[classic .MODs] SLL/Kefrens - "Guardian Dragon" (added 06/01/01) Back in about 1991, the Danish group Kefrens ruled the demo-scene with amazing, effects-heavy demos coded by the likes of Laxity and Vention, and the soundtrack to these often came from the rather wonderful SLL. Here's a great example - the over-7-minute long soundtrack to the "Guardian Dragon" production. Even though it was done reasonably early in the Amiga tracking timeline, this is class all the way, with darn catchy melodies, interesting instruments, and a full, super-well-produced sound that evokes first seeing the demo, and works remarkably well on its own. Love the slowed-down bit at the end, too (uhh, as long as that's not badly converted CIA data or anything!) "Guardian Dragon" (.ZIP, 104k) Svolkraq/Gollum - "Sound O' Da Lunatic" (added 03/08/01) Released in 1994, this track came out of nowhere to blast+win the Gathering '94 party in Norway. Svolkraq was a relatively unknown Norwegian PC composer who decided to drop down to .MOD for this wonderful guitar-based track, all composed and sampled by himself. Actually, this is about the only thing Svolkraq's known for on the 4-channel .MOD scene, and it's still amazing that it all fits in 310k, despite the big samples and gorgeous sounds. Classic, classic track, well worth grabbing in nostalgia or discovery. "Sound O' Da Lunatic" (.ZIP, 211k) Captain/Image - "Space Debris" (added 22/04/01) From fairly early on in the Amiga's life, the Finnish composer Captain, later known on the real-life pop-music scene as part of the 'poptastic' Dance Nation, managed to win the Assembly demo-competition in 1991 (?) with this classic .MOD, "Space Debris". It's the epitome of the smooth .MOD synth style, and done very early on, too, before most musicians had developed the skills to blast out this custom catchiness and were still playing with st-00 samples! Both memorable and classic, a deserved addition.. "Space Debris" (.ZIP, 104k) Bruno/Scup - "B.S.T" (added 19/02/01) Bruno/Scup is another of the Finnish .MOD pioneers, and his use of realistic-sounding, crazily jazzy, offbeat samples and melodies, as well as crazy riffing and time-changes, made his songs stick out as waaay ahead. From his "Bruno's Music Box 3" release in around 1991, just before he disappeared from the Amiga scene forever, here's one of his all-time classics, "B.S.T", which stands for.. well, look at the song-text, lots of different things! 10 years ago, this was amazing, and time has dulled none of the style. "B.S.T" (.ZIP, 104k) Static/Rebels - "Total Triple Trouble" (added 08/01/01) Static/Rebels will forever be known for the music to the classic proto-rave demo that is "Coma". Forget "Jesus On E's" and all those other pale imitations, "Coma" was the real deal. And the follow-up demo, Rebels' "Total Triple Trouble", featuring this song, was, astoundingly, even better. It delighted eager watchers way back in '91 with great full-screen (digitised, but stylishly lo-fi!) animated effects like the blinking eye, all set to a devilishly cut-up visual style and this amazing soundtrack, also called "Total Triple Trouble", all beeps, frantically re-trigging percussion and whoops of joy. "Total Triple Trouble" (.ZIP, 50k) Jester/Sanity - "Stardust Memories" (added 10/12/00) From the absolutely classic "World Of Commodore" demo from about 1992, just when the German demo-group Sanity were hitting full stride with the majesty of their coder Chaos and some other excellent musicians like Virgill, this classic Volker Tripp (aka Jester) track pretty much epitomises his style - punchy, well-produced, and above all, catchy! The songname is taken from a Woody Allen movie, but there's really not much Allen-esque about the track, which is refreshingly straightahead - it'll have you whistling it for years to come! "Stardust Memories" (.ZIP, 113k) Shorty/Network - "Digital Expression" (added 20/11/00) Again, right back in '91, this particular subtle guitar+pipes track from Shorty, a Norwegian composer and cohort of Jogeir Liljedahl, was considered gorgeous and way ahead of its time. Nowadays, it sounds subtly brilliant still, and wonderfully nostalgic, and totally deserved to win the music competition at the Amega Party in Porsgrunn, which also featured classic demos like PMC's "Alpha And Omega" and TSL's "Ice", whose Audiomonster soundtrack we've mentioned elsewhere round here... oldskool all the way. "Digital Expression" (.ZIP, 119k) Jugi/Complex - "Tubular Vectors" (added 03/11/00) This time round, a classic from Jugi, who's been hanging around the Amiga and PC scene for way over 10 years now, and currently provides backroom-boffinship for the great Aisth, but this classic track, from