Anamanaguchi is an American chiptune rock band from New York City, that "makes loud, fast music with a NES from 1985." The band has four members: lead songwriter and guitarist Peter Berkman, bassist James DeVito, guitarist Ary Warnaar and drummer Luke Silas.
The name "Anamanaguchi" came about from a member in one of Berkman's former bands pronouncing gibberish in the style of Jabba the Hutt; the band has also explained it as coming from the members' internships at Armani (Berkman and DeVito), Prada (Warnaar), and Gucci (Silas) while studying fashion at Parsons School of Design, though three of the four majored in Music Technology at New York University.
Like other chiptune artists, Anamanaguchi creates music using video game hardware from the mid-to-late 1980s: namely an NES and a Game Boy. Berkman has stated that their music isn't just based around video game music and that much of it is inspired by "[s]imple pop stuff, like Weezer and the Beach Boys."
The band composed music for the video game adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game.The soundtrack for the game was released on Amazon and iTunes by ABKCO Records on August 24, 2010.The soundtrack debuted at No. 3 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart (aka Soundscan's New Artist Chart). Two tracks from Dawn Metropolis ("Blackout City" and "Mermaid") were also used for the Bit.Trip Runner soundtrack. In October 2010 it was announced that Anamanaguchi would appear in the music video game, Rock Band, with the track "Airbrushed". The band's song "Jetpack Blues, Sunset Hues" is the current theme to Chris Hardwick's The Nerdist Podcast. Anamanaguchi's second LP Endless Fantasy came out on May 14, 2013 and debuted at No. 1 on the aforementioned Heatseekers chart.
On May 3, 2013, Anamanaguchi provided a Kickstarter project for their album Endless Fantasy. In just 11 hours, their funding goal of $50,000 was reached. At the end of its run, the project was backed by 7,253 people who contributed to raising a grand total of $277,399, making it the second most-successful music project to be funded on Kickstarter at the time, behind that of singer Amanda Palmer.
Anamanaguchi was featured on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on June 17, 2013, where they played their song "Endless Fantasy" from the album of the same name.
