Labels:text | screenshot OCR: AM/FM MUSIC DISK REVIEW: Title Producer : Imperial Tunes 1 : Parasite 17 bit No : 2286 No. Disks : 1 No. Tracks: 9 (See footnote) Musicians : Slide and Liquid AM/FM Parasites' intro segment to this disk is quite impressive in itself. A small fantasy picture first appears on boot-up, follwed a few seconds later by the start of a count-down sequence. The count-down is completed, and boom in comes the music. After a few brief messages and a bit more loading, the music selector screen pops up, and we're invited to select one of the nine songs. Insane People : This song also doubles up as the loading music, a task it's well suited to. It opens with a powerfull crash, accompanied by some dark-sounding strings. This "dark" theme is retained all the way through, the strings being joined by bass, synth, and drums. It's a fast moving piece though, creating a good atmosphere as the disk loads up. I've heard some of these samples before, and in fact this type of song isn't really original, but it's well put together, and sounds pretty good. Rating 6". Bares Brigade: Oh yeah, what a beautiful piece of music. It's mellow, warm, and it seems to have real emotion in it. The song starts with some peacefull strings, accompanied by a sax. The drums and bass come in, as the strings and sax continue through a variety of melodies. The tempo changes help create the different moods throughout this song; slow with the sax playing some incredibly high notes, sounded sad. As the tempo picked up, the sax's mood 21 also changed, suddenly full of life, making the whole song sound happy. It's u. a great song, the samples are crisp and clear, and sound original. If I really had to nitpick, the only fault I could find is the tune sounded a little bit like Firefoxes' and Tips' song from the Phenomena "Enigma" demo, but when the songs this good, who cares. Rating 8". Crused by Borden: This song has quite an intersting and original sound to it, the beat coming from bongo, and conga drums. One of the lead instruments was an accordian, (I think) and certainly created an interesting contrast. Again I can't fault the sampling, but nitpicking once more, I found the melody a little dull in a few places, which seemed to make the song drag out a bit. It's an original sound though, and very well put together. Rating 7. Free from Viruses: This is quite a short piece, with only two samples. One which sounds like a piano mixed with a string sample, and the other sounding like a synthetic flute. Basically the song's constructed with the piano playing the accompliment, while the flute plays the solo part. It's a very pleasent piece to listen to, and although it doesn't do anything spectacular, it's still a very nice song. Rating 7⁰. Hidden Rebel : This song contains some more recognizable samples, but that doesn't make it your average Amiga song. Part of the reason these songs are so good is their variety in melody, and some very atmospheric tempo changes. Like most songs on this disk, "Hidden Rebel" is almost impossible to describe in words. I can tell you this; it's fast, and the samples it uses give it a great sense of fun. It's no "Bares Brigade", but it's pretty good. Rating 7 Always : Yet another great song! How do Slide and Liquid get so much atmosphere into their songs? This song starts as a slow song, the brass sample playing it's sad lead part. lead part. Gradually, as the song progresses, the mood starts to change. The drums start playing a funkier beat, the strings become more powerfull, and even the brass sample starts to cheer up. Helped by another one of those great tempo changes, this song ends up sounding like a celabration of life. Again, a great orginal song, using crisp, and original samples. Rating 8". Free It still gets better, amazing! This is my favourite song on the disk (but the competition was strong). Starting very sad and slow, with some mellow strings, accompanied by a piano, and flute, it suddenly changes direction with the early introduction of an incredibly funky beat. The flute starts on a happier melody, and everything starts becoming generally more up-tempo. It doesn't stop there though, the mood and tempo is played with a few more more times just to keep you on your toes. What can I say? Fabulous. Rating 9 Cold Destiney : The comment on this song says, "Composed for all who admire real computer music". This is probably why the song doesn't pretend to use "normal" acoustic instruments, like flutes, guitars, or strings for example. What it does do is launch straight into a fast moving beat, and uses allsorts of syths for it's various lead and rhythm instruments. Again it's very difficult to describe; it's fast and fun to listen to. I've heard quite a few of the samples in the song before, but it still manages to bring some originality to quite an old theme. Rating 8. Strings in Space: What an intro, some powerful strings chords fade in, while the trumpet samples play what can alomost be described as a jubilant fanfare. The jubilance of the trumpets are retained throughout the piece, and the entire song has a very up-beat atmosphere to it. That's about the best way I can descibe it really. The brass samples sound as if they were made for this song, and as usual the rest of the samples were also excellent. Rating 9. Compositions Three words I don't use an awful lot when describing Amiga music are : Original, Emotive, and Atmospheric. I've used them quite often during the course of this review, and that's because the majority of these compositions do have it all. Need I say more? Rating 8. Samples - These are some of the cleanest, crispest samples I've ever heard on the Amiga. A great deal of effort has obviously gone into selecting the appropriate samples for each song, and it shows. All the instruments fit the various songs like a glove. O.K, so not all the samples are original, but because they're blended into the songs so well, they were very difficult to pick out. Rating 8". Presentation - I've already described the intro to this disk, so I'll talk about the main music selector program. The presentation of this program owes a lot to "Crystal Symphonies". It's not quite as polished as CS, there's no sprites jumping around, or any fireworks ging on, but it does have a few features that CS lacked. Like CS, this disk has a scroll menu, a song menu, and and a a very pretty credits part, but it also has a very useful function called "Play All". "Play All" does what the name suggests, and plays all the songs in sequence, allowing you to get on with something else. There are also CD player style gadets here as well which allow you to Play, Stop, Fast forward, and Fast rewind through the current song. The other useful feature is the "Mod Info" window, this tells you the title, running time, number of patterns, and length (bytes) of the song currently playing. It also tells you of any comments the composers have added about the song. A very user-friendly program. Rating 8. AM/FM Rating - Have you ever really, really like something, but you had some real problems trying to convey how good it was to you're freinds because of your enthusiasm for it? This is the problem I've had trying to describe the songs on this disk. this disk. All I can tell you is that this is a superb music disk, and you should lie, steal, beg, or do whatever you have to to get a copy. Highly recommended. Rating 9 Footnote - According to one of the scrollers, there is a hidden piece of music somewhere on this disk. It's not reviewed, because I didn't find it. If anyone does know how to select it, please tell me. AM/FM
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