The Kphanapic Fragments. That previous effort contained more fragmented vignettes.
The Kphanapic Fragments itself contains one of the most cohesive and enjoyable narratives to emerge on a strictly electronic album. It has challenging moments, but at its heart wants to be read and re-read and rewards anyone willing to spend time in its strangely foreign world."
Review by Graham Lanktree. Taken from Lefthip.
• "Once again, I am left wondering if I’m the only person in the world who likes Team Doyobi this much. This was definitely the album that I looked forward to the most all year, and it was very frustrating to see the release date being moved back so often. I’m sure it was originally meant to come out in March or April. It was never seen until mid-November.
Still, it was well worth the wait as Team Doyobi took their music another stage further. While the bold 8-bit-style electronics are still there in full force, it is mixed in with a much denser, darker sound. The first two tracks are fairly proggy affairs, lasting fifteen minutes each. These two tracks take up half of the album!
But the Team proves that they haven’t forgotten how to have fun as the best moment comes with ‘Thus Jacked Zarathrusta’. Here is your robot music indeed! What an epic. The end result for the album as a whole is a more mature progression on their familiar sound, but one that isn’t all that alien to what we’re used to from them. A tricky balancing act accomplished. Apparently their next album is already just about finished. I can’t wait to hear what they’ve got in store."
Review by Doctor Vee, taken from Doctor Vee.
• "The drill-and-glitch factor is at an all-time high on Team Doyobi’s third full-length. Between the duo’s zeal for zaps and feedback squeals, The Kphanpic Fragments may just be the ticket into the post-Aphex hall fame."
Taken from XLR8R.
• "Team Doyobi occupies a space of the experimental electronic spectrum somewhere between the eight-bit screech of Dat Politic (with whom they’ve appeared on old Tigerbeat 6 compilations) and the glitch melody variations of Com.A (with whom they’ve appeared on old Fat Cat compilations). Since 2004’s Choose Your Own Adventure the duo, formerly of Leeds, have tightened their sound for greater focus and cohesion without sacrificing any of the eclecticism: rhythm and melody alike waver in constant danger of breaking apart completely, victims of still-fresh DSP trickery and a heavy dose of old-fashioned dissonant arrangement. The album also comes in two parts: the first two tracks span a full 30 minutes of IDM-as-acid-trip ambient noise-noodling, gradually building analog melodies out chaos and letting them fall away again. As a whole its a bit self-indulgent and over-long but still not without assorted charms and intrigues. Fortunately, the second half picks up with a set of more compact, rhythmic, and frequently brilliant pieces like the ricocheting detuned piano of “Goobers”, the distortion-solo techno of “Song of the Metabeast”, and closer “Mostly Harmless”, which sets up and systematically destroys what is likely Doyobi’s solidest groove to date."
Review by Nate Dorr. Taken from Pop matters.
• "Alex Peverett and Chris Galdwin now live on opposite sides of the world, but this isn’t getting in the way of their progress. Their third LP, released on the Skam label, is proof enough of this statement. From the off, it is clear that The Kphanapic Fragments has a more focused sound than previous efforts. What were once nuggets of a host of different melodies and rhythms all crammed into the same track on Cryptoburners and Choose Your Own Adventure, are now stretched and given care in terms of mutation and development. Considering the nature of the two albums, The Kphanapic Fragments might have been more aptly named as Choose Your Own Adventure, and vice versa. This makes for a less bumpy ride and a more consistent listen on the whole, however my only gripe with this change in direction is that the element of surprise and the stunning array of tunes on offer before seems to have vanished slightly.
The first two tracks, “Hipatropic Doyobi Drive In Freefall - Dinosaur Green Grass Revisited” and “Dawn of the Apes – Heavy Light Cylinder,” display an ambient side of Team Doyobi that rarely surfaces. They take up half the album, clocking in at over 15 minutes each. Things get kicking with “Metabeast;” a roaring, stomping piece that also wanders from the usual Doyobi sound. “58008” and “Test008” tread more familiar territory, with the zaps and bloops accompanied by delicious mutating melodies. “Mostly Harmless” ends the album on a high, as arguably the most accomplished track they have produced.
Team Doyobi cemented their reputation as a front runner in experimental electronic music when they toured with Autechre in 2001, and this album will do no harm to the Leeds-based duo’s tag as one of the most inventive acts around."
Review by Adam Winfield, Taken from Igloo.
