Assembly Multichannel, Tiny Music and MP3 Compo

Written by Vojtech Tryhuk

I liked the winners of the previous year a lot. When I take into account that Purple Motion announced that he would enter the competition also this year, I know I was expecting really much. That is maybe the reason why I'm a bit disappointed about the winners. I couldn't judge the songs from the MP3 compo except the winning one, because I download all the music on 3.5" disks in the school and you know how many disks it would mean, so sorry.

I'll try to give you some tips on the songs but in the final stage you'll have to decide and judge yourself.

Multichannel Music

1. 2361pt. Monument by Nobody

It is interesting that in the all last big competitions mostly orchestral pieces with monumental sounding have won. For example last MC was won by Awesome, and the previous Assembly was won by !Cube with his "Schotsman in a skirt". Maybe it's caused by the fact that it's not easy to write a good orchestral track. This one is a really good one. It is 100% worth downloading - no need of any comments. (You see the difference in the amount of points between place one and place two.)

2. 1281pt. second time by Quasian

Quasian has repeated his success from previous Assembly where he was also second. As usual his song is based on guitars, but this time there's a wider range of the samples which are used as lead. One moment it's a sine wave, another it's a "Doo" sample, and a while later it's again a guitar. He varies the instruments in the lead more often than in his previous songs. When you look at the samples, you'll find 87 samples of various drums, guitars and bass sounds. That makes the track sounding realistic and spectrally rich. This and Quasian's feeling for catchy melodies make it a very good song. I liked his "System 51" more, which was presented at the previous ASSEMBLY, but that's a matter of personal taste and not of the quality of the song.

3. 952pt. Route through Baghdad by gspot/bandwagon/recreation

This one has caught me most of all the Assembly top 10 songs. It reminds me of Mystical's + Sol's entry from previous year which did not make it to the final, and now a similar song ends up third - strange. To be exact the song isn't that much similar but there are some common points like the flutes. The song constitutes only of a few simple guitar samples, some drums for tempo and on some places to fill the sound, one flute, strings and some vocal samples. Oriental sound of samples is bold by vibrato. Guitars form the melody, the tempo is kept by drums and the flute plays an appropriate melody. More atmospheric sound is made by strings and vocal samples in the background. Get this one and if you like it as I did, also download "Tides of time" by Mystical and Sol from the previous year.

4. 881pt. jazzy high by hooligan/dcs

Very good jazz tune. Starting with a cool rhythm, it has a very good and complex instrumentation straight from the beginning. The song varies without any useless repetition. Before you notice anything there's the end (only 2 mins). And Wow! It's a MOD - it has only 4 channels!

5. 855pt. smal red grapes by xhale

Dnb remix of his older unreleased tune. It's still his style but from the beginning there's a difference, for me very important. The samples are not as sharp as the ones which xhale normally uses. That makes this track more listenable and I think it's better than his other tracks. But I am not sure if it is good enough to be placed 5th (there were 129 songs in the multichannel compo!).

6. 821pt. Mellon Moon by Jean Nine

Interesting song. It's happy, it's playful. Samples sound like md under water, sounds repeat many times like bubbles and play a happy melody. The structure of the song is quite normal, the important difference is only in samples. The melody is nice, but I don't now how many times I can hear it before I'll go crazy. Overall a good track.

7. 816pt. Banana Color by Ylikulju

Ambient sound plates, clatter in the background, samples of somebody speaking, and acoustic bass coming into it. The bass track starts to play its sad melody, and the drum track follows it. Other samples help to fill the sound of tune. There is no major melody which would you remember. This song is rather atmospheric than having a lead playing some stupid melody. Three minutes gone, interesting but I'm not sure for how long.

8. 792pt. x.15periments by rain

Samples like from distance, the style is also partially inspired by his a bit minimalistic tunes like "Thor's magic bathtub". The other samples are distorted and noisy, but I find !Cube's way of destroying samples more acceptable for my ears. A good track but I'm again not sure if it's for the top ten because of the similarity with music by distance/lackluster (and when I look at the looong list of songs which were not in the final).

9. 727pt. 106 Miles by goldcrest

Music to drive in the old convertible through the USA. A bit like from Cybelius. It will catch you and won't leave you go - especially the bassline and the drums. Only at the end it seems to be a bit monotonous and missing a carrier idea.

10. 542pt. Berylux tones by Jcole

Background noises, liquid sounding samples, percussion appears and drops out. Some postprocessed voice samples and the percussion again. Melody on some synthetic instrument repeats, drops out, change in the melody background atmospheric sound,... Again one atmospheric track. Starts to be boring - if it were in a demo, it would be ok, but as a separate track?

Tiny music

1. 1909pt. Parasite Blessing by Quasian

Chippy sounds like from Purple Motion, the themes also sound like from him, but the whole tune sounds too heavy to me. The percussion is strong, too much space for the leads has been left free. I'm also missing longer notes playing in the lead. Didn't catch me too much.

2. 1138pt. Space Hybrids by Zealan

Another chippy beast. The tune is put in higher frequencies. The basic melody rises up and down, not much variance. Hm. It's only a tiny music compo entry - nothing serious.

3. 1031pt. Cochlea by Noa Nakai

Space-ish sound, some background noises, the melody slowly comes from the background. Then fade out, and some blipish sample introduces next part of the song. A chip sample as the lead and more samples are introduced. Then comes the break and a more complex melody goes to the sudden end of the song. Could be easily longer. There isn't any major melody in the tune...

MP3 compo

1. 1799pt. Credits by Purple Motion

His music brought a lot of people to the scene, so everybody was surely awaiting his next release to the scene. And here it is! The song starts with an electric guitar but slowly transforms to an orchestral form. I've to appreciate the quality of this part. PM really proves that he is a professional (and has always been). Even though the track sounds more like from a movie, I'm happy to say that PM's music is still both happy and sad and most of all - playful. The music darkens and gets more and more quiet only to return with lighter instruments and with a completely different atmosphere, which will change many times till the end of the song. After passing through the excellent orchestral part the e-guitar returns and leads the song to its end part, which is again orchestral. It's surely worth downloading, and there's no reason why I should describe the tune more in detail, because you already have it! (I guess.) I hope we will hear more from him one day!

Closing Words

Sorry to all people whose songs are among the ones with bad reviews by me. That's because I've expected a much higher level in the top 10 places of ASSEMBLY'99. I was quite surprised by the styles of the winning tracks. The orchestral style isn't too common and so has ended at the first place. As usual there's also some jazz song in the top ten. But with the high amount of atmospheric tracks there are fewer classical instruments like piano, guitar, flute or organ. I am also quite surprised that there isn't any demo/dance/.../other style song. The decision if that's positive or negative is up to you.

That's all, hope you've decided which songs you're going to get, and if not, here's my personal top three:

"Credits" by Purple Motion (winner of MP3)
"Monument" by Nobody (winner of mchnl)
"Route..." by gspot (3rd place in mchnl)

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