[ultra-rare/overlooked .MODs] Supernao+Azazel/TBL - "Demotune.Add" (added 06/01/02) This track, featured on The Black Lotus' late-period Amiga demo, "Glow", is featured simply because it came out so relatively late in the Amiga's lifespan, and "Glow" only worked on faster computers, if memory serves. So, as well as featuring obscure stuff which is really old, sometimes we'll feature neat, 'obscure' stuff that may have appeared after most people left the Amiga scene, or demos needed to be run on Amigas with accelerators. So, we @ ST-00 are big fans of Dutch .MOD-geek Supernao (aka Nao, earlier!) and his super-perky music, and in this case, the collaboration with king of the Goa style, Azazel, seems to have worked out really good - it's seven minutes of gorgeously chilled cut-up breaks. We dig it mucho. "Demotune.Add" (.ZIP, 283k) NHP+BKH/Anarchy - "Enigma Year" (added 03/08/01) Despite being in such famous groups as The Silents, Anarchy and Scoopex, the French duo of NHP and BKH simply aren't THAT famous in the whole .MOD recognisability stakes, perhaps at least partly because they didn't do scores to many well-known demos (their most famous production was probably the "Spring Melodies" music-disc for Anarchy). This tune did soundtrack a Silents France demo, though, just not that famed a one. Of course, NHP+BKH had to fight with the saintly Audiomonster to do sountracks for Silents France demos, which can't have helped! Which is why this great, fairly early (1991?) track gets into our rare/overlooked section with ease. "Enigma Year" (.ZIP, 156k) Dreamer/TRSI - "Sun" (added 22/04/01) Rather obscure and roundly slept-on, this track from the zany Polish musician Dreamer (infamous in .MOD circles by composing at least one tune in Protracker so it ran backwards, from the bottom of the pattern to the top!) was used to highlight Lazur's spectacular pixel-drawn graphics in the Nah-Kolor slideshow, "Sun", which came out sometime in about 1995. We highlighted another of his tunes in the 'classic .MODs' section, but this particular track, which starts by cutting up Enya, and then moves smoothly into tweaky breakbeats, is well worth a listen.. "Sun" (.ZIP, 171k) Nutcase/Balance - "Nightline's Colors" (added 19/02/01) Having gone largely unknown in major demo-releasing circles throughout his .MOD career in the early 90s, it seems a shame that Sami Saarnio, the Finnish musician aka Nutcase/Balance, was quite so neglected by listeners. Tho this writer knew Sami back then, I don't think I'm too biased in saying that tunes like "Nightline's Colors", all sleek and flight of foot, and composed in about 1993 for Balance's excellent "Upstream" discmag, deserve a second listen. Or a third, even.. "Nightline's Colors" (.ZIP, 92k) Scott/Spaceballs - "Tried But Failed" (added 08/01/01) Now we're talking obscure. It came 9th at a Norwegian copy-party in 1993, it's clearly unfinished, but Scott/Spaceballs, who provided a number of great soundtracks for both Spaceballs demos such as "Wayfarer" and their "RAW" discmag, turned up a complete gem with his music competition entry way back then. Check out the the perfectly positioned percussion, the smooth-as-heck melodies, the perfect lead lines - and put the .MOD on permanent repeat. Now. "Tried But Failed" (.ZIP, 122k) 911/Rebels+Movement - "Numb Tune" (added 10/12/00) 911, a Dutch musician who hung round with the Facet+Astro+Snao evil trio, had an excellent hand at minimalistic, dance-flecked chiptunes, and this, one of his best efforts, came later in his scene-career as the soundtrack to Movement's "Numb" demo. "Numb" was a supremely stylish trackmo designed by Alex, the French artist well-known for his work with Melon Design, and this particularly loopily chunky, almost triphop track is, imho, an overlooked gem. Hard to believe it came out all the way back in 1993. Still, enjoy.. "Numb Tune" (.ZIP, 146k) Mad Freak/Anarchy - "Dying Rainforest" (added 20/11/00) Mad Freak/Anarchy, later known as Julius/Lemon., is best known for his great tunes in Anarchy's classic "3D Demo II", plus his tune in Lemon.'s "Announce", both brilliant. But this much lesser-known track, unreleased in any demo, shows his brilliance at laid-back, contemplative .MODs, whilst showing the extent to which Enigma's album which included "Sad(e?)ness" influenced the whole demo scene at the time (about '91?) Dr.Awesome memorably sampled the drums for one of his compositions, and whilst this track doesn't have as obvious samples in it, it's still awfully reminiscent of Enigma/Deep Forest, but with an additional something that makes it a little special.. "Dying Rainforest" (.ZIP, 163k) Randall/Suburban Base - "In Complete Darkness" (added 03/11/00) Just to confuse things, Randall took his name from the famous hardcore/jungle DJ and his group name from the famous hardcore/jungle label - but he actually had nothing to do with either of them! He was, however, Swedish, and evidently a voracious consumer and regurgitor of early jungle tracks, as this particular .MOD shows. He has been accused of simply recreating existing tracks as .MODs, but the drum programming is devilishly nimble, and the tracks he's 'borrowing' from tend to be so obscure we can hardly tell - and in the end, for 1993-1995, his tunes sounded so good, nobody cared! This is from the 13-floppy-disc music-disc (?!) called "Dance Diverse II".. which, needless to say, not a lot of people got to hear.. "In Complete Darkness" (.ZIP, 235k) Hein Design/Vision - "Can't Be" (added 22/10/00) From the Dutch and multi-talented Hein, this semi-forgotten gem of a track, itself a cover/re-interpretation of an old C64 tune by Wave (Jeroen Tel), I've heard.. (UPDATE: it's from the C64 game soundtrack "Rubicon" by Jeroen Tel and Rene Ouwehand, .SID file here, play it with Sidplay, thanks to _SoLo_..) Anyhow, Hein's version came out in about 1993 alongside the classic demo of the same name. Hein went on to do the game Disposable Hero, amongst other things, but nothing has _ever_ been as catchy as this monster. Please repeat play forever. :) "Can't Be" (.ZIP, 65k) Superted/Grotesticle - "My Mind Is Glowing" (added 11/10/00) Considering this is probably Superted's most famous track, and _still_ nobody's heard it, file this Norwegian tracker from the mid-90s (also known as Felix on occasion) as 'criminally neglected'. In this case, sci-fi sampling + jackhammer beats = a mid-period .MOD classic. Now, if we can only dig out that Smurfs happy hardcore track he did.. ;) "My Mind Is Glowing" (.ZIP, 411k) Chorus/Razor 1911 - "I Play the Blues" (added 01/10/00) Another rare track from Chorus, and this time some more conventional blues action, the signature sound of Chorus and Sid. :) Apparently originally made for Dansktoppen (the Danish Amiga demo-scene charts) back in 1995, I wonder if this was ever used? "I Play the Blues" (.ZIP, 106k) Deelite + Accord/X-Trade+Razor 1911 - "Funk's a Religion" (added 23/09/00) You just can't keep Swedes from rocking, can ya? ;) Heh, this great track is from 1993, originally to be for an unreleased music-disc, I think... and it's rare, rocking, and great. [Deelite+Accord go down as one of the few great music double-acts on the scene, alongside Mantronix+Tip, Mahoney+Kaktus, and Some1+Prime!] Funk's a Religion (.ZIP, 76k) Elf/Abstract - "Inv-Tune" (added 16/09/00) A forgotten classic by Elf, latterly of Moment22 and a really rather under-rated musician, this is a great, groovy synth-pop track. The bass is especially slinky. :) You won't find this (at least it's not obvious!) on the MODs Anthology 4xCD - yaah, another cute neglected track put to rights. "Inv-Tune" (.ZIP, 30k) Groo/Virtual Dreams - "Musta-Kaapio" (added 08/09/00) It's getting ever trickier to dig out those rare tracks ('rare' defined as not being on the pretty damn canonical 18,000 MOD "MODs Anthology", heh!), but here's another previously rare/unreleased one we got via mail-swapping with Groo way back in the day.. it's excellent proto-rave, a bit like his messed-up soundtracks to "Mina Omistan" and "C42".. and yeah, most of these rare tracks have come direct off 880k Amiga floppies, hah! "Musta-Kaapio" (.ZIP, 80k) Oistein Eide/Maniacs Of Noise - "Most To Vocal" (added 01/09/00) I would think most people on the tracking scene are aware of one Wave, winner of a MC music competition or two, and also known as Jeroen Tel of Maniacs of Noise. Well, way back when, there were quite a few other Maniacs, and Oistein Eide (famously clashing with other famous scene characters way back then!) was one of them. Check out this really rather funkee tune - it's on the rare side. ;) "Most To Vocal" (.ZIP, 231k) Chorus/Razor 1911+Jewels - "Importance of Art" (added 23/08/00) Another from my sekrit vaults (I used to swap with a lot of these guys by snail-mail, so quite a few of these rare tunes are unreleased on the Net before..), this is a raather funky experimental track by Chorus, more often known for his blues guitar MODs. But. This. Rules. Too. :) "Importance of Art" (.ZIP, 214k) Spaceman/Spaceballs (aka Nuke) - "Ice Cidz" (added 14/08/00) Another rare one, this time a late track from Spaceman (this one isn't on the 4CD MODs Anthology!) nowadays doing game music at Core Design and deep house as Atjazz. It's techno, which is rare for him, and it's excellent, which is very common for him. :) "Ice Cidz!" (.ZIP, 79k) Ukulele/Banal Projects - "Dilemma Magnaruxius" (added 04/08/00) Not even on the MODs Anthology 4xCD, this great Ukulele track, from back in 1993, shows his inspired Finnish style, along with the jazzy stylings and cool samples. One of the most under-rated musicians on the Amiga scene, and one of the best, too. :) "Dilemma Magnaruxius" (.ZIP, 132k) Weasel/Trivium - "Seadog Medley" (added 29/07/00) Umm.. aahh.. well, I picked this one up from somewhere or other, and I think it's rare.. it's just bonkers, really. :) But it's absolutely excellent, and I don't think anyone's really heard it. So grab a mug of grog and sit down with your PC.. yeeehah! "Seadog Medley" (.ZIP, 101k)