Lord Helmet invites you to have a look at his ancient record collection and shares his top list of his favourite old school Amiga tunes.
Amiga music artists I will always remember!
by Lord Helmet
I know you all agree that the Amiga scene has produced some magnificent musicians. Many of them were so talented, that they have pursued a professional career after their scene life ended. Although I like a good demo and great graphics it’s the music that bring back the best feelings to me. Especially music from the early scene years 88-93. In this period, I was lucky to meet so many talented and gifted people during my work with R.A.W. I truly miss working internationally and experience talents that was really flowing into our beautiful scene at the time.
In this article I present to you 11 modules that I listen to repeatedly even in the year 2022.
„Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance, what are we?
So I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me“
–Benny Andersson
Remember that this is not a list of the 10 best musicians. It’s a list of mods and artists that have meant something special for me. Music is about feelings and personal taste.
1. Firefox and Tip/ Jimmy Fredriksson & Robert Oesterbergh
Hyperbased (Enigma theme)
What a classic! For me this is the number 1 Amiga song of all time. Even people that didn’t own an Amiga liked this one. How often does that happen? The song is energetic and makes you happy. Just turn up the volume and enjoy!
Back in the time I had contact with Tip and Mantronix mostly by mail.
They wrote articles for RAW. I also published an article from Maniacs of Noise that wasn’t fond of their music. Afterwards there was some noise and unserious stuff going on that I was a part of as a main editor of RAW.
My interview: scenes.at/p-6y8h.
2. Bjoern Lynne / Dr.Awesome – Space Deliria
Dr. Awesome was doing a lot of tunes in early scene years (88-90). I especially enjoy Moongazer, Himalyan Summit and Space Deliria.
Thankfully in 2000 Bjoern Lynne released ‚Revive*‘ that was a remix of some of his best Amiga works. I cannot recommend this album high enough! So great is it! On this album Moongazer is my favorite. I spend hours listening to this album while programming or working.
Bjoern has worked fulltime with music the last 30 years. First, he made music for games, television and films. Lately he started to publish music that he sells for commercial use through his own music publishing company lynnemusic.com. (Btw.: His online shop is offline at the moment!)
Remember that Bjoern contacted me to advertise for his first CD in RAW. Lately I’ve been his customer as our company licensed some of his music for use in a company advertisement. So yes, I still support great Amiga artists :-)
Please listen on his Album ‚Revive‘ on Spotify: scenes.at/zkdz8h
Original Space Deliria Amiga: scenes.at/9vkz8h
3. Jogeir Liljedahl – Helmet shake
Jogeir has done a lot of smooth tunes both on C64 and Amiga. You can listen to his tunes for hours and forgetting about time and place. This was a perfect match for the RAW magazine. He made this tune ‚Helmet Shake‘ especially for me and RAW #6. A bit biased but this has to the best diskmag tune ever. You can dream and read for hours listening to it. For me this brings back memories of the better days. He also made the tune for RAW #7 „Living on a dream“ that is excellent. No doubt that Jogeir was my nr.1 choice as musician for RAW.
You can find this tune and a lot of others on his album „The Wanderer“ on Spotify: scenes.at/i7rz8h
Helmet Shake: scenes.at/shzz8h
Living in a dream: scenes.at/2s6z8h
4. Gladatior/Hans Arild Runde – Alpha and Omega
WHAT? you may say. Who is this? Most of you may never heard about him. Another Norwegian? Yes! We are talking about a person who played an important part of the very first Amiga scene years 87/88 . ‚IT‘ was one of the best groups in Norway and I liked their demos and the music Hans made.
Today the samples may not the greatest, but at the time they were great. Those first demos inspired me to be more involved in the Amiga scene. I can still hear these mods and remember the time the demos were made in a weekend. Those were the days!
A search on Google shows that Hsnd lately has been a chess player on national TV and is working as a programmer.
Song: Alpha and omega: scenes.at/b4c08h
Song: 1200 AD: scenes.at/lek08h
5. Moby / Frédéric Motte – Pelforth Blues
Moby (ElMobo) is such a nice fellow. I’ve met him at a couple of demo parties and we did some years of disk swapping. His style was never to copy others. He had his own style. ‚Knulla kuk‚ is his most known mod. The name itself shows that Moby is anything but normal. Pelforth Blues is a nice Gary Moore/ ZZ top alike song that I like a lot. It’s dedicated to the French beer ‚Pelforth‘
Moby has also done a lot of music for games and TV-series during the years. He is still active making music.
Pelforth Blues: scenes.at/vpr08h
Moby YouTube channel: scenes.at/50y08h
Here you see Moby joking with me in his typical style (From RAW party Edition 91)
He still has the long hair after all those years :-)
6. Walkman/Tor Bernhard Gausen – Klisje på Klisje
Epic tune. An odd mix of piano and electric guitar. Perfect transitions and lots of great parts. This song became the standard for what was possible to do in soundtracker. I’ve been present at the No Limits party in Arendal in 1990 where this song was included in the winning demo „The Hunt for 7th October„. Remember we all were blown away by this module.
