Brendan Becker, known by his
stage name
A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...
Inverse Phase, is an American
video game composer
Video game music (or VGM) is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led ...
[Inverse Phase - VGMdb]
/ref> and chiptune musician, using Atari, Commodore
Commodore may refer to:
Ranks
* Commodore (rank), a naval rank
** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom
** Commodore (United States)
** Commodore (Canada)
** Commodore (Finland)
** Commodore (Germany) or ''Kommodore''
* Air commodore, a ...
, and Nintendo hardware. He also speaks and hosts workshops on video game music, chiptunes, and composing.
Biography
Becker, born in America in 1979, claims to have had a typical childhood where he was obsessed with video games and Saturday-morning cartoon
"Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for the original animated series programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the Big Three television networks, "Big Three" television networks. T ...
s. While he was enrolled in a piano class at an early age, he did not keep interest due to attention span issues. However, his interest in computers, programming, and music led him to the demoscene
The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visua ...
. He soon began composing music with a music tracker
A music tracker (sometimes referred to as just tracker for short) is a type of music sequencer software for creating music. The music is represented as discrete musical notes positioned in several channels at discrete chronological positions on ...
for games written by his grade school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...
friends, as well as various remixes and covers.
In 2010, Becker received extensive media coverage for his NES
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...
parody of CeeLo Green
Thomas DeCarlo Callaway - Burton (born May 30, 1975), known professionally as CeeLo Green (or Cee Lo Green), is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, record producer and actor. He is known for his work in hip hop and R&B, including the Gnarl ...
's single, "Fuck You
''Fuck'' is an English-language expletive. It often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to arou ...
". A month later, the soundtrack to the video game ''Super Meat Boy
''Super Meat Boy'' is a 2010 platform game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes under the collective name of "Team Meat". It was self-published as the successor to ''Meat Boy'', a 2008 flash game designed by McMillen and Jonathan McEn ...
'' featured his song "Boss Burger N' Chips", a remix
A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...
of the first and second level boss
Boss may refer to:
Occupations
* Supervisor, often referred to as boss
* Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier
* Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization
* Fire boss, a p ...
themes.
In mid-2011, Becker announced that he had gone full-time with his music and was working on multiple game soundtracks. Later that year, he released soundtracks to ''Super Smash Land'' and ''Shuttle Scuttle'', handing out copies of the latter to MAGFest
MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival, originally the Mid-Atlantic Gaming Festival) is an annual festival held in the Washington metropolitan area that celebrates video games and video game music, as well as their surrounding Video game music cultu ...
X attendees at a secret show shortly thereafter.
In June 2012, he released '' Pretty Eight Machine'', a tribute album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...
of industrial rock
Industrial rock is a fusion genre that fuses industrial music and rock music. It initially originated in the 1970s, and drew influence from early experimental and industrial acts such as Cromagnon, Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubaute ...
band Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN and stylized as NIИ, is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland in 1988. Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Trent Reznor was the only permanent member of the ban ...
' 1989 debut album ''Pretty Hate Machine
''Pretty Hate Machine'' is the debut studio album by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released by TVT Records on October 20, 1989. Production of the record was handled by NIN frontman
Trent Reznor and English producer Flood, among ...
''. Inverse Phase had been able to raise $3,654 for making and promoting the album through the crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance. In 2015, over was rais ...
website Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, K ...
. Rob Sheridan
Robert Sheridan (born October 11, 1979) is an American graphic designer, art director, photographer, and comic book author best known for his extensive work with the band Nine Inch Nails.
Biography
Sheridan attended art school at New York City ...
, who is associated with Nine Inch Nails, tweeted
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, an ...
about the album shortly after its release.
While fulfilling kickstarter rewards for ''Pretty Eight Machine'', Becker released ''Treachery in Beatdown City: Episode 1 EP'', the soundtrack to a game seeking funding on Kickstarter in 2014. The kickstarter names Inverse Phase as the composer for the rest of the game, which was released in 2020. He also plans to tribute U2 as well as more Nine Inch Nails, which he claims to be one of his favorite acts.
Discography
;Video game soundtracks
* ''Super Smash Land'' (2011, self-released)
* ''Shuttle Scuttle'' (2011, self-released)
* ''Treachery in Beatdown City: Episode 1 EP'' (2014, self-released)
;Tribute albums
* '' Pretty Eight Machine'' (2012, self-released)
* '' Chiplust'' (2014, self-released)
* ''The Chipping of Isaac'' (2014, self-released)
* ''Save Chiptune'' (2015, self-released)
;Original albums ("Biteration" series)
* Biteration I: Genesis of Consequence (2016, self-released)[https://chiptuneswin.com/blog/chipwin-tern-spotlight-the-yamaha-ym2612-you/]
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Inverse Phase
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
20th-century births
20th-century American musicians
21st-century American musicians
American electronic musicians
Chiptune musicians
Living people