AMP's Dark Corners

[swirlythingy]

I can't believe we don't have a topic for this already.  I hope to see lots of posts on this one!

We all know the big names of the tracker world, and we all know the most famous tunes.  Rare indeed is the composer who doesn't declare "savannah" or "cream of the earth" as a major inspiration in their interview.

But there's more to AMP's 120,000-strong module database than that, right?  For every Walkman or Lizardking there are a hundred smaller composers who never got the recognition they deserved, dropped out of the scene early, or just didn't choose to seek fame and fortune for their talents in the demoscene.  90% of them are, of course, crud.  This thread is dedicated to rooting out the other 10%.

So.  What tunes by lesser-known or almost completely unknown composers do you harbour secret admiration for?  Are there any people whose oeuvre you think deserves its moment in the spotlight?  Are there any tracks for which you're the only person you've met who's ever heard of them, and you think that's criminal?

I'll get you started with a few of my all-time favourites.  Note that I can't vouch for whether or not these modules are actually completely unknown; all I know is that I've never seen the names mentioned anywhere.

jazzmine by Juno (53 downloads)
orangejuice by U-Man (118 downloads)
keep-bustin by Commando (109 downloads)
cyberchrist by Vortex (133 downloads)
we need paradise by XS (76 downloads)
keep ya hyper by Strike (121 downloads)
can you hear me ? by Rico (64 downloads)

[Asle]

hehe, good idea !
OK, I've always had a crush for Overlord X musics. Here's my favorite:
Cocktail 'n Dreams pack intro.
It's a Jamcracker that's I've just uploaded.

[Axxy]

So many to choose from.... I loved this little ditty on the Amiga, and would just load it to hear it, so glad that Reed covered it.

http://amp.dascene.net/downmod.php?index=57321

[florist]

Reckon this might not be the darkest of the corners, but this keeps coming back to my playlist: Dead Illusion by Sergio/Prologic http://amp.dascene.net/downmod.php?index=63282

[Anarkhya]

It's hard for me to tell who is NOT a popular musician, so excuse me if I threw a big name in the list
Although I'm not usually fond of what I called the 'amiga trumpet' (well I don't really know how to put it in words, you know, this is an instrument you hear frequently in lemmings tunes) I definitely have a crush for this track.

Steel - up in the woods

On a side note I swear I heard this song rendered differently before, I recently updated my XMPlay so maybe it's that.

[Axxy]

Thought I'd have a closer look through some more modules. This lot are just some of the modules these people have produced and warrant a listen and further delving into the other modules written by them.

Sea of Memories by 16-Beat
Me Soul i by Airon
My Wolf ii by Arpegiator
Synthesis by Rymix
Garbage-Collection by Peter Salomonsen
Analyzer by Sidewinder
Ice Age by Zandax
Dope for your mind by Otis
Crying Spy by Tusc
Pigs in Space by Sll

njoy

[swirlythingy]

I'm quite proud of how many of the tracks mentioned thus far I've already heard.  "my wolf 2", "garbage collection" and "up in the woods" have all been in my collection for years (in fact, they were some of the earliest modules in there), and "dope for your mind" is one I was aware of but don't remember liking very much.  I've got several other Otis MODs, though. "vidars choice" sums up his typical style, but I've always had a soft spot for "we rule".

I should have remembered to mention this earlier: "tekknological" by M. Linde and J. Wilson.  Sublime.

This is drifting back into the territory of composers for whom I honestly have no idea whether or not they're 'unknown' to most people, but Yannis Brown has a lot of stuff worth looking at - mainly the older MODs.  Try "boing!!" and "voyager" to get started, but for something different, "jolly-tune" is a rather impressive orchestral piece.

[Axxy]

It is quite hard to distinguish between well-known trackers and the not-so-well-known trackers, mainly because we listened and/or collected these modules from 1990 onwards or watched the productions shortly after release. Where most of my mates were copying games, I was buying stuff off PD houses and swapping disks with people with scene stuff on them.  It's very hard to see most trackers as not-so-well-known.

As an example, how many of these haven't you heard of before?

/rcg on

Baby
Blue Fox
Dice (Tivurr)
Dr Bully
Fajser
Gandbox
MC Spicy
Mindfuck
Mr Man
Nork
Nutcase
Randall
Silent Mode
Stamen
X-ceed
Zbb
Zixaq

/rcg off

There are countless others who I could have mentioned.  Even Yannis is pretty much as well-known as Moby, Jester, Purple Motion, Jogeir, Skaven and many others.  I suppose the only ones would have been the one mod release and uncredited modules and I have plenty of them!!

All those listed above, although not that well known have plenty of great tunes amongst their releases, but few of them hardly ever get a mention.

[swirlythingy]

The only ones I know out of that list are Mr. Man ("restricted" is awesome), Nutcase and Dr. Bully.  (I don't count Blue Fox since I only know him from downloading Subject's modules from AMP.)

One good source for judging "known-ness" is the lists of greetings in sample texts.  I've seen Moby mentioned in those loads more times than I've seen Yannis (not sure I've even seen him at all).

[Axxy]

Being from Australia I suppose was a bit of a hindrance to Yannis and Mick Rippon but both were still quite prolific in output.  Both produced a lot of music on the PC as well as protracker format, but I think Yannis will be more known for his sample packs and didn't he organise/compete in compo's as well?


From his wiki entry

He was heavily involved with the music part of the Demoscene and ran Groovy Compo - a bi-weekly tracker based internet competition first started by Mick Rippon. He also entered other similar competitions, including The Trackering.

[deus-ex]

Being from Australia didn't seem to be a hindrance at all for the both of them.
Mick is still quite active and all around these days.

[Axxy]

Being from Australia didn't seem to be a hindrance at all for the both of them.
Mick is still quite active and all around these days.

I meant the hindrance that it seemed to take a while for things to get to Australia compared to us in Europe at the time and the lack of things for the Amiga back then, not that they were Australian if that makes sense.

[Asle]

By "dark corner", I understood, "less known/popular material".
It was not intended to diminish in any way any author. I guess everybody agrees, here
So, listing musics, instead of author sounds more on topic, I'd say.

[florist]

I was looking for this quite a bit of time. This masterpiece from the very early Amiga age was released in Thrust's sunset glow cracktro: axk10 by Axk. Excellent tune, worth a remake with more sophisticated instrumentation would be cool to do.

[swirlythingy]

I only just found out who composed this one - moonchild, the sole MOD credited to Manimal of Digital Technology.