On the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis’ jazz classic, Kind of Blue, Kickstarter.com CTO and Portland-based chiptunes enthusiast Andy Baio commissioned a reinterpretation of the album’s tracks by 8-bit artists Ast0r, Disasterpeace, Sergeeo, Shnabubula, and Virt. Kickstarter is still an invite-only website, but it allows anyone to put up a cause they want funded and a target amount they’re trying to raise, and allows the cause founder to offer incentives for donors. It also helps spread the word online and makes it easy to collect donations from friends and strangers who believe in the cause. Already many artists have used it to fund musical endeavors like getting recording-studio time, and one man has even used it partially to raise money to reunite The Kinks. In order to release Kind of Bloop, the Davis project, through legit channels like iTunes, Baio needed $2000 to cover licensing costs of the original tracks, since technically he’s releasing a CD of cover songs. The result of his campaign was wildly successful and he ultimately raised $8000. The release itself is a little bit dubious, musically, for anyone other than hardcore 8-bit nuts (and it might be eye-popping for the true Davis fan), but it’s still charming enough to warrant a listen if you’re a fan of the album or 8-bit music in general.

Art by SnackAdmiral