the Taipan-coded Complex "Vector Preview" demo in 1990, a demo which seemed spectacularly advanced for its time (multiple vector X-Wings? rawk!), also cut the mustard with regards to a wickedly catchy synth sound with minimum cheesiness. Just right.. "Tubular Vectors" (.ZIP, 131k) Frog/DOC - "Demons Are Forever" (added 22/10/00) Some people have commented that MODs In Memoriam isn't quite oldskool _enough_ sometimes, and we're happy to correct this view with Frog's classic tune from one of the first Amiga demos ever, "Demons Are Forever" (mm, bobs morphing into demons!), from back in about 1988. With most of the ST-00 sample-disc waveforms still in place in this tune, and a great+funky end-result to boot, this is the bedrock from which was hewn the next 10 years of classic .MODs :) "Demons Are Forever" (.ZIP, 78k) Audiomonster/TSL - "Florence" (added 11/10/00) When this originally came out back in 1991, people were pretty much astounded - a simply gorgeous 7-minute ballad, complete with wonderful guitar riffing and a divine song structure, all in a 250k .MOD? How did Audiomonster do it? With other career highlights like the soundtrack to The Silents' "ICE" demo, Raphael Gesqua went on to distinguish himself with some great game soundtracks for Delphine Software. But some of his original stuff like this still sounds just great. "Florence" (.ZIP, 166k) Dizzy/CNCD - "Girl From Ipanema" (added 01/10/00) We recently discovered that not as many people as you might think have actually heard this tune, due to it being released before he joined DCS, even, back in 1991. And, since it's an absolute classic too, we're happy to showcase it here.| It's an inspired conversion of Antonio Carlos Jobim's jazz track, with all the offbeat rhythms and great jazz touches you'd expect from the greatest. go! "Girl From Ipanema" (.ZIP, 144k) Dreamer/Nah! - "Doclandia" (added 23/09/00) The infamous Polish nutcase Dreamer, heh, is the source of our classic MOD this time round, as he burbles on with weird crazy folky cartoon-y brass+stringy indescribably weird music as always. :) But gorgeous! "Doclandia" (.ZIP, 184k) Groo/Virtual Dreams - "Rockhopper" (added 16/09/00) Groo's been kicking it for an awfully long time now, and this is him, earlier in his scene career, at somewhere near his best - great groove, lots of different parts, nice use of cut-up big samples, and it all sounds awfully big for 4 channels.. rules! You may also know groo from his soundtracks to a thousand-and-one great Amiga demos (Juliet+Case, CNCD, Virtual Dreams.. and so on!) Classic status assured. :P "Rockhopper" (.ZIP, 226k) Lizardking/Alcatraz - "Varanen" (added 08/09/00) Oh, please. ;) Well, we had to include him at some point, and despite the well-known fact that he has but two tunes (the slow one and the fast one!), the lizard is king. And this is his crowning glory. "Varanen" (.ZIP, 144k) Maestro/Kefrens+Anarchy - "By the Coast" (added 01/09/00) Wonderful stuff.. more poignant than ever, since I believe Maestro is no longer with us. *sigh*. A great talent, nonetheless, he'd be proud to know his songs live on online. "By the Coast" (.ZIP, 123k) Mr Man/Andromeda - "Late Nights" (added 23/08/00) With the same distinctive blues-y piano style as evidenced in the classic "Distant Call", Mr.Man, with this great competition piece from 1994, shows why Andromeda were one of the smoothest, wickedest demo groups around on the Amiga scene. Go wid da flow, hah. "Late Nights" (.ZIP, 352k) Scortia/Silents - "Soul Kitchen" (added 16/08/00) Although not half as old as a lot of the classics we've been nominating, this track definitely deserves that moniker. As used in the rather cool demo of the same name by Silents, it's a weirdly funky demo-guitar track with some _excellent_ changes of mood, and a really original lead line. Wicked! "Soul Kitchen" (.ZIP, 184k) Soul/DCS - "Noise From Heaven" (added 08/08/00) I say 'groove!'. :) Back in 1993 this was definitely way ahead of most tracked funk, all sequenced brass runs and wailing lead, and it still sounds damn funked-up now. Soul, formerly Dexter/Anarchy, was responsible for a number of great tunes, especially in the DCS intros with Corny and Codeman... and this is a classic track, alright. :) "Noise From Heaven" (.ZIP, 141k) Tip+Mantronix/Phenomena - "Blue House 2 - Theme" (added 01/08/00) Well, ok, I think i've featured another MTX+TIP tune before, but they're just too classic to neglect. This was the title track to the rather cool demo from Rebels back in about 1990 or 1991.. and features a great deal of what made the devilish duo so plain.. devilish. ;) Funky synth-leads, classy oldskool chords, the works.. :) "Blue House 2 - Theme" (.ZIP, 80k)