New Active Object

New Active Object is a genre-hopping game and multimedia experience synced to the 40-minute genre-hopping Jay Tholen (Dropsy, Hypnospace Outlaw) album of the same name. Remember those auto-playing apps that would appear when you popped pretty much any big album from 1995-2002 into your CD-ROM drive? Remember amateur Klik & Play, The Games Factory, or Game Maker games from around the same time period? New Active Object is inspired by both.

While the game is only 40 minutes long (if you keep the pitch at 1.0) there are enough secrets and missable details to justify multiple playthroughs. This was an intentional choice designed to force unsuspecting gamers to become endeared to my music through mere exposure effect. Doubt it'll work but it's worth a shot.

New Active Object, the album, is a jazz/prog-infused concept album crafted using only* samples from the sound effect libraries of 1990s game-making software Klik & Play and The Games Factory. BOUNCE01.WAV, POP.WAV, CRASH1.WAV, THUNDER2.WAV, AIRBUGGY.WAV and ANAPHASE.WAV to name a handful.

Particularly charming sounds were used sans-manipulation (some posh guy sarcastically quipping "oh excellent"), while most others were prodded and cut-up and messed-with until they became something compositionally useful. Sometimes even pleasant. Nearly every sound contributes its own low bitrate hiss, lining New Active Object's music bed with an airy effervescence.

Guitar (Talha Kaya, David Brimer), Saxophone (Jake Xie, Juanig), Clarinet (Josh Plotner), and Flute (also Plotner) sections add to the vaporous atmosphere. John Ringhofer (Half-handed Cloud) lends bouncing backing vocals, trombone, and glockenspiel to two tracks. Christine Tholen (hi sis!) rounds out the features with her own beautiful vocal harmonies.

New Active Object is broadly about creativity, the limitations of software, and the limitations of the Earthly realm. The lyrics are from the perspective of a game object and its young aspiring maker. Occasionally said maker's Maker chimes in.

Main logo & song title graphics by Jack Grimes/Jackapedia.
Mastered by Angel Marcloid at Angel Hair Audio