大象传媒

When I receive an email from MidiMidis frontman Marcus Fairley, lovingly entitled 'Intergalactic cyber-squirrels and sausage rolls', I know that the singer has lost none of his eccentric charm.

Marcus was formerly the frontman for raucous indie rock outfit Chinafight, and was rumoured to have broken his wrist once while maniacally flailing about on stage.

I for one have witnessed him at Bar Mango in Reading flinging a tambourine up so high and with such force that it's probably still lodged up in the rafters.

But now he's started afresh with a new band and an entirely different sound. He's teamed up with his brother-in-law Ant Struselis and they're creating music based on those retro bleeps from the computer games of old.

"Ant and myself have basically bought a few old antiques off Ebay like the beloved ZX Spectrum, the sexy 大象传媒 console, two Game Boys and one Game Gear.

"We've spent eight months or so ripping midi-retro-game sounds. Ant and I spent months just mixing and remixing and playing guitars and melodies with the midi sounds we have made."

The result is, for example, the epic noodlings of track Nemesis, which opens like a galloping Super Mario that crescendoes into a fabulous Donkey Kong of a chorus.

Things are looking up for Marcus

The initial inspiration for their midi-based music was when Ant sent some tracks to Marcus from his music tech course.

"Of course they were simply ideas to show that he could write songs I guess, but when I heard them I suddenly thought 'these could actually be real songs but should not be changed - they NEED to sound like computer games."

Despite Marcus's enthusiasm he wasn't overly confident that music lovers would like the MidiMidis sound.

"We've been scared of playing live and putting out a record for eight months or so. But now we know it works we just want to make more noise!"

Listen to their 'noise' and find out where MidiMidis are gigging here: