------------------------------------------------ LYNNE ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 1 - MAY 1996 ------------------------------------------------ Welcome to the first ever LYNNE electronic newsletter! First of all, you can stop worrying about getting your mailbox flooded with this newsletter all the time. This newsletter will only come out a few (4-6) times per year. Still, if you are not at all interested, and you wish to be taken off the mailing list, just write an email to bjorn@team17.com, and you'll be off the list right away. *** An HTML version of this document, with shortcuts and lots of references, is available on http://www.team17.com/~bjorn/newsletter-01.html *** Items in this issue: * About this newsletter * Witchwood sales * New album in the pipeline * Camel cover-track coming out on a double-CD * New games coming out with LYNNE's music * LYNNE music in Blackburn amusement park * Plans for the near future * First proper review of "Witchwood" * What's with all the changing between record companies? * Game-ography; a list of computer games with LYNNE's music * The mailbox - letters answered * List of available CD's and how to get them. * Other places to get LYNNE CD's * Signing off ------------------------------------------------------------- About this newsletter ------------------------------------------------------------- I decided to start this newsletter mainly because I get a lot of questions sent to me by email, and while I *really* do appreciate people writing to me, I thought it would be a good idea to be able to inform people through a newsletter, in case the answers I give should be of interest to more than just the one person asking. Also, I might do a bit less of answering the same questions over and over. I'm *not* saying "stop writing" or "stop asking"; I very much appreciate communicating with as many of my listeners as possible, so if there's anything on your mind, feel free to write to me any time at bjorn@team17.com. And if your comments and/or questions may be of interest to other people, maybe I will include your message in the next newsletter. As I mentioned above, this newsletter will be published about 4-6 times per year. I think. We'll just see what happens. ------------------------------------------------------------- Witchwood Sales: ------------------------------------------------------------- Well, as most of you are aware, my latest album titled "Witchwood" has now been on the market for about 2 months; and the sale is going fairly well. This strange instrumental music is, and will be, and underground thing; so of course the albums aren't selling by the millions. (For that, you need to have a million dollars already, and pay MTV to play your music a lot - it's the only way to sell albums big-time!) But I have covered my costs, and even gone a bit above; so I was pleased to be able to give my friend Ken Senior (who played guitar on the album) a cheque and I was also able to buy a new synth; a Novation Bass Station. Yippie! The current number of sold albums is a bit unclear, as Mellow Records updates me only every 6 months with the latest statistics, and since only 2 months have gone, I don't know how many albums have been sold; but personally I have sold about 400 copies right now. Some 200 of these have gone directly to listeners, and the other 200 have gone to various mailorder outlets and small record stores in UK and Scandinavia. My agreement with Mellow Records does not allow me to sell the album to any company outside UK or Scandinavia, as this is Mellow's "territory". Fair enough - Mellow Records tell me that they are hoping the album will do quite well in USA, so let's just keep our fingers crossed. (I *can* however sell the CD's one-by-one to any person who just wants to buy it for him/herself, so if you still haven't got hold of "Witchwood", just order it directly from me, and you will have it in your mailbox in a matter of days.) ------------------------------------------------------------- New album in the pipeline: ------------------------------------------------------------- As usual when a new album comes out, it has already been a few weeks or even months since the actual composing of the album was complete. "Witchwood" was finished (composition-wise) already in September/October 1995, so it won't come as a big surprise to any of you that I have a lot of new material now - for a new CD that I am hoping to release in the autumn (maybe August or September). My friend Mauro Moroni at Mellow Records told me that I work too much. And that may well be true, but thing is: Music is my life, and not only do I *want* to write music all the time; I think I *have* to write music all the time, or else I go bananas! There were a couple of tracks that I originally wanted to include on my 1995 album "Dreamstate", but there wasn't enough room on the CD. And of course they couldn't be included on "Witchwood", because "Witchwood" had a different style alltogether. The new CD I'm working on, however, has a similar style to "Dreamstate" (although more powerful), so these "old" tracks have been picked up again and remixed a little bit, and they will be on the new CD. These two "old" tracks that I've brought back to life are titled "Electroglow" and "Znork (In Z Minor)", and of course I've also written a lot of new material; songs such as "Relentless", "Into the