A veteran of the Roanoke rock scene is making electronic music look like kid's play.

Hear a sample of Kolosine's music (Requires RealPlayer)

Jeremy Kolosine, who is probably best known as the keyboard player for late '90s local favorites Shakespace, now uses Atari and Nintendo Game Boy gaming systems to create electronic music, performing under the name Receptors.

The art of using simple video gaming systems to create music is only a couple of years old, and thus Kolosine has been able to use the Internet to make a name for himself on an international level.

"One thing I've always tried to do is not compete on a local level, but compete on a global level," Kolosine said. It doesn't hurt that he's starting this new project at a time when electronic music enthusiasts have rediscovered late-'70s electropop groups, including Kolosine's former Florida band, Futurisk.

The trio only released two records, both of which are out of print, but it's been recognized as an influence on newer artists such as the Rapture, Peaches and Le Tigre.

Kolosine said he gets at least one e-mail a week requesting one or both records. One song, "Push Me Pull You," was chosen by producer James Murphy as the lead-off track for one of his influential Colette mix tapes.

At first, Kolosine's excursions into electronica seem a far cry from the lush indie pop of Shakespace. But that band was just as much about keyboards as it was guitars. The first Shakespace album even included several techno-style remixes of their songs.

"If I look back at what I've stood for, I think I represent the period of music where there was a clash between guitars and synthesizers," Kolosine said. "Even Shakespace had two types of fans - the ones that came for the guitars and the ones that came for the electronics."

Kolosine's first brush with music came at age 12, when he saw Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in London. Four years later, after moving to Florida with his parents, he started his first band, a punk group called Art Decadence.

Futurisk came shortly after, when Kolosine began accumulating cheap synthesizers. He and two friends entered a contest and won $500 and studio time, which they used to record a single. Futurisk has since been credited as the first all-synth punk band in the American South.

Kolosine said Futurisk eventually broke up because they didn't have enough opportunities in Florida. Shortly after, Kolosine married his wife, Roseann. In 1995, after facing three hurricanes in two months, the couple and their daughter, Sharie, moved to Roanoke.

"I was looking for mountains, and I just couldn't believe how friendly the people were," he said.

He started Shakespace with drummer Marty Bensinger and guitarist Ian Lloyd. The group soon added Michelle Ferguson on bass and vocals, then recorded an album and started playing shows at the Melting Pot. The band was at the center of the No Phase arts collective, which put on shows combining music and visual art. They recorded two more albums before breaking up in 2000 after conflict between Ferguson and a newer member, Josh Strawn.

"I was left solo when everyone else [in the band] moved to Chapel Hill [N.C.]," Kolosine said. "Anyone who was left didn't care."

Kolosine changed his focus back to electronic music. During the recording of the last Shakespace album, he'd worked on a solo project, releasing it under the name Ksine. He describes that music as "contemporary classical minimal" and eventually released two more records. Some of the tracks were made available as Internet downloads. Kolosine's Web site also enabled fans of his former work to track him down.

"All this time, interest in Futurisk had been increasing," he said. "I used to be ashamed of that. I didn't want people to know I was 40 years old. Now I wear it as a badge of courage."

Eventually, through a series of Internet listservs to which he subscribes, Kolosine heard about the burgeoning use of gaming systems to produce music. Computer programmers had taken old game cartridges and either changed or completely rewritten the files to produce music. The idea appealed to Kolosine, and he started acquiring equipment.

"For 20 bucks, you could get an old, gray Game Boy and Game Boy camera on eBay," he said. "The camera has a hidden synth program, and you can do a whole song with that. For 20 bucks you can create advanced electronic music."

Other programs for the cartridges are available free as shareware from the Internet. Due in part to the novelty of the new genre, Kolosine quickly snagged a gig at Pianos in New York City. He has since generated more tunes - and more enthusiasm from fans of electronic music.

"What I really like about the Game Boy is it's the closest I've been able to come to what's going on in my brain," Kolosine said. "There are no guitar constraints, just all these bubbly noises."

To "play" the Game Boy, Kolosine uses the directional pad, the two "select" buttons and the two red buttons to maneuver a cursor around the screen, choosing and mixing a series of preset electronic sounds and melodies. He layers the sounds, manipulating and tweaking them over the course of several minutes to create one song.

The Atari system generates a more organic feel, especially when compared to the Game Boy's music, which Kolosine describes as "rather sterile." He adapted the controller to include a series of buttons to manipulate sounds from the game console.

During a performance at Factory 324 in late October, Kolosine used the Atari to perform a version of Iggy Pop's "Funtime," demonstrating that, more than 20 years later, he still hasn't forgotten his roots.

For more information, or to hear music from Kolosine's various projects, go to his Web site at www.ksine.com.