Another one who was present at this party was Svein Berge, who showed his game „Twintris„. A lot of you (including me) have spent hours of hours playing this game. Walkman also made the music the excellent music for Twintris. Read the interview with Svein Berge in RA.W #1.
A fun fact is that the Twintris programmer Svein Berge made it to the music scene as part of the duo Röyksopp. They have been greatly successful with over 45 millions plays on Spotfy for their biggest hit! I recommend you check out ‚The girl and the robot‚
Klisje paa Klisje: scenes.at/eb608h
Girl and the robot: scenes.at/omc18h
Interview Svein Berge RAW #1: scenes.at/yxj18h
7. Hymn To Aurora – Fredrik Skogh
What a strong melody! This is a song that you either love or hate. It has a strong and catchy melody. I see a lot of remixes is made of this song. The reason for this must be that people see the potential in the melody. I believe the song is quite empathic and sad. The melody is so catchy that it can stay in your head for a long time. I can’t remember other songs from Fredrik so I guess we can call this for a one hit wonder.
Youtube song: scenes.at/88q18h
8. RIFF-RAFF / Zapper – Joergen Manke
Another quite unknown artist with a song from the much-underrated demo from PMC „Mesmerized„. Joergen was (and is still) living in the same town as me and we spent a lot of time together with the Amiga. He was a real talent and he followed me to join PMC. I was always impressed with his struggle against the limitations of the Soundtracker. One day he played me a sax sample and tried to experiment with it. It was nice feeling to be a part of the process from start to end of this song.
Joergen is today working as songwriter/producer for Storytelling recordings: storyteller.no
Mesmerized / RIFF-RAFF: scenes.at/hjy18h
Zapper / PMC ala Jorgen Manke has his own studio company (2021)
9. Jester / Volker Tripp – Stardust memories
The master of synthpop for demos. While he was a member of the scene, he also had his own band „Minimal Art“. I remember Volker has send me some tapes from this band. I had some mail exchanges with Volker. Also interviewed him for RAW #5 there he burst out some facts about Bit Arts annoyed for not being chosen by Chaos. Typical RAW style! Interviews should not be boring. His music suits perfect to the Sanity demos from Chaos. Jester always has great synth samples which gives a real good sound. Stardust Memories is my favorite from the demo World of Commodore. Although ‚Molecule’s revenge‚ is also a masterpiece that you must listen to if you don’t know it.
Stardust memories: scenes.at/ru518h
Interview raw #5: scenes.at/15b28h
10. Norbert Roecher / Bit Arts – Synergy
The song ‚Synergy‘ brings boost of energy and passion. This is one of the best tunes on the Amiga. The whole song boasts confidence. It’s a perfect tune for a demo. Would love to use it for an RAW intro, but it was used as an intro for the Turmoil music disc by Sanity.
Bit Arts also composed some very famous tunes for the best megademo of all time, Red Sector Megademo. In particular ‚Wasteland‘ is a gem. Recently I found a 2021 remix by D4xx I enjoyed. Normally I don’t like remixes by others as they normally destroy the original feeling. This doesn’t!
In his last scene years Bit Arts did more techno/trance stuff like ‚Reach tech.no limit‘ which I liked a lot.
Truly one of the greatest!
Synergy: scenes.at/agj28h
Wasteland Remix: scenes.at/krq28h
11. Jesper Kyd – Global Trash 3
Of all Amiga musicians Jesper Kyd is the most successful in 2022! Why? He still makes successful music for films and games. His music has millions of plays on Spotify. He has won several top honors for Best Original Score. He has been nominated for awards on MTV and Billboard. I am so proud of his Amiga background.
On Amiga the Global Thrash 3 v2 that was in the Hardwired demo is by far his best Amiga work. Excellent tune and excellent demo. I was at the party and still don’t understand why Odyssey won!
Jesper kyd on Spotify: scenes.at/u2x28h
Global Trash tune: scenes.at/4c528h
During the making of this list I heard a lot of excellent Amiga tunes that brought good memories back. I could easily have doubled the list, so some really great artists had to make place and are missing out.
Some of you ask why only oldschool? The reason is that I was 100% in the scene from 88 to about 1993. I think I saw nearly every demo and visited lot of parties. I made lot of friends and every day I got 20-30 envelopes with disks in my mailbox. After 1993 I haven’t followed the scene as closely. So I am stuck in the 80ies both in Amiga music and real music. I enjoy listening to Alphaville, OMD, Joy Division. Tears for Fears and other electric bands from the 80s.
But I have been listening to Amiga music for 32 years and I guess I will continue for another 32 years :-)
Please continue posting modules on Amiga.org, youtube, demozoo and other places.
Keep safe and enjoy Amiga!
Lord Helmet
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