Void", "Bridge to the Universe, Part 3" (who can remember parts 1 and 2, both of which were Amiga modules?!) and other new tracks as well. All of these come together really nicely for a new concept album about Space and Space Travel, something that I am very fascinated with. So the new album will be another spacey one, kind of like "Dreamstate" but rawer and heavier in the sound, and with a deeper, darker atmosphere. I have no doubt it will be my best album to date! After the adventurous and natural (well, for me anyway) style of "Witchwood", it feels great to write some more dark and bombastic music! "The Void" will also, for the first time, contain a little bit of guitar played by myself; as I have just started to learn how to play the guitar. But of course, it will still be mainly synth-music! That's my style... ------------------------------------------------------------- Camel cover-track to be published on double-CD from Mellow Records: ------------------------------------------------------------- Mellow Records is an italian label that specialises on progressive rock, (also called symphonic rock and art-rock), and they have a double-album coming out soon, with various bands from all over the world recreating and playing classic songs by the rock band Camel. On this album, many quite well known bands will be appearing (Galahad, Glass Hammer, etc. etc.) and I have also participated on this album. Together with my friend Ken Senior, I rearranged and reproduced an old, wonderful Camel-song called "Never Let Go". I did all the programming, played the keyboards and sang the background-vocals, and Ken played guitar, bass guitar and sang the lead vocals. Mellow Records were very pleased with our job, so pleased in fact that they chose to use our track as the opening-track of the whole double-album! Needless to say, Ken and I were well chuffed with that! If you are interested in this double-album with various bands doing covers of tracks by Camel, then get in touch with Mellow Records at mellow@sremo.sis.interbusiness.it or visit their homepage at http://www.pangea.it/music/mellow/ ------------------------------------------------------------- New computer games coming out with LYNNE's music ------------------------------------------------------------- Right now I'm writing the music for two up-and-coming computer games for Team17 Software; "X2" and "Allegiance". I have already been working on these games for some time, but I haven't been in a real hurry to finish these jobs, and I have been able to use a lot of time to get it just right. The music in "Allegiance" will be partly ambient suspense ("X-Files" type of stuff) and partly orchestral. The music will be played directly off the CD in full CD quality, which also means that you will be able to play the CD as a normal music-CD in any ordinary CD-player, just as long as you don't play track 01, which is where the data is (and believe me, it doesn't sound very good!). This game will be released for the Sony Playstation, with a possible PC/CDROM release later. For the game "X2", I'm writing a lot of dance/techno/rave music. This game is a shoot-em-up, and the music needs to be energetic and groovy. The format of this music is mostly 10-channel FastTracker 2 modules with 16-bit samples to ensure great sound quality. There will also be a couple of full CD audio tracks on this game, but most of it will be modules. This game will only be released for Sony Playstation and possibly Sega Saturn. The game "Alien Breed 3D II - The Killing Grounds" will also be out very soon for the Amiga, with my music and sound effects in it. There isn't a whole lot of music, in fact there's just one track, but the game is absolutely fabulous and for all Amiga-freaks, definitely worth checking out. To quickly finish the part about computer games, I have also quite recently finished two CD audio tracks for the game "EuroManager", which will be released very soon, for PC/CDROM. It's a football management game, and my involvement with it was quite limited, but I wrote two tracks with lots of funky horns, guitars and slap bass for this game. Once again, these two tracks will be on the CD as normal CD music tracks that can be played in any ordinary CD player. ------------------------------------------------------------- LYNNE music in Blackburn amusement park ------------------------------------------------------------- If you want to hear some new, unreleased, seriously spaced out melodic / orchestral / atmospheric music, you might want to consider taking a trip to Blackburn/England this summer. The Borough of Blackburn are opening a new amusement/theme park on the 8th of June '96, and one of the attractions is an absolutely crazy waterslide ride called "Alien Encounter". Starting with a black hole ride of approximately 30 meters (to gain speed!), you enter a 10 metre diameter bowl at about 55 km/h. You then revolve around 4-5 times in the "alien space ship" before you fall through the base crashing into the water, 2-3 meters below. And it's all done to music that I recently wrote and produced for the Borough of Blackburn Community and Leisure Services Department. The piece of music that was written is about 5 minutes long and it is meant both as entertainment while you wait for your turn to ride, and as a sound setting for the ride itself. It is unlikely that the "Alien Encounter" music will ever be