Ever since its humble beginnings, Northern Virginia’s Music And Gaming Festival (MAGFest) has lovingly nurtured and raucously celebrated the growing art form known as chip music. Using the lo-bit sound chips trapped within retro videogame consoles and other vintage electronics to synthesize new, original compositions, chiptune artists across the globe have slowly but surely brought enthusiasm for their craft to a fever pitch. The basements of yesteryear have become stages, and upon those stages a new breed of performer has arisen — not to merely evoke the nostalgic timbres of Nintendo-era videogame music, but to re-define and celebrate the limitations of the machines we once called our toys.

This year, MAGFest is proud to present an exhilarating showcase of chiptune artists from across the country guaranteed to provide low-fi facemelting satisfaction to the ever-growing thousands who have already registered for the ninth iteration of our annual 4-day celebration of videogames, music and everything in between.

For this year’s chiptune lineup, we are proud to present Philadelphia super-group Cheap Dinosaurs and rising star dance party duo George & Jonathan, as well as live visuals by NO CARRIER and enso and additional sets from Noisewaves (MI), Wizwars (LA), Zen Albatross (NYC), Note! (NYC), Danimal Cannon (of Metroid Metal / Armcannon) (BUF) and Inverse Phase (VA).

The showcase runs all day on Saturday, January 15th from 11:30am – 4:30pm in the Main Concert Hall, and will be preceded by a panel on chip music history and culture led by New York chip musician journalist Zen Albatross at 10:30am.

MAGFest will take place January 13th-16th, 2011 at the Hilton Marks Center in Alexandria, VA. For more info please visit http://magfest.org.