Labels:text | screenshot OCR: MEGA-WATTS - "A TASTE OF U4IA" MUSIC DISK 17-BIT SOFTWARE DISK NO: 2915 Reviewed by Bjorn A. Lynne U4IA (pronounced "Euphoria"!) is a scene-musician who's been out there for quite a long time; and has also got himself a quite good reputation in the Amiga scene, because of repeatedly releasing nice music for both demos and music disks. This disk contains 4 songs by U4IA and one by another fellow simply called JC. The disk starts off with a series of nice pictures of some exploding flames, with various texts written into it. It is also accompanies by an extremely "jolly" sounding fun song, which I can't help think collided *totally* with the appearance of the graphics, which looked dark, gloomy and scary? Ok, well into the menu, we're given a basic looking simple highlighting the screen displaying the 5 titles and one you're currently hearing. Fair enough . The actual music has obviously been put a great deal of work quite original. into. It is polished, alive, and some times also The first song, "Astronaught's Requiem" sets the mood right away, as it uses a long and nice intro, then comes into a very mellow sounding solo with just the right amount of vibrato and echo. After a while of this, we hear some "astronaught radio noises and voices", while the song enters a more intense feel using a fast 6/8 beat and a quite frantic melody playing. Then everything breaks down again to a more moody and suspense part; and like this it all goes on, visiting different moods and styles as it goes along. It changes every so often that it doesn't get boring. Good stuff this; and we haven't even got to U4IA's stuff yet! (This particular piece was made by "JC"). Just one question, JC: What in the name of all stars and planets was the *barking dog* doing way up there in space with the astronaughts? Were the space-travellers allowed to bring their pets on their journey? Totally misplaced, that dog- bark was! Ok, we move onto the first one of U4IA's songs, "This Heart Beats 4 U", and the feeling that this is a high quality music disk is only firmer set. Although I've heard most of instruments about a million times before, it is very very obvious that unlike most tracker-musicians, U4IA actually has some sense of musical moods and also some knowledge of basic music theory, which enables him to write songs that sound "real" and not so much "typically tracked" as most other musicians. Ok, this particular song wasn't the best I've heard, but still, it's easy to tell that U4IA has that extra touch to make him stand out from the masses of Amiga musicians. "Never End My Friend" returns to more typical "dance style" with the polysynth chords occasional "ough?" sample, the fresh the acid-like bass consisting of several slightly different samples. Not at all bad, but just nothing special. Good production, though - it *sounds* like something coming from someone who's handled trackers for a long time - and does it well. "Je Ne Sais Pas", which sounds like it is french and means something like "Would you like to sit on my face" (but probably "french" doesn't), and this song also sounds quite in it's chord progressions and melody line, so it's easy to know how U4IA got the idea to give it a french title. The samples here are *very* good, crystal clear tine-piano sounds, and the overall sound of the production is only let down by a "too typical" lead-sound, a nasty saw-lead which has been used in so many tracker songs that even the Amiga-beginners must think of it as over-used. The last song is titled "Mandie" and it picks up the pace more or less where "This Heart Beats 4 U" left off, with mellow chords and a fairly "live" sounding saxophone. But this track soon brings in a distorted guitar to add a bit of groove and power into it. The drums are also somewhat meatier and harder. After the relatively "pretty" opening, this soon turns into a rather hectic rock- track with fast solos playing on top of a repetitive rock back beat. But alas, just as I was thinking that the rest of the song would be like this, it all breaks down to some spacey chords again and with a mellow lead on top. Hey, it almost starts to remind me of Progressive Rock, my above-all favourite music style! The pace picks back up, first slowly but firmly, and then faster and more hectic again. Very original and good work, U4IA! In all, I'd say that this was by far the best disk that I had the pleasure of reviewing for this issue of AM/FM. In contrast to the other disks I tested, this is actually one that I could find myself inserting in my Amiga, simply to listen to the music. All of the tracks were above-average, and a couple of them were even jolly good! Rating: 80 % AM FH
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