With major chiptune festival ‘Blip’ taking a break for the foreseeable future, chiptune fans can’t be blamed for having a slight hole in their hearts. Australian and Japanese fans, however, can rest easy with the announcement of ‘Square Sounds’, a new festival to carry forward Blip’s legacy.

This new celebration of all music chip related will begin its tour in Melbourne February 15th and 16th next year with a local and international line-up. “There are so many great chipmusic artists that have never performed in Australia before,” said Kristy Dossor, key organiser of Square Sounds (as well as the recurring Melbourne event ‘SoundBytes’), “Working with the Cheapbeats team from Tokyo and our experience with Blip will make Square Sounds something that those familiar with Blip Festival will love, while also incorporating some fresh ideas. We have some amazing talent lined up that will feature not just chipmusic, but also some other stylistically similar artists.”

An initial line-up of performing artists, and their locations, has been announced with another eleven to be confirmed closer to the date. So far the list is as follows:

Starpause (USA)
Cheapshot (UK/Japan)
Omodaka (Japan)
Mr. Spastic (USA/Italy)
Doshy (Germany)
Chronic Sans (Australia)
cTrix (Australia)
Other Places (Australia)

Pre- and post-event parties will be taking place as well as chipmusic creation workshops related to the event. More details on these will also be released closer to the date. Further event information can all be found at the Square Sounds website. For a hint of what to expect, listen to a track from Omodaka below!