A chip cover of Althea & Donna's 1978 #1 UK hit 'Uptown Top Ranking', done a few years ago in AHX Tracker on the Commodore Amiga. AHX has a maximum of 4 voices polyphony, the original module filesize for the tune is just under 4kb and there's been no post-processing/effects/mastering done after rendering it to wav. AHX appeared in the mid '90s as a chipsynth intended to emulate the C64's SID - it does a fair job, but has a character of its own and is great fun to work in.

I made this back in maybe '08 and performed it at a lot of my live Syphus gigs, muting the lead channel and playing the melody on my SH-101 keytar. Vocals were provided on one memorable occasion by the wonderful ne7^Triad (Andrew Lemon)- big up yourself, Andy!

Find more Syphus tunes (mostly originals, some covers) and my last Syphus album at: http://syphus.net

Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking (8bit cover by Syphus)

Vocals by Genesis the GreyKid: "A Verse For Lisa [Finale]"

For Her

My Tracked Music entry from the Sundown 2015 Demoparty. 
Grab the MED file here ---> https://www.dropbox.com/s/ms5ajo9mo842kkw/Jah%20Cats.med?dl=0

or alternatively download the MP3.


Big BIG shout to Skope. <--

Greetz to all the ^UP^ crew and H0ffman for making it happen on the big screen. Jah Bless

Jah Cats (Sundown 2015)

Got a touch of insomnia so thought I'd prat about a bit making some 1bit ZX Spectrum beeper music ditties... Here's the result of me messing around for an hour or so in Beepola (grab it here: http://freestuff.grok.co.uk/beepola/ ) 

More info: 
The original spectrum only had a single on/off beeper for sound (with a tiny speaker actually located inside the computer!) much like ancient PC's - clever folks managed to squeeze multichannel playback out of the 1bit beeper by taking advantage of pulse width modulation at high speed leading to the illusion of more than one sound occurring at a time :) anyway it's great fun for making silly noises \o_

- Andy

Ne7 - 1bit Fun Compilation (ZX Spectrum Beeper)

You used to call me from my bell phone
Late night when you need by assistance in delivering a package to another villager.

KK Bling

One dark, drunk night a long time ago, before futurephones were ubiquitous, I was up late writing some stompy music and Warren was up being... Warren.

I asked him to send me some words to add to the track I was putting together and god bless him, he obliged.

The result was this track, presented unedited in its original rough but beautiful form.

I find this all horrifyingly relevant in the current era of artifically fomented national xenophobia and the potential, suicidal exit from the EU by the previously (at least mildly sane) United Kingdom.

May the gods have mercy on our poor.

---

You what the scariest animal in the world is?
US.

Because there are six billion of us
We're capable of anything
And we do as we're told.

Following the biggest bastard in the pack
because he gives us the food

Following the biggest bastard in the pack
because he gives us the food

If someone turns up tonight 
wearing the right suit
and tells us to fuck each other to death
tomorrow morning, 
the streets will be piled so high with bodies
that they'll block out the SUN

Human beings are scary
because we're too stupid to live.



Revolution (featuring Warren Ellis)

This is a track that I've just re-recorded this time with the help of Karen Tweed and with the original guitar and bouzouki accompaniment. It was first used on Wooden Flute Obsessions III CD. It starts with a laid back hornpipe known as Garrett Barry's. I think the second tune was composed by MacMaster (uncle of Natalie I presume) but has been through the mincer of the Durham Colpitts session and doesn't sound like anything I can trace. The final tune was composed by, close friend of all three musicians on this recording; Paul Ruane, for his daughter Orla Ruane in 1999 (approximately). Paul was a great fiddle player, a founder member of the Tyneside band Cuig. He died on the 3rd August 2016 at all too young an age. He taught me Orla's Reel shortly after he'd composed it and I've played it ever since.

Garrett Barry's Holland's and Orla's Reel. N Holmes, Dave Wood guitar, Karen Tweed accordion

Tremblings

This was a project I started but never actually got around to finishing so I thought I would chuck it on here. made it downloadable.

Jah Bless.

Nu Ground (Cutting Room Floor Mix)

Prelude

Echolevel is Brendan Ratliff – freelance composer, multi-instrumentalist, software coder, hardware hacker and teacher. By night, with a swoosh of his cape, he is chiptune superhero Syphus. Look out!

Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking (8bit cover by Syphus)

Echolevel

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