MisuteriG - i486

 Released: June 3

Named after one of the most iconic chipsets that helped bring computing into living rooms everywhere, i486 is a remarkable simple and effective album both sonically and thematically. All the compositions here have a seemingly innocent quality, something the brings to mind the early days of PC gaming with verbose adventures and pre-rendered scenes. Understated in tone and texture, it feels like a true emulation of those simpler times trying to remember where an .exe was located because the installer didn’t automatically create a shortcut. 

“95_era” starts us off with a basic bits of drums and a PC speaker rendition of flutes and basses playing out a simple but memorable melody. The tone it sets is quite a vibe. It has that kind of hazy quality to it, that perfect expression of a hazily remembered time complete with a yellow-y and golden hues saturating everything. This one could be hold music, could be menu music, could even be a placeholder of sorts. But no matter where it is placed, it is still a vibe. The rest of the album follows this theme quite closely, all maintaining that menu music aura that makes me feel like I’m either on an adventure of killing time with a cheap card game pulled off a scratched up CD-ROM. With the last track though, something new pops up unexpectedly - a voice. It’s foggy and distant sounding, but it seems to be telling us to just hold the line and a representative will be with us shortly. It seems that there’s some things that haven’t changed. 

On vibes alone, i486 is immaculate. The atmosphere of those slightly cheesy game soundtracks is fully fleshed out, making it feel like a more accurate representation of the era rather than a misremembered nostalgia. It even has that air of technological optimism, looking at a better and brighter future through technology. The simpler approach to composition and the perfect aura imbued in the tracks make this album worth way more than the roughly 20 minutes provided.