Baychimo - Save State: Memory Leak

 Released: November 21

The second entry in his Save State series, Memory Leak is a sweeping compendium of tracks that explores the aesthetic and the vibes of the early 2000s console gaming world. At twenty-eight tracks, the album goes through all the various moods and musical motifs of the era with a heavy emphasis on that surreal-feeling breakbeat and drum & bass that that we got accustomed to, especially with the demo discs that found their way into everyone’s PlayStation. 

Even with the wide variance in the tracks here, the album remains a solidly high-energy experience leading heavy on the fast breaks and jungle-adjacent rhythms. There’s a lot of sampling going on here as well that seems to be pulled from a lot of random places to accompany the thick pads and lush basses that permeate the album. Baychimo cleverly inserts some lower tempo works here and there to spice things like the old-school hip-hop groove of “Mission Select (Menu Theme)” and the simmering industrial vibe of “Mortal Selection (Interlude)” to balance out the more rapid-paced works on the album, the latter of which features heavy sampling as an announcer calls out names of unknown fighters from a long lost beat-em-up. 

For an album that leans heavily on nostalgia, there’s quite a lot to dig into. The drums vary from crisp and light to crunchy and bass-heavy with plenty of synth wizardry and sampling goodness. Everything feels like it is saturated in the fog of nostalgic reminiscing, which works to the benefit of the music as it perfectly captures those first moments of popping in a new demo disc and watching as the little mini-clips give you a fuzzy preview of what’s in store. It accurately captures the vibes of the early and mid-run games of the PSX with just the right amount of nodding to the N64 and even the mythical Dreamcast.