Some of you may wonder what is actually important to Istotne Nagr. (which translates to ‘Important Records’ in Polish), in terms of music? I could put a few different things on the list, but ‘nice melodies’ would definitely land near the top. I guess this explains why I’ve been chasing the Midwestern US-based producer and visual designer ipaghost practically since the label’s birth, with the desire to share their playful work and tune crafting superpowers with the Istotne Nagr. audience.
After meeting on the first volume of the Kooky Nuts Pop compilation, we had various ideas on how to continue our cooperation, including rather crazy ones like releasing an album in the form of a cat-shaped MP3 player. Finally, I reached out to ipaghost at the end of 2022, just as they were finishing another year of contributions to the Weeklybeats project, and asked if we could release a selection of these tracks on tape.
Weeklybeats (weeklybeats.com) is a community challenge for artists to create one track every week for the whole year. Even with such deadline pressure, ipaghost made sure that each of their 52 submissions was a real-quality production. ipaghost also challenged themself by using only FM synthesis patches handcrafted with Sytrus for every sound except the lyrical vocals. It's almost beyond belief that they were composed and put together so skilfully in such a short time.
What's more, the collection covers a truly diverse range of styles. Even within the 18 tracks selected for this cassette release, you will find all sorts of flavours: 8-bit chiptunes, synth funk, surf rock, singing bunnies and singing computers, spooky Halloween songs vs Christmas bells songs, laidback lounge music, nods to Badalementi’s famous Twin Peaks score and to Wendy Carlos’s Switched-On Moog series. Some compositions were also made as soundtracks to imaginary video games, with such promising titles as “Cottontail Rally” or “Quack Quest II”.
So put all your sorrows aside and spend a delightful hour listening to our cutest release to date.
released April 25, 2023
All music & artwork: ipaghost
www.ipaghost.com
Mastering: Yan Hart-Lemonnier
hartlemonnier.net
Bubble Bee – TTS: 15.ai