Featured • Interviews

TCTD Interview with AY-Riders’ Yerzmyey pt2

This is part 2 of an interview with AY Rider, Yerzmyey. Please look here for part 1.

LB – I think my favorite release of yours was FREAKuencies on 8BP but I like Interphase on DWD a lot too. Which of your own releases do you like most and why?

Y – Actually I don’t like very much my own music. If You ask me about music, I simply prefer AY-RIDERS’ albums. It’s good to gather a bunch of various people to get various and diverse album(s). Then it gets much more interesting. As for myself, I mostly try to fight with the AY’s limitations. :) It’s damn hard to force it to generate some _interesting_ synthethesized sound. All we get is only square waves or some acid noises. In contrast to the Atari ST, we use only original hardware posibilities or AY/YM chip, so the work is harder. Anyway, if You want to listen to good ZX Spectrum music, then don’t listen to my crap but go quickly and download AY-RIDERS albums. :)

LB – What inspired you to start writing music? Was is a particular song or game or person?

Y – Hmmmmm. From the music side in general, probably it was electronic music. Marek Bilinski’s art creativity or KOTO’s stuff… Also Vangelis, Jarre, Kraftwerk… Hm. From the game-music side, it was ZX Spectrum stuff, like “Agent-X”, “Chronos” or “Raw Recruit”. Generally – all the incredible stuff from Tim Follin. We used to say that they’re NOT games with musix but – musix with some games attached :)musix with some games attached.  And for demo-scene inspirations, surely it was Ziutek from ‘Ethanol Soft Inc’ group, as well as Hacker Kicia (with his demo songs for SoundTracker 1.1 ZX AY editor).demo-songs

Continue reading TCTD Interview with AY-Riders’ Yerzmyey pt2

Chipmusic • Featured • Interviews • Music Artists • Spectrum

TCTD Interview with AY-Riders’ Yerzmyey

This week TCTD talks to Yerzmyey, organizer of AY Riders, producer of awesome tunes, lover of the z80 and generally all round amazing guy. So thanks very much to Yerz for being so generous with his time and lets get down to business!

Lazerbeat – Where are you from?

Yerzmyey – Ah, well. I come from Rubber Planet. ;) A place where all computers have rubber keyboards. ;) Well, actually that’s not exactly true. :) ZX Spectrum was highly popular in PL, in 80s and early 90s, however, somehow it stopped suddenly and now literally only a few people support the machine here. Cry, cry! As for geography matters ;) , my mother’s family came here from Czech and Austria (in that time it was connected with Hungary) and my father came here from Lithuania.

LB – It looks like you have been active in the Demo scene for for over 20 years. How old were you when you founded H-PRG? Why did you start it?

Y – First programs we made with Mr Hangman about 1987. We were 12 years old or so, in those days. :) We were only making games (just occasionally some simple pseudo-demos, haha). The games were not that bad actually :) – ugly but playable. Sadly in those times the only thing we had for saving the progs – was a tape-recorder, so the games didn’t survive to the present day, heh. Our the earliest programs that have survived come from 1989, so I took the date as a beginning of the HOOY-PROGRAM group. :)

And what is funny, it wasn’t me who started all of this, it was my younger brother (who isn’t very interested in 8-bit nowadays, after all) who met Mr Hangman – and HE started making ZX games with him. :) I only joined them. But then my brother lost interest (well, not in playing games but in making them :) ), and I stayed. In this way we founded a team. ;)

They were funny times. :) I remember that we had to be very careful and save our programs very often because every time Mr Hangman’s refrigerator/fridge turned on – then ZX Spectrum got reset, hahaha. :)

Also, while loading (from tape of course) everybody was forced to leave to room, so as not to disturb the loading process. Continue reading TCTD Interview with AY-Riders’ Yerzmyey

videos

Teleidofusion - Around Past show (Live @ Ex:Libris 20 March, 2010)

There are two teasers from the gig we (C-jeff and Megus) made in Moscow on March, 20. Full-length record is coming soon.

Teleidofusion: “Summer Mood” live in Moscow

Teleidofusion: “T.W.W.F.” live in Moscow

Releases

Teleidofusion -

Teleidofusion is a music project by C-jeff and Megus, 8-bit musicians from Russia. Their music is a fusion of 8-bit sounds, modern synthesizers and real instruments.

Roman “Megus” Petrov – guitars, bass (3, 5, 10), shakuhachi (2), khomus (2), vocals (7)

Dmitry “C-jeff” Zhemkov – keyboards, vocals (7)

Chris J. Hampton – alto saxophone (5)

All music by Teleidofusion except “Fat Cat Wants Tasty Fish” by Alexander “Manwe” Matchugovsky

Recorded and mixed by Roman “Megus” Petrov
Artwork by Sergey “RayNoa” Kostik

Teleidofusion – “Around Past”.

TCTD 2009 Awards

TCTD Awards 2009: Best Release

“Release” is sort of an abused term in the chip community. TCTD regards the term “release” as:

  • Contains a number of quality tracks from an artist or groups of artists
  • Album artwork and hosting so you can easily direct friends who might want to learn more about the artist or label
  • Quality tracks

The nominees this year include a variety of formats, from ROM carts to vinyl to digital to CD. Their common thread is that they are all collections of great tracks by some of the best artists in the game.

Here are your 2009 Best Release nominees:

Bud Melvin –  Popular Music / Self Released

Bud is one of the most interesting voices in the chip music scene, his songs eschew chip music cliches and use a wide spanning soundscape to paint expressive backgrounds for his madcap narratives.

Bondage FairiesCheap Italian Wine / LoboTom

Sweden’s favorite 8bit, punk rock, robot duo’s sophomore release did not disappoint, with more Pixes flavored Devo-inspired scatologia  that rocks from the first synth warble to the last downbeat.

Alex MauerVegavox2 / Pause

The master of the NES ROM album world (and thanks to NO CARRIER, it is actually becoming a world), this ROM showcases Alex’s acknowledged mastery of the 2a03 and gives you a glimpse of his lesser known pixel chops.

V/A – Blip Festival 2008: 32 Live Recordings / 8bitpeoples and 2playerproductions

Perhaps the definitive live chip music document, this release showed that the energy of Blip Festival and its performers can indeed be captured and will remain a keepsake of all involved for years to come.

c-jeffelectric / Pause

c-jeff’s concept EP shows off his considerable musical chops (with some help from his friends) and is one of the more touching and cerebral releases of 2009.