Skaven
Musician of future-crew, one of the two names (with purple-motion) that the 1995–97 PC scene treats as its founding influences: Phoenix was inspired by "Maelcum, Skaven, and Deus" (source: s-tw001-interview-phoenix), Pinion heard "PM and Skaven" first on the computer (source: s-tw014-interview-pinion), Zinc "learned from Skaven (as has everybody else)" (source: s-tw032-interview-zinc) and Catspaw lists him with Moby, Dr. Awesome and PM as the old-school trackers he respects (source: s-tw057-interview-catspaw). Szalemandre counts his early chip songs among the classic chiptunes of 1995 (source: s-tw037-death-of-the-chiptune-debate).
Facts#
- The AdLib example song that ships with scream-tracker-3 is his (source: s-st3-manual); the Amiga "Sonix Lead" sound that Zapper played with in the 1980s "is still used by PM and Skaven — 2nd Reality is full of it" (source: s-tw027-interview-zapper).
- 1995–97 (source: s-tw109-interview-skaven): a year in Ireland studying cartoon animation, then computer-science studies in Finland from autumn 1996, paused for a job at Remedy Entertainment on the Max Payne project. Tracked with impulse-tracker — "practically Scream Tracker 4, and lots more" — and released the
.itsongs Revenge of the Cats and The Alchemist (a Music Contest 5 entry judged "too purple motionish"), a chip tune for the Emissions #3 musicdisk and a song made almost only from samples of his Casio CZ-101. Did not own a synthesizer; called himself "oldschool and old fashioned". Favourite trackers: necros and CCCatch. - On Future Crew's status in 1997 see future-crew.
- "Catch that Goblin" (S3M) won the Assembly '95 multichannel competition. necros rated it 6.5: a "surprisingly strange orchestral ditty" of about 2.5 minutes, uptempo and "full of sound effects", between the Second Reality end-credits music and Danny Elfman's Beetlejuice — the "crazy symphonic" film-score sound done well, but in his view "trite" once past the cuteness and "not worthy of being a compo winner" (source: s-tw024-in-review-asm95; see compos).
In the interviews (1995–96)#
- Ice Frontier is named by nemesis ("though Ice Frontier is a bit short") and jase; a favourite or influence of big-jim, mesonyx (who tried and failed to copy his style), smeghead, paganus, luv-kohli, Fred and loki ("I phear skaven hardcore"); esper-division "got into tracking after hearing skaven's work"; in balrog's PC dream team; thanked by daedalus (sources: s-tw004-interview-nemesis, s-tw022-interview-jase, s-tw013-interview-big-jim, s-tw028-faces-in-the-crowd-mesonyx, s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-smeghead, s-tw030-interview-paganus, s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli, s-tw031-interview-fred, s-tw035-interview-loki, s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division, s-tw042-interview-balrog, s-tw052-interview-daedalus).
- kal-zakath (April 1996): orchestral music is unique — "That's why Skaven is #1 in the Imphobia charts" (source: s-tw054-interview-saxy).
- master-of-darkness: "what Skaven and Jase did for Assembly and MC3" is his example of the elite "warping the norm" (source: s-tw030-interview-ender); his example of a wrong rip is "Skaven's BLAST in the 2nd reality song" used "in the EXACT SAME FASHION" (source: s-tw031-interview-vicious); pariah: studying how Skaven handles instruments is legitimate, copying is not (source: s-tw043-interview-pariah; see sample-ripping).
- rage: "Rama Gardens" — "high quality... excellent compositions" (source: s-tw060-interview-rage); vegas: "Catch that Goblin" "always makes me smile" (source: s-tw062-interview-vegas); ryan-sprott counts him among the overrated — "bashing basehead and mellow-d has become what bashing pm and skaven was" (source: s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott).
Related#
future-crew · purple-motion · scream-tracker-3 · impulse-tracker · chiptune · compos · jase · master-of-darkness · sample-ripping
Sources#
s-tw109-interview-skaven · s-st3-manual · s-tw037-death-of-the-chiptune-debate · s-tw027-interview-zapper · s-tw032-interview-zinc · s-tw014-interview-pinion · s-tw057-interview-catspaw · s-tw001-interview-phoenix · s-tw024-in-review-asm95 · s-tw004-interview-nemesis · s-tw013-interview-big-jim · s-tw022-interview-jase · s-tw028-faces-in-the-crowd-mesonyx · s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-smeghead · s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division · s-tw030-interview-paganus · s-tw030-interview-ender · s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli · s-tw031-interview-fred · s-tw031-interview-vicious · s-tw035-interview-loki · s-tw042-interview-balrog · s-tw043-interview-pariah · s-tw052-interview-daedalus · s-tw054-interview-saxy · s-tw060-interview-rage · s-tw062-interview-vegas · s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott