Other projects include the ChipdiscoDJ performance software and the HTML5 audio/video analysis tool Tunealiser - both free and open-source. By night, and with a swoosh of his cape, Brendan becomes Syphus - world-famous 8bit/chiptune/demoscene hero!
February 2012 Update
As mentioned some months ago, I've been working on the soundtrack to an awesome top-down/isometric shoot 'em up indie game by Rich Edwards (RichMakeGame) and it's being released
today - 2nd of February 2012 - on Steam and various other digital distribution platforms for Windows PC! This is all original music, all composed specifically for the game
using a blend of my traditional oldschool chipmusic tricks and some rather more up to date techniques to bring a pleasurable listening experience to your ears while you lob
grenades around in endlessly randomly-generated shmup levels!
Feel free to listen to the entire album using the embedded player, and if you fancy downloading a copy for your phone or mp3 player, click the link to buy or donate. Thanks!
September Update
Gosh! Lots of stuff has happened lately, as stuff is wont to do, including the arrival of our little baby son! Babies are very cute - particularly ours - but they do rather dominate one's life for the first few weeks... Anyway, I've been back to the grindstone this week with a soundtrack for the forthcoming short horror film La Belle Dame Sans Merci, a modern day reworking of Keats' bewitching ballad written by P M Buchan (Starburst Magazine, various comics) and produced by Mitsuko Studios (Newcastle-based independent film makers). It's almost done and it's been great fun to work on; it'll be available online before too long, I have no doubt, but will first be screened at some film events around the country.I'm also pleased to announce that my music - Syphus chipmusic, this time - will feature in the forthcoming game Pineapple Smash Crew, which should be being demonstrated to drooling crowds at the Eurogamer Expo at Earl's Court as we speak. Here's a glimpse:
Anyone who's bored enough to follow my Twitter ramblings will know that I've been helping Rich Davey of Aardman Digital with a Flash game dev tutorial for .Net Magazine. The mag was out last month, but they've allowed him to display the article in full on his website - including a section written by me about soundtracking video games! Even managed to do them some screenshots. Click the pic to have a read:
Keep 'em peeled for more games soundtracks coming soon...
May Update
Just a quick one - in the guise of my chipmusic/8bit alter-ego Syphus, I released a new album last week! Have a listen to the full album for free, or buy for a fiver on Bandcamp.
February Update
Busy busy busy! Been remixing The Pimptones and Smoove & Turrell this month, as well as putting in studio time on Outsight material ahead of May's impending gigs. Playing live with Adam James Cooper tomorrow (come along if you're in the Durham area), which should be fun, and I've almost got the finishing touches on my self-indulgent but misunderstood Tunealiser - an HTML5 web app designed to help me plan remixes, sketch out compositions/soundtracks and hopefully help others do the same. Now with Youtube support! Also cheered up the site a bit - not sure what I was thinking when I made it brown on brown with a dash of dark green...Oh, and I'm going to be a dad in the summer \o/ All the more reason to keep working hard, but I'm looking forward to it :)
Right, back to the grindstone. Remember to keep an eye on Twitter, Facebook and here to see what I'm up to \:D/
November Update
Back in business and ticking all the Web2.0 boxes - use the icons to keep track of Echolevel on Twitter, Facebook and Myspace, or to bookmark on Delicious!Echolevel is a composition/production outfit, mostly consisting of me (Brendan Ratliff) but occasionally some others. It’s intertwined with my other projects - Crayolon is still where you can find my more experimental stuff, hardware hacking, software development and so on, while the world famous Syphus is still a force for good in the Demoscene/Chipmusic universe.
Aside from those identities, it’s under my own name that I do a lot of performance and recording as well as some teaching and the occasional bit of consultancy work. I’ve recently been working with Pete Dodds and Tony Bengtsson recording violin (I love doing this; if your album needs more violin, or even if it doesn’t, give me a call!) and this year’s seen a lot of live and studio action with the wonderful Adam James Cooper. Catch me playing Irish music around the North East with my band The Fiddlin’ Priests or with The 11th Hour Ceilidh Band, and also keep an eye out for synthpop shenanigans with Industrial/EBM/Futurepop act Outsight.
All fun stuff, but I’m always keen to chat about new projects - games dev, short films, A/V performances, theatre work… Do feel free to get in touch!
Born into a musical family, I was started off at the age of six on piano and violin - brought up with both classical and Irish traditional tuition simultaneously. It follows, when you're into Irish music from a young age,
that you have a go at everything with a determination to coax a tune from it, so I'm pretty good at tin whistle, mandolin, banjo and bodhran. When I picked up the electric guitar and bass in my early teens, I spent some years
going mad for blues and jazz, then gradually heading towards the loudest, angriest metal I could squeeze out of my amp. This led to many teenage punk and metal bands; formative years, with some triumphant and heroic live performances,
but probably best consigned to the past and people's fortuitously unreliable memories :)
Games composition - recently, Echolevel has provided soundtracks for 
