Photo: Lester Barrows

Technology has made it incredibly easy for anyone with a computer to sit down with no musical training and start composing songs. The only problem is that it’s incredibly difficult to take a computer (or Game Boy Advance) and compose songs that actually sound good. Well, San Francisco’s Doctor Popular defied the odds on his Destroy All Presets LP, which he wrote almost exclusively using nanoloop on a Game Boy Advance. Doctor Popular’s vocals are a nice touch that you rarely seem to find in the 8-bit musical world, but he really created interesting instrumental compositions that can truly stand up on their own.

Not only did Doctor Popular craft a fine 8-bit album, he’s releasing it in perhaps the most unique form I’ve ever seen: Destroy All Presets is available on Game Boy Advance cartridge. That’s right, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, you can purchase a cartridge that will include the album’s nanoloop source files that you learn from, remix, or do whatever else you could imagine on your Game Boy Advance. The album is below, followed by Doctor Popular’s Kickstarter video that explains the cartridge. Doctor Popular will be performing at DNA Lounge February 20.

Doctor Popular, Together We Are Robots, Cartoon Violence
DNA Lounge
February 20, 2014
8pm, $8-11