Music Releases
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Spaceship to Jupiter V
I have always loved synthesizers, especially the synth heavy space themed music from the 60's and 70's, this album is my interpretation of that era of music.
Spaceship to Jupiter V was one first songs I had started writing for the album, at this stage there wasn't even any album planned yet, I just was making whatever I felt like at the time. After I had finished the song it ended up sounding like something which reminded me of space themed synthesizer music of the 60's and 70's. Back then I only had software synthesizers but later moved onto hardware synthesizers such as the Minilogue XD, JV-1080 and Volca FM.
The album started production in 2020 with Spaceship to Jupiter V and has taken 4 years to produce although it was only sparingly worked on through the years along with other songs that have not been released yet.
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released November 8, 2024
Written*, Recorded, Produced and Mixed by Nicholas Kempson
*Except for The Goodbye Song (Colin Bokulic & Jason Wilson)
Album front cover and back cover art by scipai (www.instagram.com/scipai/)
Nicholas Kempson – Percussion, Electric Guitar, Electric Bass Guitar, Synthesizer, Drums, Sequencing
Friendship Park
The idea of this album was to create music for different retro sound chips while staying true to the limitations of the hardware in order to create authentic sounding music that could be programmed and played on real hardware.
Some of the staples of being true to the hardware means that most of the time you have to work with a very limited amount of voices, most often 3 voices and a noise channel, but some chips only use three voices and no noise/percussion channel and others have as little as only 2 square wave voices.
The album includes music made from simple sound chips to FM synthesis to sample based sequencer music of the SPC700 sound chip used in the Super Nintendo game console.
I really enjoyed writing with limited voices such as with the NES' three part harmony limitations, it made me have to think differently about composing and harmonisation compared to when I can have as many tracks and voices as I want in modern sound production. The simplicity in both tones and harmony limitations was refreshing to work with.
Some of my biggest inspirations for making chiptune music come from Koji Kondo, who I believe is the most significant and remarkable composer of retro game console music. I am also a huge fan of Grant Kirkhope who I absolutely adore and who cultivated my love for Low fidelity sample based sequencer music as seen in his work on the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 game consoles.
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released June 24, 2023
Written*, sequenced, produced and mixed by Nicholas Kempson
*Except for Colombian Necktie NES (Written by Big Black)
Artwork by scipai (www.instagram.com/scipai/)
Lost and Found
This album is an assortment of demos, alternate versions and other random songs and musical ideas I've created. You could consider this as a rarities and B-sides type release.
These track were created between 2019, when I started making music, to now.
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released August 16, 2021
Nicholas Kempson - Everything*
*Except for Don't Worry Baby (written by Brian Wilson and Roger Christian), I Want to Hold Your Hand (Written by John Lennon & Paul McCartney), Pure Pure Heart (Written by Hiroyuki Maezawa), True Love Will Find You in the End (Written by Daniel Johnston), and New Years Day (Bass Guitar only).
Into the clouds
My third album.
Dive into an array of eclectic instrumental tracks with the odd vocoder here and there.
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released March 15, 2021
Nicholas Kempson: Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Electric Bass Guitar, Melodica, Vocoder, Tenor Ukelele, Mandolin, Percussion, Sequencing.
Written*, mixed, Arranged and produced by Nicholas Kempson.
*except for Do Your Ears Hand low (A traditional Folk song) and Virtual girlfriend (by Colin Bokulic)
Album art by _rerorero_ (www.instagram.com/_rerorero_/)
Chips in Transit
This is an EP with tracks that vary between chiptune and tracker songs.
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released July 27, 2020
Produced, Mixed, Written by Nicholas Kempson
Artwork by Melanie Kempson
Cartoon Girl
My second album, I hope you like it.
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released November 7, 2019
Written*, Produced and Mixed by Nicholas Kempson
*except "Don't Worry Baby" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand".
Special Thanks -
Colin Bokulic
Jesse Hando
Wayne Bruce (Rusiru)
Brian Wilson, Jeff Lynne and all those 60's bands that made my favourite music.
Stars in the Sky
This is an EP that was written and recorded sporadically during 2019
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released January 5, 2020
Written*, produced and Mixed by Nicholas Kempson
*except Hey Jude, written by Paul Mccartney
Lucky Dip
You never know what you'll get in a lucky dip.
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released June 22, 2019
Written*, Produced and Mixed by Nicholas Kempson
*Except, Sunday Morning , Platinum Disco and Switched on Tchaikovsky.
Special Thanks -
Colin Bokulic