For those yet to give Gunship’s self-titled album a spin, Gunship is an evolution of the recently popularised synthwave genre, which was originally started by Rosso Corsa records & The Valerie Collective artists. It’s nostalgic synth at its best, and it helps that they’re in the habit of accompanying their noise with very cool videos.
In keeping with their old school aesthetic the band are salvaging yet another relic from the retro gaming hall of fame, re-releasing their critically acclaimed self-titled album on cassette. On side-a the golden cassette features Gunship’s self-titled album and on side-b, Jeff Minter’s classic Commodore 64 game ‘Attack Of The Mutant Camels’. Not only is this the first cassette album release to feature a built in C64 game, but this version of the album will also be the only version of the album to feature the April Towers remix of ‘The Mountain’, which was premiered with Earmilk earlier this year.
Here’s what the band had to say on the re-release:
“The games for the early video game systems like the Commodore Vic 20, C64, Atari 2600 and the Amiga 500 were huge influences on our imaginations growing up. We love this era for its simplistic charm and raw creativity and certainly try to take these influences and values and implement them in Gunship’s music.”
“We worked with Jed Shepherd at Post/Pop records to cook up a version of our album on gold cassette tape, with our music on side A and a Commodore 64 game on side B to hopefully bring some attention back to this fantastic era in game design. It’s an honour to share a cassette tape with Jeff Minter!”
To accompany the bands cassette release Gunship the band have also launched a competition to win a one-off, custom neon pink Commodore 64 to play their new cassette/cartridge release.
The competition is open now and the challenge is simple, visit this online emulator here, and attack your keyboard in an effort to reach the highest score possible in ‘Llamatron’!
RULES:
Players must compete using this emulated version of LLAMATRON.
To submit your score: If you manage to get a high score, the game will ask you to enter your name – please enter your Twitter handle. Please then take a picture of yourself alongside the high score table, with your score clearly visible in the same picture, and tweet it to @GUNSHIPMusic, including the hashtag #LlamasAteMyParents.
To use the emulator all you have to do is visit the link above and click the power button. Once it has loaded, use the arrow keys to pick a play mode and hit space to start. The controls are simply the arrow keys and space bar. Use your Llama spit to destroy the gaunts and save as many beasties as possible!
In ‘Llamatron’ it is possible to play in single player mode with a ‘droid’ helping you. This option is available at the start of a new game by toggling left/right. Scores submitted while playing with a helper ‘droid’ are acceptable for submission. Team mode is also available – twice the firepower, but twice the chance to die horribly! We recommend 1P+Droid for your best chance!
The competition will close on 10th December 2015 and the winner will be announced soon thereafter. The winner will also have the chance to be personally presented their console (location dependent) and a copy of the album by Gunship.
For more details on the competition you can head over to www.GUNSHIPmusic.com.