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::i ,d**b:: ,d**b:: i:: ,d**b:: ::i :: ::i ::i.n.
. . . . . . . . .:: . .:: Si
logo by Silicon, founder of Radiance, from the Fire 0896 newsletter.
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you some deeper wisdoms from Ay Lektrique,
shepherd of Fires music division circa April-May 1997, when the long-simmering
Radiance project finally 0896!?! came to light:
AL: The Radiance music disk was the first and only Fire Productions project
involving music. The goal was to create a compilation of songs from different
artists that werent from the demoscene. Here we found styles ranging from IDM
to electronica, with a little bit of gabber. We ended up with a rather unique
compilation, and some of the artists involved continued into the MP3/CD scene,
releasing tracks on different mediums in later years, gathering even more
attention. Looking back, this was one of the most avant-garde music projects
done with tracker music, and marked the beginning of a new, more diverse,
independent electronic music distribution online on the net.
Cthulu: Can you say a little bit about the strangeness of starting a music
project populated exclusively with celebrated ANSI artists not known at all for
making music, computer or otherwise? I think somewhere in our back exchanges
you had a hilarious quip about how you knew Eerie and Lord Jazz ?! as those
guys you would jam with once in a while, and only later realised they were also
ANSI gods in the artscene.
AY: Lol! The Lord Jazz stuff appeared a bit later though, through his netlabel
fuck vinyl... after the MP3 revolution came and swept all of the artists away
from the artscene. Some of them continued their musical activity, like Gimp
Gadget Oscillation and me... but despite gathering a couple of songs for a
follow-up release, this was the one and only Radiance collection to ever be
compiled and released. All that work put into programming and skinning our
music player never came to anything!
As usual, no one has any adequate explanation as to why or how the unique
archive fell out of circulation, seemingly in a permanent fashion. While
undertaking work for MIST1014, Cthulu found he had kept copies of the songs in
the Radiance pack, but none of the supporting infofile, etc. files. He was
prepared to reconstruct the music disk context-free and put the tunes back in
print, but after six months of poking and prodding, a copy of the disk was
successfully exhumed from Nails backup of his defunct BBS The Crypt.
The satisfaction that the data was exhumed from a crypt is such that we need to
just bask in the afterglow here for a moment. Its just so appropriate and
fitting.
It suffered some corruption, but between the two sets we made a complete disk.
The music disk as it stands now should be much as it was in May of 1997 with a
few exceptions: as you have no doubt noticed, we have fortified the infofile.
Also, though we have kept it on board, we have switched out the FILEID.DIZ for
one that sticks out a more accessible face to the world and begs the question
what would it look like if Mistigris and Fire had kept their March 1995 merger
a going concern?
Well, we dont know what it would have looked like and its kind of pointless
to speculate, but this jointly-populated music disk at least gives us some
kind of idea of what it would have /sounded/ like.
start
* the radiance introduction disk featuring mistigris *
for almost two months, we have been preparing the launch of the fire
music division named radiance. i was asked to coordinate this division thru
eerie, who was in fire at the time, and by god among lice, the current head
of fire productions.. at the time, nobody had any real idea of group
objectives and the kind of sound we were going to aim for but it quickly
became apparent that it would become something of the experimental
electronica sort. we have had members joining and leaving, members saying
they would join but didnt, members who wanted to join but didnt fit in with
the kind of sound we wanted to finally settle down to four official members
i say official because there are others which will produce music shortly
but right now are not officially in radiance because they have not
released. i dont have anything much to say except that we had many problems
putting this pack up so it was delayed again and again... but now with the
help of the Mist crew and of many others, we have finally made it happen.
- aylek trique
* the radiance members were:
aylek trique - aylektriq@geocities.com
zircus - zircus@goodnet.com
oscilate - nailed@primenet.com
eerie - aijaa@geocities.com
end
and now a word from our sponsor:
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mi s t i g r is
mu s i c 97 ascii by dead soul mist
Cthulu here. That is, Cthulu of Mistigris. Its May... hell, its
almost June, but the repercussions of our touring with Fire in April are even
now being felt all over the computer art scene. Tying with the debut pack
of Radiance, Fires music division, we felt that it would be mighty
neighbourly to drop off some songs while we were in the area. So we did.
This keeps down the size of the graphic art packs, ensures that the people
who hear these actually WANT to, and is also a good way to promote MistMusic.
Lacking a better outlet for this news, we at MistMusic would like to
make a few public announcements.
1 Mistigris Music department is now in the clammy but capable hands of
Esquire and Handiboy.
2 They may be setting up a music HQ in the 604 area code, and if this
happens, rumour has it that it will be called PLASTIQUE.
3 Handiboys work can most reliably be found in Blender packs, as he
contributes practically every week and wins about every three weeks or so 8
4 Mistigris Music would also like to announce its unofficial marriage with
Sonic Equinox, a 604-based music/demo group. Check out Mist and SE music in
the recent release SED0597.ARJ.
5 Also check out for pending releases from New Media Productions, including
the results of the second Tracker Fix meet!
6 This is a disclaimer: Radiance in the context of this newsletter refers to
Radiance, the new Fire music department run by Aylektriq, and not to Radiance,
the dormant 604-based music group run by Zinc, of which Foolish Bird and Jake
Blues were members.
7 Finally, we wish the best of luck to our Fire and Radiance compatriots, and
hope to work with you again some day. We cant give a better parting gift
as you start your long trip than our own music, so we have weighed you down
as we see fit. Hopefully our diversity will inspire you to greater heights of
musicality.
heres the music listings...
CT-TRUST S3M 232608 Unsure - Cthulu
Ambient. Longtime writer Cthulu makes one of his first
public ventures into the field of computer music
creations with this juxtaposition of piano and strings
with hard electronic bloops and bassy drum tracks.
ESQ-SLCN XM 267851 Silicon - Esquire
Dance. Its got a beat and I can dance to it. Acid
electronic sounds cant hurt it, as well 8.
FB-S S3M 409009 Sterile - Foolish Bird
Industrial. Really hard electronic noises paired off
with solid drumwork and a dash of noise thrown in to
taste.
FRRD2NO S3M 247617 Road to Nowhere - Fritz
Depressed Ambient. Trent Reznor on a sunny day.
JB-NEO XM 435657 Neo Tokyo Dawning - Jake Blues
Unique. Jake Blues aims to capture the essence of the
taiko japanese drumming, as inspired by the music
in the closing credits of the movie Akira. Also a
personal milestone - first song over 10 minutes. A
symphony of percussion.
YT-BRAIN S3M 105525 Brain Lingerie - Neophyte
YT-FAME S3M 104599 Famous Creatures - Neophyte
PunkFunk. Neophyte, better known for his ANSI art in
Mistigris and Lazarus, comes up with an interesting
debut in this pair of short but catchy songs. Watch out
for a lot more music from him in the near future.