In the 1990s there were plenty of record releases with hardcore Amiga music. Artists like Neophyte, Nasenbluten and Patric Catani used Amigas, usually not for MIDI-sequencing, but bringing the crispy internal sound to dancefloors around the world. I have a feeling that the fact that they used Amigas was not important neither for artists nor audience. They just happened to use Amigas for making music – an attitude that sometimes feels absent among chipmusicians today. The Amiga hardcore music of the 90s might be the perfect antithesis to chipmusic that concerns techno-romanticism, videogame-nostalgia and easy dance music.
Maybe Atari Teenage Riot, or their label Digital Hardcore Recordings, brought this kind of low-tech digi-punk attitude to a larger audience, and made it more defined and “relevant”. But what kind of homecomputer hardcore is around today?
The reason for doing this post was reading (at tctd) about two new 7″ vinyls with Amigacore. Raverblood by Dispyz and I by Stagediver – both released at Radio Graffiti last month. They feature longer tracks with fresh arrangements, short grind slammer parts, beeps and melodies, crispy lo-fi samples, and classic Amiga artifacts such as the glitch you get when playing notes at note B3. (too high) Listen to them online, and buy them.
Two other rather recent amigacore releases are Davros vs Unibomber – The Final Amiga 500 Battle (2008) and Phriz-B – Pulsing Quiche Gas (2006). Xylocaine, John Dark, and Christoph de Babalon are other amigacore artists, but I am not sure which releases would fit in the timeline (ie, mainly use internal Amiga sounds). Does anyone know?
Btw, if you live in the Detroit area and like Amiga hardcore, you might want to check this.
Btw2, if you are a bit hesitant about using the term Amigacore, that makes two of us.
CHIPFLIP 
August 14, 2009 at 6:18 pm |
Patric’s still using an amiga, even if Candie’s music is less HxC than at the ec8or times.
I think you’ll like this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lylBavVU6Ec
August 14, 2009 at 6:41 pm |
Wasn’t all the early ec8tor stuff done on an amiga? Their crappy middle record was down on a PII machine I think.. and it shows!
August 14, 2009 at 7:17 pm |
yeah, patric catani was in eq8or. i am not sure which releases of theirs was amiga, do you have any more info on this delicate matter?
and indeed, i do like that video. the a600 is a great live tool. my back hurts….
August 15, 2009 at 8:23 pm |
Wasnt that b3 glitch from using other trackers than protracker like fasttracker and then converting to mod? .MOD is a stupid format anyway, only 3 octaves. God bless the XM
August 15, 2009 at 8:37 pm |
@karl: no, the b3-glitch is in all protacker and octamed versions i’ve tried. and only lamers need more than 3 octaves!
August 19, 2009 at 4:09 pm |
Just heard about this post during the recent trip to Chicago and there were a few points of discussion that seemed to be absent from discussion.
There seems to be a lot of mention of ec8or/Patric C/DHR and while this was an influence it should be noted that it was the Fischkopf (Hamburg) and Bloody Fist (Newcastle) labels that really deserve the Amiga crown in my eyes. I didn’t see the Fischkopf reference on the time-line but there is a fascinating connection with this release: http://www.discogs.com/Cybermouse-Surprise-Attack-EP/release/118176
“The tracks were recorded 1993.
Originally released 1992/93 for the amiga-diskmag Neurowaver.”
Also, it may not be obvious unless one had been given the official bio-sheet but Raverblood had originally been written/released in 1995 and wasn’t until recently that the money was available to give it a proper release.
As far as Amigacore goes, that makes three of us. ;) However it’s not a new term so the guilt shouldn’t be too heavy.
August 20, 2009 at 9:42 pm |
@RG: Do you know which releases on Fischkopf & Bloody Fist use the internal Amiga sound? Thanks for the Cybermouse release, great with some diskmag music! Where does the term Amigacore come from? I actually hadn’t heard about it before you mentioned it.
August 25, 2009 at 2:59 pm |
Acts on Bloody Fist: Nasenbluten, Xylocaine, Syndicate, Overcast, Fraughman…(maybe the rest as well, except Epsilon)
Acts on Fischkopf: Christoph De Babalon, Taciturne, Amiga Shock Force… ;-)
Also: all aliases around Patric Catani (see Discogs, except Toytone, Candie Hank, Ricardo Prosetti, The VIP), Kippu, Dysphemic, Passenger Of Shit, DaftN0!ze, Ingler, Neophyte, Max Death, E 605, Venetian Snares, Pisstank, Stupid Girl, John Dark, Mimaku Spldat, Davros, Unibomber…
just to mention a few ;-)
Alot ppl from the ‘down-under’ still use their amigas.
August 22, 2009 at 5:18 am |
I fist heard of the term being used a couple of years back… but the term apparently has been around for years and years according to the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amigacore
No source of where the term originally comes from… but I think it’s kind of self explanatory in how it came to be.
Amiga + Hardcore Techno = Amigacore
Also worth checking out: http://www.trebledeathsystem.com/productions/?p=365
Some Hexadeci. Epic.
August 30, 2009 at 2:30 pm |
sh4do3: excellent, thanks! do you know which of their respective releases are (mostly) internal amiga sound?
September 20, 2009 at 10:56 pm |
Yes ;-)
November 16, 2009 at 5:00 am |
[…] Read it here. […]
December 13, 2009 at 1:19 am |
hello everybody, its me cybermouse !
wow ! so long time ago and there some people who remember and search for amiga made tracks…i’m very surprised !
so the ep’s i used a amiga 2000 with protracker composed trax are :
cybermouse -surprise attack- ( fisch 01 ) and cybermouse -body pack 95- ( fisch03 ) ! both ep’s released on fischkopf records ( a sublabel of the hamburg label container records).
another vinyl i buy in the middle of the 90’s is also complete made with amigas. its another german label called – super special – ( a sublabel of p.c.p. ). this 6 track ep called -amiga trax – 1st assault-.
big greets to all who remember this crazy amiga times !
hmmm, i think i should reanimate my old amiga 2000…
December 14, 2009 at 5:56 pm |
cybermouse, thanks for stopping by and leaving some info. your 2 vinyls and the amiga trax release is included in the timeline. keep us posted when your amiga2000 is alive again :)
April 2, 2010 at 4:11 am |
Amigacore is just hardcore, is not a new sub-genre. The songs while using only (or almost only) amigas, dont sound different enought to fit on a new sub-genre instead of a another hardcore sub-genre that already exist, and when those songs are different enought from the existing hardcore sub-genres most the time the song fit on the chiptune genre.
September 14, 2010 at 9:49 pm |
ups, i must rectificate something …
i used the Noisetracker for make my Amiga Trax ( modules ; ) )
sorry. X O
and someone wrote here at Chipflip i haved made Gabba, thats not correct ! I only have made Hardcore, Acid or something that could be called Noisecore with my Amiga.
btw
hey Chipflip, i have reanimated my Amiga 2000…. he’s still alive ! : )
and yours ???
see yaahhhh
November 21, 2011 at 4:42 pm |
[…] is a valid genre even without the Amiga? I wasn’t convinced about the term when I wrote this. But if there’s a special section for amigacore in a record store, it does have a broader […]
January 13, 2012 at 10:13 am |
[…] the 1990′s you could use chipmusic tools to make dance music hits. It was r rare to hear 8-bit songs in public before that. With a few exceptions, records with […]