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AKA :
The Phoenix Code The Soundtrack
Released At :
Datastorm 2017
Credits :
| Code | .... | Trap of Bonzai |
| | | Walt of Bonzai |
| Music | .... | Drax of Bonzai, Camelot, Crest, Maniacs of Noise, Vibrants |
| | | Jeroen Tel of Focus, Maniacs of Noise, Oxyron |
| | | Laxity of Bonzai, Maniacs of Noise, Vibrants |
| | | Metal of Bonzai, Camelot, Vibrants |
| | | Scortia of Bonzai |
| Graphics | .... | Dize of Bonzai |
SIDs used in this release :
Download :
Look for downloads on external sites:
Pokefinder.org
Trivia Info
Submitted by Digger on 4 March 2017
Endtune @ Drax
Trap: This was one of 2 SID's that Drax composed for the demo. We asked him several times if we should expect any music from him. A few weeks before deadline, he managed to convince Jeroen Tel to donate one of his new songs to the demo. We are grateful for that, but we really wanted the return of Bonzai to be a production written entirely by the original BZ-members, so just 5 days before the deadline Drax surprised everybody by sending us not one, but 2 SID's :) ... gotta love him for his timing.
Hasta La Vista @ Drax
Trap: I don't think Drax had seen the endpart of the demo when he wrote this one, but it matched the mood we were looking for perfectly. This is just one of those melodies that glue to your brain. Did you know that the BZ shortname was inspired by the Danish "Besaetter" movement as a tribute (not sure the other members knew that)?
Tjainese Pops @ Scortia:
Since I stopped using trackers for music-composing back in 1993-1994 I haven't touched a tracker ever since, so getting back start using these tools was not an easy thing. Trap had for some time been pushing gently forward for me to do some SID music, so I decided to give it a go. I chose Cheesecutter as it looked more inviting than looking at a C64 UI. However, after composing half a tune I gave up, as tracking felt so much more as a struggle than composing with a sequencer that I had been used to the last 20 years. The Bonzai demo was about to be released soon and Trap started pushing forward one more time for me to finish the tune. So I pulled myself up and finished it and here it is (Tjainese pop) after 25 years of absence from the c64 scene, and there is for sure more to come. Peace...
Trap: The comeback from our most colorful musician. You immediately recognize his trademark soul-inspired style. I am not sure, but I think he spent quite a lot of time dragging this one over the finish line, but the result speaks for itself. This was the largest SID in the demo. We had to split the music into 6 parts to shoehorn it into memory. Fun fact, Scortia lives in Thailand now and has a day-job writing music and sound effects for games.
Phat Phunk @ Metal:
The deadline was creeping up on us and suddenly we needed music for the last section of the demo, so I pulled this one out of my sleeves. The funky bass came quickly from noodling on the Moog, and the later chord progression was adapted from a work-tune I had just done in Cubase. Really satisfied with how it worked out.
Trap: Metal, together with Scortia, was our most active musician back in the old days. His style is more in the techno/acid/house genre with a twist of soul/funk. I think his 2 contributions to the demo gave an awesome sense of energy and contributed really well to the up-speed vibe. Sometimes I wonder if he ever forgave me for not using his music in our Lethal Display demo for the PC scene :)
Too many notes @ Metal:
The track started out as an idea based on the bassline in an older Atjazz track, but it quickly evolved into something completely different. The idea then became to produce a steady grooving track with some melodic twists and changes to keep the vibe going and keep things interesting, while trying desperately to stay within the size-limits dictated by Trap. I failed miserably, but fortunately Trap, Walt (and Laxity?) managed to do the magic required to squeeze it in there.
Trap: One of the things that surprised me was that SID's today are so much bigger than what they used to be. Back in the old days, a good SID would fit nicely in 4096 bytes. Not so much anymore. This was one of those larger songs. Walt and I had a struggle with this as we originally didn't anticipate this. I guess it's the consequence of our talented musicians ability to squeeze so much out of the SID chip.
7-bit @ Laxity:
This track was started when I visited the TRSAC party in Aarhus in the fall of 2016. Most of it was written during some music competition in the background (which I believe was won by a good friend of mine :) - Bstrr). It's a bit of a messy track, which didn't really end up being that great, I think. The bass figure originally didn't have any notes on the one beat, which made it sound much more complicated - but due to popular vote it was changed (I guess I didn't like it enough to stick with it either :)).
Trap: It was Laxity's idea to create, what he called '80s intro music' for the swapping part. It's amazing how well it worked. Giving the viewer a feeling of slowdown of the pace of the demo. It worked really well with the turn disk part that has a much slower vibe than the rest of the demo. For me personally it is one of the favorite moments in the demo, second only to the feel of the intro sequence.
Intro Tune @ Laxity:
Way back when the Bonzai team set out to start doing some demoing again, I silently started working on some demo tracks. I'm not the most deterministic SID-composer, so there were quite a few short snippets of music. At some point, when Trap had been complaining enough about the lack of music for the demo, I sent some of the snippets around. Worktune 1 got some good attention, due to the bassy intro and finally ended up being the foundation for the intro tune for The Phoenix Code. Originally the track was quite different though, and only the bass and high pitch ostinate that was in the original track, ended up in the demo. The rest of the intro track, where it transitions into this german-foot sort of beat thing was created at Walt's, when Dize, Trap, and I went there to work on the demo, in the fall of 2016.
Trap: As with all good things, a great opening sequence was very important for the demo. The majestic sound of this, with the insane bass-vibes was spot on. Originally we had a completely different opening sequence that followed the traditional star-wars theme. We decided to ditch it. It just didn't work so well. Part of it was an 8-screen high bitmap scrolling up, but everybody lost interest before it completed. We tried to focus on giving the demo a high pace. Even with that in mind, the demo takes almost 15 minutes - crazy :)
Turn Disk @ Laxity:
I'm not sure, but I believe this could actually also have been based on a snippet from my Bonzai demo pool. It's constructed around an idea of the arpeggio echo effect. These are actually very slow arpeggios effects (note offsets driven by the player), and wave table programs interleaving waveforms slowly to create the echoing offset. That made it a bit of a hastle to edit, as there are some quite long gating passages and also sequences playing at an offset. I wish the track had been just a tad longer - it doesn't loop that great, but I just couldn't find the time to do it before it had to go into the demo. |
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