• "Leeds duo Alex Peverett and Chris Gladwin has emerged as one of the more touted outfits currently operating in the UK IDM sphere, their previous albums for Skam, 2001’s Cryptoburners and its 2004 follow-up Choose Your Own Adventure easily standing up against the work of its more hyped label mates. The Kphanapic Fragments shows that even though each now lives on the opposite side of the globe from the other (in Manchester and Sendai, Japan, respectively), this is easily Team Doyobi’s most cohesive listening experience so far. Whereas the previous albums showed Peverett and Gladwin trying to cram as many different ideas into one track as possible, this latest effort is marked by the space ideas are given to emerge properly and play off each other.
Given Team Doyobi’s penchant for sudden, almost ADD-influenced transitions, however, it still manages to be a head-spinning, lightning-fast listen at many points. Kicking off the tracklisting with two 15 minute-plus ambient tracks that take up half of the record’s running time is certainly an interesting gambit, but both prove to be engaging listens from start to finish. Opener “Hipatropic Doyobi Drive in Freefall/Dinosaur Green Grass Revisited” emerges slowly from howling guitar feedback drones into a mass of gnarled circuit-bent electronics that call to mind malfunctioning robots, before finally resolving itself into ringing harmonics and burbling analog synths. By the end, it feels like you have just listened to an ambient mini-opus of sorts. “Dawn of the Apes/Heavy Light Cylinders” throws in some twisted cartoon elements with digitally contorted monkey samples being sped up and spun back over rich swelling organ tones, before “Metabeast” tests the bass speakers, tweaking its synths until they near the red line as proto-industrial programmed snares flash beneath. “Thus Jacked Zarathrusta” manages to take things off on a darkly electro excursion imbued with distorted rave energy, while the funk-informed “58008” comes fuelled with bendy synth-bass workouts that call to mind Luke Vibert and Squarepusher’s elastic energy. Consistently gripping."
Review by Chris Downton, Taken from Grooves.
• "team doyobi are the united forces of alex peverett and chris gladwin, two experimental sound and video artists from the wolds (the bumpy bit in the shire). they are now well over a decade into an ongoing voyage to the outer- limits of their electronical music brain feed.
their sound is a potage of variable bit rates (0 through to 64, 8 being their most famous selection), sonic detritus, pulsing analogue science, cross-modulatory therapeutic ear cones, slapped out rubber pads and concentrated micro-rhythmic structures, creating intense compositions that askew popular genres and usually popularity. electro, modern electronics, progressive rock, hip-hop, sci-fi film soundtracks, free-jazz, computer game music and post industrial ambience collide together, often twisting and jerking between all within the same track. this unique sound evolved from the proto-plasm of 80's electronic culture, preschool education from bbc art school dropouts, video games, straight to video rental vhs, and diy tech-mods."
Review by Anonymous, taken from Rough Trade.
• "It makes sense that kids who spent hours on end everyday playing Nintendo and Gameboy, sitting in front of the television in complete aw as Mario jumped from goomba to goomba, listening to the warm 8-bit sounds pumping out of the crappy Zenith speakers would actually grow up to make music inspired by, or even a complete throwback to that sound. The end of the 90s and the last few years saw these children grow up and produce music... and naturally, they'll be influenced by what they know, what they grew up with. The fact that you can buy sequencers and trackers, such as Nanoloop or LSDJ, for the Gameboy probably helped too.
Skam’s Team Doyobi make 8-bit music. The approach is a bit different than most, but it is definitely 8-bit. They use old Amiga computers. How they get such complex sounds and are able to compose such interesting songs with Amiga computers is completely beyond me. It is obvious that they have pushed these machines to their limits. The best way I can describe the music is imagine the theme to Mega Man 2 playing, and the Nintendo slowly dying as the theme progresses... the pitch becomes warped, and the song generally just sounds like its melting. Now, Prince, Vangelis, and Morton Subotnick start jamming along on broken, circuit bent Jupiters that only spit out sound every other time the key is hammered, sometimes not even resembling the sound they intended to have come out of the machines. Obviously, this is not your average 8-bit throwback. Its better. It has the 8-bit sound, and yes it will make some of you get that warm nostalgic feeling, but it is so much more musically. Buy "Choose Your Own Adventure" This is the best album 2004 has seen so far."
Review by Laurel Near, taken from Exploding Plastic.
