About...

Credits
Eat
RPatP
Oh Stormy Night
Grow Me a River
Zombie Castles
Scales and Wights
Burger This!

Zombies Ate My Hamburger
First My Tomato
Radioactive Zombie
Undead Arcade
Lights Out House
Grave Shaft
My Tomb Dot Digg
Hot & Spicy

Zombies Ate My Hamburger

It was shortly after the completion of "Trophies from Sheol" (after taking a hiatus of course) that I decided to create another electronic album ... with a twist. I wanted to create an album (sticking with the EP recording time that I had been doing) that was written in the style of music from an 80s/90s video game. There were certain limitations that I imposed on this creation.

It has to fit in the 8-bit/16-bit video game realm.
Each track should blend pretty well into the next track.
Each track should loop well (the album is meant to be listened to with each track on an indefinite repeat).

This album almost never came to fruition due to the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2008. The first 2 tracks were forever lost (those were the only ones that were completed) as well as 2 others that were in a state of 'partial' ... I almost abandoned the project entirely. Interesting side note, it was about a month before the album was complete that I discovered a genre called "Chip Music" or "Chip Tunes". I never imagined that there was such a vast group of individuals so committed to this nystalgia ... this album is my little contribution to the scene.

First My Tomato (Then Your Lettuce)

While I absolutely love the name of this one, it's about as close to a non-functional piece as you can get. It's simply a transition from Scales and Wights to Burger This!.

Radioactive Zombie

The general idea of this album (were it coupled with an actual game) would probably some kind of combination between Earthbound and Resident Evil ... only because Resident Evil has zombies. This track really makes me think of Earthbound.

Eat

The sound for this is loosely based on the concept of the 'start button' at the beginning of any random game from this era. Ghosts 'n Goblins is probably a pretty close approximation.

RPatP

With a silly name like 'Radioactive Peaches are the Pits', you need to have some silly music to go along with it. This is the first in the series to have a different kind of loop feel to it. There's the closure, but also the seamlessness for which I was striving. This is also the first one to break 200 bpm.

Oh Stormy Night

I believe this one was originally the third or fourth track. I moved this one to the end because I felt that it made a much better closer. I wrote this one with Blaster Master in mind.

Credits

This album, is not meant to have a physical format, though a silver promo disc (numbered) can be requested at the time of download.
Special thanks to Mr. Miki the IV for the original artwork.
Other thanks go out to Tweakbench, "Sam", as well as "Mr. Dude".
Given the nature of the album, it wouldn't be proper if I didn't say:

And special thanks to you!

Game Over
Zombies Ate My Hamburger is a fourteen song EP and was written and recorded from February of 2008 until May of 2009. The Collector's Edition comes with two bonus tracks (Unreleased Volume 0b).

Recording info:
Composing/Recording (2008-2009) Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Initial Mix (2009) Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Secondary Mix/Mastering (2009) Thorndale, Pennsylvania
The zombies were released into the wild on 01/11/10

Recording, mixing, mastering, and production were done by Everywhere Productions. Published and distributed by Everywhere Productions Music Library. All compositions, engineering, and production are of the composer, Dan Swift © 2008-2009.

"... thanks for stopping by. Hopefully a new album will materialize in the not too distant future." -D

Grow Me a River

I think every album I've ever done has at least one track that comes from the ticker in some way, shape, or form. This album is no different. As this one started to take form, I also couldn't help but get images of Kaipo, Edward, and the lute ... I think it's a lute. For me, the sound is always more important than the melody itself. This is a prime example with the way the beautiful harmonies and the harmonics run up against each other along with the modulation ... it's absolutely gorgeous.

Scales and Wights

Musically speaking, the triplets in this one remind me a whole lot of Metroid. I remember writing this one and then adding that little high bit. Immediately I thought, 'Metroid'. So it's more of an afterthought ... the rest is nothing more and nothing less.

Hot & Spicy

This one doesn't particularly remind me of any game, nor did any game really inspire this one. I will say that I find sine waves and square waves to be very pleasant ... especially with a little reverb on them. I don't know if it has to do with the computer or not, but it makes it sound so much warmer and real. That's all you get for Hot & Spicy.

Undead Arcade

Capitalizing on the concept of Earthbound, it's no wonder that the next track has 'arcade' mentioned in the title. This track really starts the album off in an interesting direction. For starters, the static links the first couple of tracks together and made for an easy loop point. This is probably also the most compositionally-intensive song in the entire album.

Lights Out House

There was a game for the Atari ... I wish I knew the name of it. Basically, you were in this haunted house (it was probably called "Haunted House") and there were these ghosts and everything. Sometimes the lights would go out and everything but the ghosts (I believe) would be dark. The visual concept was used for this track. The timbre of the beat also reminds me of little Link going down the steps to any one of the caverns of the original game.

Grave Shaft

I took this transition as an opportunity to get away from that static/white noise sort of sound. For whatever reason, I also thought of 'Drive Shaft' ... which has nothing to do with video games ... especially those from the 80s or 90s.

My Tomb Dot Digg

While this title is far from silly, it really starts off the trend for the next couple of songs. I think this is the first track of off the album where I sat in front of the piano. This is also the first track in the series that uses (what I would call) contemporary electonica compositional effects. There are also elements in this one that remind me of Rush N' Attack

Zombie Shadow Castles

While far from the most interesting track, it holds a special place because of what I had to go through to get here. In the early stages of this one, I accidentally rewrote one of the main tunes from Shadowgate. Of course I had to scrap that, but I thought it was only appropriate to keep a memory of it in the name. Incidentally, this also marks the first track after my first writer's block.

Burger This!

This one really reminds me of Burger Time! ... at least the 'verse' part of it. I doubt that there's a connection sonically, but for some reason the song and that game seem to go really well together (in my mind). The bridge of this song is actually lifted from one of my outtakes. I really liked the effect that I came up with for that.