released in any other form. ------------------------------------------------------------- Plans for the near future ------------------------------------------------------------- As far as future plans go, well the first things on the list are (1) to finish the music for all the games I mentioned above, (2) to get my new album (tentatively titled "The Void") released some time in the late summer or early autumn, and then (3) I will probably start on a new and exciting project together with Ken Senior, who is a good friend of mine, and a damn fine guitar player and singer. All this is just very loose plans for now, but we both want to do something together, so chances are that we will. Maybe I will be able to tell you more about this in the next newsletter... ------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the first real review that's been written about "Witchwood" ------------------------------------------------------------- This review of "Witchwood" is the first one that has been published. It is from the English magazine "Wondrous Stories", a monthly magazine that writes a lot about symphonic rock, art-rock and generally "adventurous" music... "Previewed in an earlier issue of WS, now available on CD (through CRS at £11.00) this is a wonderful piece of music that creates an atmosphere so real that you can almost smell the pine forests of Bjorn's homeland Norway. You can actually hear the water of the fjords making this album wonderful music to sit and listen to intensely or simply as backing music. All the music has been composed by Bjorn Lynne, originally for a computer game, coincidentally entitled "Witchwood". The Norwegian is joined on guitar by Yorkshireman Ken Senior, a man of many talents himself. A lot of effort and thought has gone into this project of bright sounds and effects to make it feel as real as possible, you can almost picture the computer game. It is of course not a band project and therefore a lot of computer is used along with the natural elements of guitar, flute and keyboard. However this all adds up to what could almost be called sound animation. Verdict 5/6." ------------------------------------------------------------- What's with all the changing between record companies?? ------------------------------------------------------------- This is a question that I have been asked many times; it seems to puzzle many people why every new LYNNE album is released on a different record label. There are many reasons for this, and they're all good reasons. The two first albums "Hobbits & Spaceships" and "Montage" were both released on DENS Design, which was in fact a very personal little outlet run by myself and 3 friends in the computer-business. We had very limited distribution etc. When my third album "Dreamstate" was ready for release, I approached the record company Centaur Discs, which had a good distribution net in the UK and after hearing a tape of the CD, they seemed very enthusiastic about my music. So I went ahead and released "Dreamstate" on their label. It would become apparent a bit later on, that the deal with Centaur wasn't so good, because (1) I had to pay Centaur a very high price for the CD's which I wanted to sell directly to my own personal customers, something that made it very difficult for me to make any profit, or even to break even, and (2) after Centaur had actually manufactured the CD and put it out, they didn't seem very enthusiastic any more. They didn't have the time or resources to promote or market my album (or any other album they released, for that matter!). This left me a bit disappointed, and "Dreamstate" didn't do as well as I think it would have done with a bit of promotion and marketing, and financially, the the whole project was disappointing for myself, because I had to buy my CD's from Centaur at a quite high price. Since then, I have talked to another artist (Andy Pickford) who is also on Centaur Discs, and he tells me that he has had the exact same frustrations with this record company. When "Witchwood" was ready for release, Centaur said that they wanted to release it, but because of the above disappointment, I went looking for another label who could release it. I got in touch with Mellow Records, who once again seemed very enthusiastic about the music; besides, these guys has a world wide distribution net; not so much in the UK, but in most of Europe, USA and Japan. On top of this, Mellow Records agreed to let me buy CD's from them at a much lower cost than what had been the case with Centaur. This was a much better deal all together, so I chose to release the album on Mellow Records. The music was also just right for them, because they specialise in music with an adventurous sound and feel, with some folk referenes etc. So far, things have worked out very well with the deal on Mellow Records. Now I just hope that they have the "drive" and time to really promote the album and do their bit of work to sell it. Only time will tell, but it looks quite good so far... My next album (I call it "The Void" for now, but that won't necessarily be the final title) will (probably) be released on TRSI Records, not on Mellow Records. This is not because of any trouble with Mellow, but simply because the music is very different, it is very spacey, and this is not Mellow's market. I got in touch with the guys from TRSI Records about a year ago, and since then, we have developed a very good friendship, and I just think it would be nice to work with them. They also seem to work very hard at promoting their artists, although they could use more resources. The music on "The Void" also fits much better into the catalogue at TRSI Records than at Mellow. So that should explain why every new LYNNE album seems to come from a different record company. There is one other thing as well; I believe it is a good idea to change between different record companies, because they all have different contacts, different customers and different ways to market their music. So in changing between the different companies, my music reaches more different people from different parts of the world. In fact, in the future, I will keep on trying to change between different record companies. ------------------------------------------------------------- A list of the computer games with LYNNE's music ------------------------------------------------------------- A lot of people are asking me about which games I have made the music and/or sound-effects for, so here is a list that I have written mostly out of memory... It's possible that I might have missed some... * Time (Amiga) - Music (1989 (?)) * Brat (Amiga) - Music & sfx (1990 (?)) * Cubulus (Amiga) / Software 2000 - Music (1991 (?)) * Escape from Colditz - Music (1991 (?)) * Kasei Vallis (Amiga) - Music (1990 (?)) * Shanghai (Amiga) - Music (1990 (?)) * Fantastic Voyage (Amiga) / Centaur Software - Music (1992) * Project-X (Amiga) (with Allister Brimble) / Team17 Software - Music (1992) (For this game, I only made 1 song, the rest was made by A.Brimble) * Qwak (Amiga) - Team17 Software - Music & sfx (1993) * Worms (PC (floppy & CDROM), Amiga, Amiga CD32, Mac (to come), Sony Playstation, SNES, Megadrive, Atari Jaguar (to come), Sega Saturn, Gameboy) / Team17 Software (1995) - Music & sfx. * Final Over (Amiga) / Team17 Software - Music & sfx (1995 (not released)) * Alien Breed 3D (Amiga, Amiga CD32) / Team17 Software (1995) - Music & sfx * Worms Reinforcements (PC CDROM) / Team17 Software (1996) - Music & sfx * EuroManager (PC, Mac) / Team17 Software (1996) - Music & sfx (coming soon) * Allegiance (Playstation, PC) / Team17 Software (1996) - Music & sfx - (coming soon) * Alien Breed 3D II - The Killing Grounds (Amiga, Amiga CD32) / Team17 Software (1996) - Music & sfx * Rally Fever (PC) / Team17 Software (1996) - Sound effects only. (just out now). * X2 (Playstation, Saturn) / Team17 Software (1996) Music & sfx. (Coming in the autumn '96) ------------------------------------------------------------- The mailbox - letters/emails answered ------------------------------------------------------------- (If you want to write to this mailbox - it's at bjorn@team17.com) -------- Michael_Feld@t-online.de (Michael Feld) wrote: -------- Dear Dr. Awesome of the Crusaders! I've got 4 big important questions to you, the (in my opinion) best mod composer I've ever seen (heard): 1. (A question that I could ask all mod composers) Why Dr. Awesome? 2. What's your best song in your own opinion? (I would be pleased if you could put it to your email answer!) 3. Will you go on compsoing MODs? (Please say yes!) 4. What PC do you use? (CPU, RAM etc.) Please send a short or long answer to 068423701-0001@t-online.de -------- Answer: -------- >I've got 4 big important questions to you, the (in my opinion) best mod >composer I've ever seen (heard): Thanks a lot dude - that really warms my heart when someone says that!! But have you heard my CD's?? >1. (A question that I could ask all mod composers) Why Dr. Awesome? No special reason. I was out on the town one night in 1987 when we first started Crusaders, with some friends. We were all a little bit "tipsy", and we just tried to think of funny names. "Dr.Awesome" just dropped into my head - it has no special meaning - I just thought that it sounded cool. :-) >2. What's your best song in your own opinion? (I would be pleased if you > could put it to your email answer!) My best songs are on my CD's; for example I have just finished a song called "Into the Void" - it is 8 minutes long, and will be on my next CD. And maybe the song "A New Age" from my first CD "Hobbits & Spaceships" - that's also a good song. Also, I used to play in a band called "Ab Intra". For this band I wrote a long song (9 minutes) titled "Fatherland" - I also think that's a good song. But my best song ever ever must be the song "Progress" from my CD "Dreamstate". >3. Will you go on compsoing MODs? (Please say yes!) Hmmm... yes, but only for Team17 games. I'm composing some mods now, for "Project-X 2", which we are making right now. This game will be ONLY for Sony Playstation, and the mods are 10-channel, with 16-bit samples. They sound cool!! :-) >4. What PC do you use? (CPU, RAM etc.) Just a "normal" 486/DX4/100 with 16 MB RAM. -------- gizmo@vtx.ch (Christophe Wegmuller) wrote: -------- Hi Bjorn, I'm enjoying Witchwood right now, and I like it very much. Well, I have a few questions: - Where can I find the lyrics of "19-Witchwood" ? On your web page ? - I really like the pictures of Tobias Richter, do you know where I can found more pictures from him ? Perhaps he has a web page ? Best Regards, Gizmo -------- Answer: -------- >I'm enjoying Witchwood right now, and I like it very much. Well, I have >a few questions: >- Where can I find the lyrics of "19-Witchwood" ? On