• "Well, they've been around. Team Doyobi, or 'The Saturday Team.' They're the boys with the eight- bit sound. The boys who play computers that date back to the paleolithic era. On this disc, they continue to develop that old-computer sound; the sound of 80's video games, low-frequency-rate FM synthesis, etc, etc.
So sonically, it's typical Doyobi. They may not have done much to change their sound, but they've certainly improved in the areas of composition and structure. All of the songs seem to have more than two tempos, and they're put together in interesting ways. Sometimes there are even little diced-up chunks of human vocals, but whether this is the work of a Voder, or sampling from old hip-hop records, I can't tell. Either way, the album is stutters and hiccups like no other previous Doyobi release. They've been erratic before, but not on every track of an album.
On Choose Your Own Adventure, there aren't melodies that continue through the whole song and repeat. There aren't choruses and verses to return to. It's more like each song is a collection of little vignettes, jumping from blippy drum'n'bass to idyllic IDM to lo-fi thunderclouds to glitch harmonies. It's not easy to remember each song—sonically and structurally, you can draw parallels to Nobukazu Takemura's Sign and to Martin Galway, but the unexpectedness of the tunes is what keeps you guessing.
Ah, I love this stuff. I really do. But I live in a vacuum, you know? I really do. And I wonder if this kind of music is dead. There's a ton of IDM out there these days, and everybody else writing on the internet is like 'WTF I have heard this all before in 1996 on Autechre and Oval albums! PWNNNNNED!' Cuz you know, that's how internet folks talk.
So I'd love to recommend this to all of you, but I just worry that you won't think it's new enough. It sounds new and interesting to me, but as I say, I live in a vacuum. Does newness matter? I don't know anymore. It sounds older than Twerk, but newer than The Strokes. If you've gotten tired of pure computer music, and you like your glitches mixed with new instruments in the style of, say, Mum, then walk on by. But if you still love the glitches, the bleeps, the ambient, the IDM, the sonic detritus, pick this baby up."
Review by Francis Henville, taken from Stylus Magazine.
• "The Doyobi are back to splash more amiga trainer style aftershave all over the place, following on from the 2002 album "Cryptoburners" and the single "Mod Truckin " ( taken from this album) its once again time, to digitise yourself and upload your ass to the mainframe, for some musical fun.
"Chouax Bomber" sprinkles angelic chords and bubbling layers of parallax scrolling mountains onto your popsicle and leans back to watch your reaction. Your reaction is to fold yourself into a square and dissolve yourself fully in the bassy squelch tune eminating from the creatures expansion slot.
Duck and cover as Turrican is not happy and is barraging you with curling laser stikes backed up with split cut vocal outbursts, DAMN that three hundred and sixty degree gun. Just relax as a liquid version of Operation Wolf is injected into your romset and x-copy 3 comes as standard. Pop pulling glitch processes for the whole partay. The whole bar in one cup. Frickin excellent.
Hot on the sprite splitting heels of track one we have "Radial fold". Massive crunchy boxes of tickglitch beats plough through the unformatted hdd leaving massive cuts, shrill electronic calls eminate from the slashes as almost human voices jump up and down on an atm machine with a modem for an eye.Robots with seventeen fingers on each hand attempt to break into your disc box to get the copies, but it aint happening, as your beep forcefield kicks into life pissing zaps plips and peeps all over the attackers, which leaves them clean out of thought processes.
Forced to transform into a small disc,you slot yourself into the nearest available coinslot, its time we bubbled that bobble one more time.All that with cream on top.
The title track "Choose your own adventure" barrages your senses, with a deep brooding reverbing siren call which transforms into a 16bit argument between Pc engine and a Snes, its gonna get nasty.
Smaller items of machiery join in, couging up click spluttering squeals, as a duran duran sounding synth relay circles the joint of meat by Haggars leg and kicks it towards Cody. Rebooting itself for a fresh outlook, CYOA skips and scratches along the ram road until bursting into life and destroying the soundchip within. A gargantuan atmosphere explosion takes some prisoners, as you kain towards the end of level boss,luckily the captives are reprogrammed and released for a better tomorrow.
TD have moved up a level. Quality..
