Introducing: Level-D Records

Written by Virago

The story of all that's happened and going to happen in Level-D.

Past ...

The initial idea of setting up a new age/ambient only scene-group was born in Slackjaw's mind in early 1997. Unfortunately, not that many composers do new age/ambient, so the project went very slowly. At some point in time, Slackjaw was told that some Radical Rhythms members were setting up a new group as well. We decided to co-operate with that group. Teis, Lord Chaos, and The Unconsiousness were in charge at that point. After a while, a name for the group came up, "level-d". But, like always, good things must come to an end... Or don't they? ... Teis and Lord Chaos suddenly couldn't be reached anymore, due to some problems with their internet connection. The Unconsiousness was too busy to organise Level-D, and so, Slackjaw, Orion, and myself took over organising. We didn't want Level-D to be a basic musicgroup, so we decided to step back to our original idea, and decided to do new age and ambient only. Things worked out fine, people liked the idea. After some months, Teis got a connection again, and at first some problems arose. Yet this was nothing we couldn't solve, although it didn't go so smooth. I will not step into detail now, but it comes down to it, that Teis started another group with the name 'Most Valuable Players', or just 'MoPlayaz' in short. MoPlayaz is still a sisterlabel of Level-D, and we send out a lot of thanks to Teis for letting us keep the name Level-D.

Present ...

We now have 10 members (maybe a 11th one joining at the time I'm typing this). These members are (in no particular order): Slackjaw, Nexus, Orion, Workbench, Big Bear, Nogsf, Sprinkle, KeyG, Echo, and myself. Most of them are busy, and don't release that much in the scene anymore. Although, every now and then, there's a release. Most of our free time however is spent on Level-D Records. Read more about that, in the next chapter.

Future ...

As you already read, our main project is Level-D Records. Currently, 5 people are involved in this. Slackjaw and Orion do organising, Nexus is our producer, Vic will build and maintain our studio, and I am main organiser myself. At this point, we have not yet released anything, since we're still in the process of setting up all the legal stuff needed to design, press, and distribute cd's. The first cd however is planned for release in June 1999, and will be presented at the TakeOver 1999 party in Holland, where it will be sold at an introduction price. The cd will be a double-cd, 1 cd with music from the Level-D members, partially tracked, partially midi. The 2nd cd will be a so called Level-D Records sampler cd, which will include tunes from various artists which plan to have a full cd released in time. For more information on Level-D Records, and/or the first Level-D Records cd, please contact us. We're also running a competition at the moment, since we still need a title for our cd. Anyone can enter the competition with as much titles as you want. Winner will get a free copy of the cd.

Thanks ...

I'd like to thank the guys at Hugi, and especially Adok for allowing me to enter this text in the magazine. I'd also like to thank everyone in Level-D for their support, and of course all the musicians that believe in us. :)

Have fun with the magazine,

Martijn 'virago' Meerts,
Level-D main organiser.