8. JBM's Tunes: A Fake Song

Welcome back to JBM's Tunes! For episode 2, we're looking at Formations by Basidia.
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1444719293_10.jpg "But Judge!" you scream from the rooftops, "This album cover doesn't say Basidia! It seems to be a soundtrack to a game made by a clearly sexy, rich, and successful dude named Jay Tholen! Have you deceived me? I'm not sure I can take another disappointment..."

No need for theatrics, dear strawman reader, for I have not deceived you. Formations is the song and Basidia is the band, but they are not as you would expect them, as they are not real. They are part of a larger alternate universe set in 1999, where everything is familiar, but not quite as we know them here.

Confused? Good! The mystery around this band in particular is part of what makes me enjoy them so much. The straight facts are that Formations was a song made by Jay Tholen for his game, Hypnospace Outlaw. Basidia doesn't exist; they're comprised of a single in-universe character with an extremely interesting backstory (Google Fre3zer for more info). Basidia belongs to one of many fake genres created for the game: Fungus Scene; defined by goopy synths and dreamy, cave-like atmospheres.

Formations is easily my favorite Fungus Scene track in the game; mainly because of its excellent bassline and use of wavy distortion. But more than the actual track, I just love the idea of listening to music that "doesn't exist" in our world or timeline. I really hope that other composers and bands make music in alternate reality genres, where the values behind what group disparate bands together are skewed in new and interesting ways (I mean for fucks sake. In the game, there's another genre called Cool Punk which is solely defined by using samples of sleigh bells and an old Christmas-time soda commercial. I love it when priorities are warped like this!)

Anyway, Jay Tholen did a fantastic job with the soundtrack to Hypnospace Outlaw. With expansions, I think it's up to around 150 songs by now! Check out the game and check out Formations by Basidia in particular.

Cool Punk drools. Fungus Scene rules. See you in the new Millennium.

8/10
-JBM-

(PS, I've got a 9 to 5 job from home during weekdays, so I'll try to get these done before work. Enjoy!)