"Soft ocean extract" begins with space scratching melodies which echo and whip pas your ears leaving a trace of intelligence behind.Imagine the orchestral tunes of 2010 pushed into a fax machine, which then churns them out the other end, slightly distorted and processed. Its all that. "Weaken not, for you are the magma" drops you into the centre of a hologram explosion, then flies off with a evil smile on its face, as swirling columns of icicles smash off the aggressive basssynth melody which calls out in a hashed up voice. This track spooks me out like "It came from the desert" on the amiga did with its evilness. A journey deep into the mindset of a number crunching whirlwind machine, just watch out for them flying polygon cows. Cool.
Pure 16bitness on a grand scale, them doyobi know their stuff. "Summit melody" leaks what TD are all about from all its minature titanium pours, its pure fuzz glitch based memory power with tiny led's above the eyes which represent awareness. Just remember they are always watching.
"Sky legends of the world pt.2" instantly gives you visions of a super cool rpg, where the characters are cubes with round eyes made of static, well it did me anyway. Full of life and energy, the fuzz bumping beatpatterns slide smoothly alongside the team as they journey towards the glitchladen transporter parked deep within the woods.Aboard the vessel they are welcomed by the deep powerup people which give off a blue glow that instntly replenishes your heart count, this seems a fine place.
Journey if you will, there is no harm here. I love it.
"The era of hopeful mutants" takes the essence of The Omega Man and mixes it together with the mind collapsing craziness that is "A boy and his blob", and damn, them mutants are well hopeful.
Exploding with goodness and life, you cannot be drawn deep into the track, all the layers of squeak pop whistle and fuzz come up and shake your hand, as you are lead towards the green bricked castle up on the mushroom mountain. Oh no....small circuit ninjas crash the party, lobbing figure counting grenades from walls lining the route which turns everything on its head. Firing back in defence your protectors launch barrage upon barrage of happiness waves via large projectile holders, which gradually stun the assailants and give you safe path.
Arriving at the castle you are greeted by the King of scan land who talks to you in a wavey style squeal, which loosens the barrels of fuzz glitch positioned above the hall,and kicks off the party.Dive in and enjoy the fun, 12m 56sec of it all.
Team Doyobi have made me smile and nod and bounce with this release, "Choose your own adventure" is a trip into the very soul of what TD are all about. It takes you back to the Amiga, Gameboy NES and Snes times of pure fun. When I get home Im gonna get the emulator running, and relive some classic shit once again.
Snow shaker processed, parallel parallaxed,scroll jumping,power up munching,castle entering,end of level boss killing excellence for the people in the know.
Go get it."
Review by Sam, taken from Tesselate.
• "New album from Chris Gladwin and Alex Peverett, aka Team Doyobi, once again for the Skam imprint. Unlike so much of the 8-bit music that’s fallen in and out of favour over the last few years, Team’s sound concentrates on the sound of Arcade machines as they start to malfunction, fray and errupt in unexpected bursts of random short-circuitry and plastic madness. In keeping with the garish sleeve-design, “Choose your own Adventure” is a multicoloured version of Tron where all the wires arent quite where you’d expect them to be and every route leads to the wrong place. It’s a cacophany of rude, dirty beats, 8-bit mashups, white noise emissions and bashed-up Atari’s trying their hardest to confuse, disrupt and dement any user sat at the controls. To say that this was “Easy” listening would be, erm, dishonest - its a harsh, often disjointed collection of tracks that refuse to compromise and that every so often hit the mark with just the right balance of crunch, melody and undoubted originality. For those of you looking to the future - choose this adventure. Recommended."
Review by Anonymous, Taken from Boomcat.
• "Bit of a dilemma: writing for absorb.org is a new gig for me and I’m pleased to be onboard – it took a long time getting here. I finally met the editor for the first time the other night at the Nobukazu Takemura gig. Nice chap. But as he handed over my first batch of cds to review he fixed me with a look that had a glint. Everything went quiet for just a moment and he said “dis the Skam”. I’m sure he did. So with some trepidation I put on the Team Doyobi cd (Skam). The problem is that I like the music. The dilemma is - risk the wrath of the editor, Sheikh Ahmed, and write what I think or toe the party line? If you’re reading this he’s decided to publish anyway, maybe he’ll admire my integrity...
