If you find yourself watching a 8-bit esque, pixel art music video in the style of your favourite retro video game, then the chances are your watching a video by Emily Garner. One of the most outwardly positive and bubbly personalities I have ever had the pleasure to interview, Emily is also one half of the incredibly talented synth pop duo, Vide0.
Emily’s passion for all things retro - from video games to 1980’s synth pop - is obvious within her art. Creating fast paced, rhythmic and wonderfully colourful versions of her clients favourite games; “usually, a band will come up to me and be like ‘right, can you drop us into this video game?’ Emily explains, “Then I’ll have to play the game for like a week”. Her animations have come a long way from her simple beginnings; Emily states she started to animate as soon as she had access to Microsoft Powerpoint, where she would draw slides on MS Paint, and flick through them like a notebook.
It is easy to see how these two seperate art forms, of music and animation, are strongly linked throughout Emily’s inspirations. “I’m really interested in early Playstation 1 games, or Saturn games that are kind of 3D, but aren't quite there yet. It’s still a little bit strange looking, with only a couple of depths. All the super weird 3D figures on PS1 games are great. I find them really beautiful.” Her favourite game being the PS1 Japanese rhythm game, Bust-A-Move, “the soundtrack is incredible!” as it features big 1980’s style drums and catchy melodies.
These inspirations are easy to hear within Vide0’s music, with lots of glittery synthesizers and catchy bass riffs, but this being said, the duo’s originality and sheer upbeat positivity is what sets them apart from the crowd. This is why the news that the band have been recording really excited me. Emily mentioned that they have a whole load of songs ready to record, and have plans to hunker down over the winter and get an album together.
They have one single ready to go and should be out anytime, but for now we must sit and wait for the magic.
By Tom Nixon