Leon is the mononym of electronic musician Leon Chang, who I initially became aware of just for his entertaining Twitter presence. Chang is something of a Twitter celebrity, perhaps more famous for his hot takes than the actual art he produces, and for a while, the hot takes were what I knew him for. When he released this album, though, I decided it sounded interesting enough to check out, and I’m glad that I did. Leon had produced a number of original tunes and remixes prior to this that I had never really checked out, but Bird World is his first major cohesive project that I’m aware of.
Bird World is a sort of concept album. It’s basically the soundtrack to an imaginary retro video game, and the ‘deluxe edition’ of this album actually comes with the game’s ‘instruction manual’, which shows its characters and world map and so forth. In that respect, this album can definitely appeal to fans of retro video games and their 8 and 16-bit soundtracks. I would say that this album appeals to those people the same way Shovel Knight does - it trips the triggers of nostalgia, but it does it in a way that, frankly, is better than those games could have ever been due to the limitations of the technology.
As a soundtrack to a ‘video game’, this album does follow certain rules of video game music. It starts with a title screen (and a jingle that plays when you hit the start button), and includes an intro song, a final boss battle, and a tune for the closing credits. Outside of those, most of the music is dedicated to individual ‘levels’ of the game, and consists of the sort of chiptune melodies that might normally show up in a NES or SNES game. Except, many of these are given a more modern, almost EDM-like twist. Several of them have noticeable ‘drops’, almost like you’d hear in a dubstep track (I’d much rather listen to this album than dubstep, for the record), and many use what sound like electronic drum machines like 808s. Many also make extensive use of both samples and sound palettes, including samples and sounds from Yoshi’s Island (which makes sense, considering Leon’s online avatar is one of the bird creatures from that game), The Legend of Zelda (A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and even one short one from Skyward Sword), and... I guess maybe others, but those were the two I recognized. I think being a fan of video games helped me to appreciate this album, but I do also think that anyone can enjoy it, whether or not they recognize every Zelda sample in Popcorn Castle (and there are a LOT).
I think, at its worst, this project could just be sort of fanservice for retro video game fans, another installment in the zillions of online remixes of music from SNES games made as midi files. This album rises above that, though, and presents some great original and interesting music that even someone who’s never picked up a controller could enjoy. Leon is worth supporting and you should check out his Bandcamp.