Choose Your Own Adventure is good shit. Hi-grade. Heavy-metal. (Electronica, that is). It’s hectic, apparently unstoppable and induces an adrenalin rush as if you’ve been teleported without warning into Ripley’s skin and her first Alien is racing towards you along the ceiling, it’s tail angrily lashing from side to side. It’s the car chase from French Connection teleported to 2012 and overdriven until the engine or whatever they’re using at that point gives out. Rhythms speed up and down at will, drumtracks crash, burn and get strafed by synthesizer gunships intent on erasing anything in sight, friend or foe. Radial Fold comes on like a robot blues for century 22. And that’s only tracks one through three. Radar Garden and Square It take some kind of well-earned raincheck, but the second half of the latter track locks itself into a cyborg replicating plant and starts making cocktails out of firmware gene patterns. Mod Truckin’ steeps itself in flurries of digital slush, the sort when virgin snow’s hardened and turned grey by diesel fumes and industrial effluent. Weaken Not, For You Are The Magma sounds like a soundtrack for one of those still-scary British horror films like Threads, Day of the Triffids or The Changes – all wailing, wavering analogue synth tones. The whole album’s so synthetic you can almost taste aspartame every time you listen.
Choose Your Own Adventure is as busy and dirty as you wish electronica was, but so seldom actually is. It’s got bad manners, it’s too long for its own good and you wouldn’t introduce it to your favourite auntie, but you’d be dead chuffed to be asked out by it. Maybe Sheikh said “dig the Skam” and I misheard..."
Review by Colin Buttimer, taken from Somnambule.
• "Isn't the current 1980s revival just absolutely horrific? Well, no. For a start, tops with pink polka dots on which look like they ought to be pyjamas are growing on me. Secondly, we have this awesome new album from Team Doyobi. Imagine Autechre on a Game Boy.
This whole album, from the font to the artwork, the track titles and the music itself, recalls early 1980s video games, but with a modern twist. Get these for some track titles! 'Weaken Not, For You Are The Magma'; 'Sky Legends Of The Wolds Pt. 2'; 'The Era Of Hopeful Mutants'.
It reminds me of when I was playing the Sega MegaDrive at the age of eight. The music, like the artwork, is brash but colourful. Parts of this album unsettle even me if I'm not in the right mood. It can be very noisy. But you must persevere and you will be rewarded, as a beautiful, melody never far away, triumphant to have escaped the bed of static and clicking.
To me, this album was almost incomprehensible upon my first listen. There is no doubt that it is difficult to follow. The structure of the tracks is difficult to explain. It all sounds very fuzzy at the time, but when you consider the track as a whole, it all seems to make sense entirely. You have to stick with it. But if you are prepared, you must give it a go.
This album seems like just the sort that would pass through the radar unnoticed, and it doesn't deserve that."
Review by Doctor Vee, taken from BBC Collective.
• "Choose Your Own Adventure? Maybe. But only if your adventure of choice has a title like Astrosmash, Cosmic Avenger or Zaxxon... because if isn't broke and dated, Team Doyobi don't want to play with it. Eschewing the sophistication of Logic and all such Apple Mac-ery, these kids are busy making their music from the old skeletons of 1980s machines. The battered souls of Ataris and Commodore 64s pouring out all their songs of 8-bit reverie and neglect. Let all 20-something males wipe a tear from their eye.
Given their origins, you could be forgiven for assuming that Choose Your Own Adventure would be one dimensional, all blocky colours and unchanging robo-rhythms. But this isn't the case – and beyond anything else, the fact that cuts of such interest and sophistication were beaten out of old '80s computers is pretty impressive. And rather than just arcade games, this release makes me think of some big low-res Tron playground, where all the Frankenstein machines come out to dance. Well, their cruel parents make them come – they try their best but they don't quite make friends, they say strange things and don't know how to play. Like on Radial Fold, where a precocious young gamester rocks up with a disco rhythm he thinks the others will love but it just makes the rest confused. Then some poor sod with strange parents tries to help by piping up with a monkish dirge he thinks everyone sings at home (no-one else does). But a few minutes later it all turns out dandy when this pied stutterfunk shimmies in with a flourish they all dig and the playground kicks off in big style electro party.
So Team Doyobi have their jazz about this album being an adventure involving princesses, battles and all sorts, but to me it sounds more like an Atari version of Stand By Me – with this bunch of misfit kid-codes being forced to camp out overnight and going through various episodes of fun and terror. To start out with, its pretty dandy – sure, some rhythms go off to their own corner to play, but in general it's a happy mess of noises and analogue melodies enjoying themselves. But by the time Square It comes around, things are a bit different. Evening is well on its way, and the pixel-sky is getting darker. There are still kids playing but it's so murky and bit-glitched out there you can't hear much thru the fog. It's a scary time for young transformers.
