{"id":474,"date":"2012-11-21T00:39:08","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T05:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/?p=474"},"modified":"2012-12-07T19:56:31","modified_gmt":"2012-12-08T01:56:31","slug":"matthew-simmonds-4mat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/archives\/474","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Simmonds (4mat)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the early 1990s, I liked to collect and listen to <a href=\"http:\/\/autofish.net\/cell7\/music.html\">MOD music files<\/a>. Some the best ones I came across were by 4-mat of Anarchy. <\/p>\n<p>About twenty years later, I discovered that 4mat (now without the hyphen) was once again releasing new music. His 2010 album <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/4mat.bandcamp.com\/album\/decades\">Decades<\/a> was excellent, and has since been followed by several more. His latest, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/4mat.bandcamp.com\/album\/sans-titre\">Sans Titre<\/a>, was released just yesterday. Simmonds is prolific, but manages to maintain a high level of quality. <\/p>\n<p>Although his music falls within the chiptune genre, there is more variety to his work than that label might suggest. There is a consistent &#8220;warm&#8221; sound to many of his songs that, in addition to their catchiness, distinguishes them from a lot of other chiptunes out there. <\/p>\n<p>To sample his work, I&#8217;d recommend starting with Decades and just moving forward through the releases. As for individual standout tracks, these are a few of my favorites from the first two albums: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;<a target=\"blank\" href=\"http:\/\/4mat.bandcamp.com\/track\/affectation\">Affectation<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;<a target=\"blank\" href=\"http:\/\/4mat.bandcamp.com\/track\/chipmusic-is-dead\">Chipmusic Is Dead<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;<a target=\"blank\" href=\"http:\/\/4mat.bandcamp.com\/track\/paper-dolls\">Paper Dolls<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;<a target=\"blank\" href=\"http:\/\/4mat.bandcamp.com\/album\/surrender\">Surrender<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4mat.bandcamp.com\/album\/decades\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"spbox\" src=\"http:\/\/autofish.net\/images\/web_log\/0474_decades.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/4mat.bandcamp.com\/album\/surrender\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"spbox\" src=\"http:\/\/autofish.net\/images\/web_log\/0474_surrender.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Simmonds also does sound design for video games. I was interested to learn that he worked on Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (both of which I enjoyed, especially Shattered Memories). <\/p>\n<p>You can find an interview with him <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.indiegames.com\/2010\/07\/depth_music_qa_4mats_decades.html\">here<\/a>, in which he talks about his music and his work on games (including a game that he created himself).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the early 1990s, I liked to collect and listen to MOD music files. Some the best ones I came across were by 4-mat of Anarchy. About twenty years later, I discovered that 4mat (now without the hyphen) was once again releasing new music. His 2010 album Decades was excellent, and has since been followed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[35,19,13],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2HXOd-7E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}