Review Fix Exclusive: Chris Wirsig Talks Counter Communications And More

Review Fix chats with Chris Wirsigwho discusses his Counter Communications Music Library and his upcoming projects.

About Counter Communications:

Creating scores and cues for film, TV, video games, and marketing pieces allows Wirsig to demonstrate his virtuosity as an instrumentalist and his ability to articulate emotion with sound. With regularity, he adds unique selections for music supervisors, content producers, and other media professionals to enhance their projects. Some of this year’s vibes include dark hip hop, dark folk, and electronoise.

Review Fix: How was Counter Communications born?

Chris Wirsig: I’ve always used Counter Communications as a home for my various creative projects, to run them on a professional level. It’s been a music production company and record label for a long time. Last year we re-launched it to also represent the latest venture - offering our catalog of dark intense soundscapes in our own music library for TV and film licensing.

Review Fix: What are some of the biggest projects you’ve worked on?

Wirsig: Very dear to my heart is the creepy award-winning short movie “20 Matches” about a serial killer in Vienna. I had all the freedom to write and perform the music for these intense 9 minutes, and even got a nomination for best score at a festival, which is a great compliment. Another big project was creating the music for the iOS game “Alien Tribe 2” that was in the Top Ten in several countries.

Review Fix: You have quite a few projects coming up. What are they and how are they unique from one another?

Wirsig: We’re releasing at least one new album of songs and cues every month in our music library. The upcoming ones range from ambient/electronica to orchestral tension cues and dark synthpop. We’re keeping it diverse.

And then there are my bands and projects, and the production work for other artists that give me more freedom. I love producing music for TV and film, but it’s nice to also have projects where I just can experiment with sounds and structure. There will be a collaboration project soon that’s in the triphop field with dark, jazzy vibes and new instrumental music that’s more in the style of Tangerine Dream and other classic synth artists.

Apart from the instrumental music, I’m preparing new songs for my electropop band no:carrier, that hopefully will come out soon. The songs are in the pop context but I don’t have to care about format, length, or even if it is mainstream enough. Come to think of it, a lot of the music in our library is also not typical mainstream, though!

Review Fix: What are your goals for the near future with all of these?

Wirsig: We definitely want to establish the music library and my work as THE source for dark, edgy, melancholy music. We’re building the Counter Communications catalog with my own music but also with other artists producing for us.

Typical fits are horror and science fiction movies, dramas, crime shows or documentaries. But my material has also been used in reality and game shows, when it gets more dramatic and tense. Other good fits are trailers or computer games.

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

Wirsig: We’re keeping the music dark – even in the Los Angeles sun.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14268 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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