Actually, it's this middle bit of the album when things get really interesting. The early pieces start you smiling, with funked-out confusions of beat, bit and melody all careering off each other in violent sparks, but tracks like Square It and Weaken Not are where the album gets its depth. To continue the obligatory console analogy, it's as if the album gradually goes back in time, using more and more basic machinery, showing us earlier and cruder visual representations as it progresses, ending up with these huge blocks of granular sound through which the old images try and make their more intricate ways. It comes off almost like Fennesz, all whitesound frags and melodies whisping just beyond sight, and in the main it is judged just right – the early tracks have already taught you how to deal with this shit, and you can feel yourself reconstituting the melodies from the residue, sticking the old arcade jigsaws back together in new patterns of your own making. Actually, that's what the cover art looks like too. Maybe this is the adventure...
That said, the album isn't an unqualified success. For this listener at least, the final tracks are a bit of a let down. After recalibrating my senses like that, I kinda want the closing minutes to do something wonderful and strange, to do something with this sea-change of my senses. Instead, it reverts back to the greater solidity of the opening numbers – entirely respectable, but a missed opportunity nonetheless. Overall though, this is an album of quality and considerable enjoyment. And it is electronica in an old-school, largely forgotten sense. It's analogue and proud, dissonant, messy and abrasive – and well worth the entrance price. Like Boards Of Canada seen through x-ray specs. Like Aphex Twin translated into morse code and fed blue smarties. So bugger choosing your own adventure – its too much effort in these dogdays. Just grab your dayglo ticket and let the Doyobi kids take you home."
Review by David Gunn, taken from Spannered.
• "new album from chris gladwin and alex peverett aka team doyobi on the mighty skam. it is a magmatronic space voyage in which you are hero! the floating rainbow islands of doyobi are plunged into byte-crushed error, when the evil meta-guru nekrotron abducts princess- beautiful- sunset- gradient and steals the staff of ultimate mega power. or in the real world try a playful plaid gone acid/techno."
Review by Anonymous, taken from Rough Trade.
• "New on SKAM by them amiga crunching, machine bending, parallax scrolling duo. we all know and love as Team Doyobi.
"A-mode " plods up the wall leaving a bassy acid vibe in its wake, and progressing on its mission dribbling from its slot like mouth a constant stream of jackbeats, which build up around the wall like a minature forcefield. Manmade voices syphoned through gold and silver filters are pressed into tiny pixelated boxes and strapped onto the back of 8bit creatures who dissapear in a cloud of corrupted code, causing a ripple like crunch to pulse through the land. The beats are fired from far far away, by rogue caterpillars who have legs made of eject buttons, and hard exoskeletons formed from broken liquid crystal displays, they really do love them there beats, and take it in turns to slot them into place. The Doyobi then turn up, in a jacked CD32 and proceed to hoover all this weirdness into a small capsule which is the size of a dib-dab, and then throw it into a luminous red ball never to escape, fire up the console and nuke off into the distance with a manic laugh. I just saw that ball smile at me, Im outta here. Quality TD advenuretimerememberancehack. Hearts all around. (Power Up)
"The muller fokker effect" pushes a minature clock with 3 hands into your cheek, stands back and shatters into a million pieces, like a xylophone full of C4. Imagine hundreds of wafer thin slices of vocal, scattered into the air then sucked back to the ground and processed through a scanner by a half asleep stick of memory, this is exactly what you get in this track. Add small remnants of acid disco pokes and cheatcodes, and you have the perfect recipe. Seconds please. "The east coast" rounds off this release. Different in style, this is a slow brooding message to all those bell headed robots out there, laced with heavy earthquake melody rumbles and staticy messages, that attempt to communicate with your primitive mind.
Team Doyobi can do know wrong in my head. The knowledge which seems to be honed through years and years of game and audio messing around is clear to hear, and its all tiedtogether in a package that is TD through and through, but always manages to crank that chipset to the next level. Sweet as."
Review by Sam, taken from Tesselate.
• "A monster EP. It contains just three tracks, but lasts half an hour by my reckoning. The a-side, ‘A-mode’ is an ever-changing opus that grabs your attention and never lets it wander away. Side B begins with ‘The Müller-Fokker Effect’, which has hip-hoppy cut-up vocals. A solid release."
Review by Doctor Vee, taken from Doctor Vee.
