I made a bet with myself before I popped in this tape: I was SURE I could come up with a much more ridiculous artist name than “Shnabubula.” Turns out I couldn’t even come close; the best of my list ended up being “Horsebutter,” “Hollywood Lobster Trio,” and, to completely dive off the deep end and not make any sense, “!!!,” which you would pronounce like “chk chk chk” or “pow pow pow,” depending on how stupid you were feeling at any one moment.* After that it just devolved into Simpsons references, and then I took a nap.
No, “Shnabubula” won out in the end.
Game Genie is Shnabubula’s 651st release,** and that’s because New York nutbag Samuel Ascher-Weiss has been unstoppable since 2015, which is when his Bandcamp page dates from. He’s been blasting so much fucked chiptune up the tailpipe of your parked Lincoln that you probably won’t be able to start it when the cops come and tell you to move along, this is a no-parking zone. He’ll likely end up stealing the quarters from your glovebox along with your city map, too.
Which makes him a great match for Hausu Mountain. Not the tailpipe-blasting or quarter-robbing, but the fucked chiptune, presented ever-so-progly so that it will fit in super nicely to the HausMo catalog. Because nobody does far-out electronic experimentation than the Hausu boys Doug and Max, and Shnabubula ticks all those boxes and then another one: restlessly inventive and intricate video game music.
Eh, eh? Got you hooked there, didn’t I? Plus, you’ve seen the cover of Mukqs’s Walkthrough, right?
Apply Game Genie to any experience, and watch as its magical cheat codes transform the situation into uninhibited bacchanal. I borrowed somebody’s Game Genie once, and it never worked like that, I’ll tell you. The Gameshark I had for my PlayStation worked OK, but you had to feed in individual codes, so it was kind of a pain if you wanted anybody else besides the main character in Chrono Cross to be leveled up all the way from the start, and it never worked in real life. Somehow, Samuel Ascher-Weiss figured out the impossible: how you and everybody in your party can be fully powered up, all the time.
Game Genie drops November 2 on Hausu Mountain. Stream “Eye Trickle Scuba Wagon” while you wait.
Shnabubububububububububula!!!
*Right? You get it?
**Ish.
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