your web page ? Um... no, but here they are: If should tell a story from a long since distant time Would listen to me carefully as I sang to you my rhyme? Of a time when there were heroes in the heart of every child And all the magic all around would come from deep inside If I could share my story with the people of your kind I could give to you my witches tale from the land there in your mind Would you place your trust in my hands as I led you through the times? And may you find your every dream come true, in Witchwood for a while So listen to my story from a thousand years gone by From a place where you and I can go, if you let your spirit fly We can find ourselves in faerywoods, or in the mountainside where the trees and lakes they are alive - in Witchwood for a while >- I really like the pictures of Tobias Richter, do you know where I can > found more pictures from him ? Perhaps he has a web page ? Well, his pictures used to be on a whole lot of Amiga public domain disks sold by many different Public Domain distributor companies, like 17bit Software etc. These companies used to have lots of special Tobias Richter disks. But these pictures are a few years old; I don't really know if there is anywhere you can get more of his newer pictures. Perhaps you want to write to him yourself, and ask. His email is tobias@factor5.com ----- ------------------------------------------------------------- List of CD's currently available: ------------------------------------------------------------- (This will be a "standard" part of this newsletter) * Bjorn LYNNE & Seppo HURME: "Hobbits & Spaceships" (Sept. 1992) * Bjorn Lynne: "Montage" (Jan. 1994) * LYNNE: "Dreamstate" (Mar. 1995) * LYNNE: "Witchwood" (Mar. 1996) All CD's can be ordered directly from: Bjorn Lynne Team17 Software Longlands House Wakefield Rd., Ossett West Yorks. WF5 9JS ENGLAND Price per CD is as follows. All these prices *include* packing and postage to the relevant countries: UK: GBP 13 incl. postage. USA: US$ 22 incl. postage. Germany: 31 DM incl. postage. Norway: NOK 150 incl. postage. Sweden: SEK 160 incl. postage. Denmark: DKR 130 incl. postage. Finland: FIM 100 incl. postage. France: FFR 110 incl. postage. The Netherlands: NLG 36 incl. postage. Italy: ITL 33,700 incl. postage. If your country is listed above, you can send the money in your own currency, there is no need to change to another currency. For example, if you're in Finland, simply send 100 FIM per CD ordered. That should be easy enough... Any country not mentioned above: Use the USA price, and change to US Dollars before sending the money - OR use International Money Order / Postal Order. Payment accepted by CASH (any currency listed above), International Money Order, Postal Order, normal British Cheques and EuroCheques (no other foreign cheques please). Scandinavians (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland) may, alternatively, transfer the money to Bjorn Lynne's Norwegian post-giro account number 0824.0681472. This will be valid as payment for CDs. ------------------------------------------------------------- Other places to get LYNNE CD's: ------------------------------------------------------------- * TRSI RECORDS (Austria) / Koeroersistr. 141/2/8 / A-8010 Graz / AUSTRIA / Phone: +43 316 689 916 / Fax +43 316 681 742 / Email: 100430.2471@compuserve.com * TRSI RECORDS (Norway) / Anders Haakers / Hurdalsveien / N-2074 Eidsvoll Verk / NORWAY / Cellular phone: +47 90 50 01 51 / Fax +47 63 95 41 90 / Email: anders.haakens@nipnett.no * GFT Ltd. / Unit 2, 87 Maple Road / Surbiton / Surrey KT6 4AW / ENGLAND / Phone +44 (0)181 3399965 / Fax + 44 (0)181 3990070 * C&D COMPACT DISC SERVICES / 40/42 Brantwood Avenue / Dundee DD3 6EW / UNITED KINGDOM / Phone: +44 (0)1382 776 595 / Fax: +44 (0)1382 736 702 * MIDAS RECORDS / 108 The Old Courthouse / 20 St. Peters Churchyard / Derby / DE1 1NN / ENGLAND / Phone +44 (0)1332 349 429 / Fax +44 (0)1332 342 269 * NEU HARMONY / P.O.Box 592 / Sheffield S30 3FE / ENGLAND / Phone +44 (0)114 286 4889 / Fax +44 (0)114 286 4890 / Email: david@neuharm.demon.co.uk * PROGNETIK RECORDS / Stalsberggt. 20 / N-2010 Stroemmen / NORWAY / Phone +47 63 80 19 39 / Fax +47 63 80 07 11. * MELLOW RECORDS / Via F.LLi Asquasciati 68 / 18038 Sanremo (IM) / ITALY / Email: mellow@sremo.sis.interbusiness.it / Internet: http://www.pangea.it/music/mellow/ ------------------------------------------------------------- Signing off ------------------------------------------------------------- That was everything in this, the first, issue of the LYNNE electronic newsletter. I hope some of you have found some of this information interesting, useful, or even just amusing. The next newsletter will probably follow some time in the summer. So until next time, have a nice spring and early summer. Be good to eachother, and finally, remember to check in on the below World Wide Web page every now and then to keep up to date with the latest stuff... ----------------------------------- NEW WORLD - NEW VIBES! http://www.team17.com/~bjorn ----------------------------------- Best regards, ******************************************************** * Bjorn A. Lynne - Sound & Music - Team17 Software * ******************************************************** * New album out now: "Witchwood" * * New World - New Vibes - http://www.team17.com/~bjorn * ********************************************************