• "A new Team Doyobi for the Tesselate and it comes along in the form of another KMAS release for the boys.
"Mod Truckin" follows their previous release on SKAM Team Doyobi - "df0 bad" (ska018) [2002] which was RATHER good, I remember when they dropped df0 bad at ATP 2003 and the room blew into pieces, was damn fine.
Lets see what retro crunched glitch crunch mayhem the TD have in store....
"Mod truckin" on side A grumbles into life pouring glitched distorive audiowaves all over the place. A slight melody plays along in the background interrupted by tv's detuning themselves and a sparse drumbeat dropping it heavy. Then the bassline kicks in, pounding away, transporting you into the minds of Gladwin and Peverett.
Loafs of crunchy mashed up chaos lay themselves down in order and create the soundtrack to the Supercars game which was never released "I have infinite turbo", man what a Poke that was.There is a slight 80's cop show theme tune stylee to this, well, maybe after it has been processed through Tj Hookers head then fed to a battery.A bassheavy ruffled barrel full of anti future.
Hearts to the TEAM D.
Side B :
Check this track name : "Incandesent VPO Array 335.14 Neo-STAK11hazard In Nine GIVR1009679982210 Air Combat Emulator" hehe.
Electro detroit attack as TD bring it up to your face then smash it all over your teeth. A live feed from the gearing of a droid transporter speeds its way across the no mans land, dropping a shrill tune which punctures your eardrums and leaves a calling card for you. F- zero crashes into Waverace and S.W.I.V creating a heavy bass crunch melody, clouds full of stale electric are dragged into the fold as levels upon level of parallax scrolling fall onto the roof of your polygon jeep.
INSANE free credit goodness. Highly recommended
Once again TD kill it down fast, amazing stuff by the duo of Gladwin and Peveret. TD have the skill to bring back memories of years gone by gaming, plus adding a element of the future in their sprite fuelled output.
I for one cant wait for the next full length outing "Choose your own adventure" which is hopefully out on SKAM sometime this year. Excellent release."
Review by Sam, taken from Tesselate.
• "This 7" sampler for Team Doyobi’s upcoming album Choose Your Own Adventure is a treat. “Mod Truckin’ ” is an unlikely combination of sounds, from distortion and static to 8-bit videogame-like electronics and shrill pitches. The B-side, with the unwieldy title “Incandesent VPO array 335.14 neo-STAK....hazard in pipe GIVR..009679982210 air combat emulator” is along the same lines, although it has even higher pitches, some of which are rather grating. Nonetheless, these tracks are refreshingly original, and I’m looking forward to a longer release. Not to mention a reported 12" with an Autechre mix on the horizon."
Review by Jacob Arnold, taken from Gridface.
• "Autechre's Skam label typically keeps things fairly hard breaking, and Team Doyobi is no exception. Knowing that is half the battle on this one, so this is for anyone getting cravings for some electro with a little edge. Not requiring a million little subtleties, directness keeps the pace en-route. About half the songs let the beat take centre stage, taking on the odd note or sample as understudy. The other half allows the synths enough room to get touchy feely. The abstract bits keep things lively without grating like a clutch-less manual transmission. This isn't going to fill the dance floors, but it sure fills a pair of speakers."
Review by Mike Burrows, taken from Frequencies.
• "Team Doyobi followed and gave us a taste of their sonic wizardry. The pair bopped wholeheartedly to beats that were purely in their heads whilst the dance floor struggled to make head or tail of what was going on. Complex and almost impenetrable moments were set against super fat beats providing a welcome mixture of pretty much all that had gone before.
Whether Team Doyobi were the last of the bunch I don’t know. Bed was calling me and God did I follow the call.... "
Review by Ben Eyes, taken from Warp.
• >>more to follow . . . /
Many thanks to all friends, additions, comments and support. Unfortunately we cannot reply to all emails personally.
HAAALLL0000!,Hi outthere-Please Check the brand new Live Video by NACHLADER (title:SOLL/HABEN) Live in Berlin - Maria / OstBHF 09 09 16 - on our Site, and leave a comment. DANKE!
yoooo!!!You should come to mellomello,Liverpool,this saturday!!! THe Wyrding Module (1/2 of TeamDoyobi)and Mortal + Chemist(SkamRecords) With support from Big Dog Scary,A cup of tea and Binary Toad! Open buffet as usual : ) Take Care
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