Game Music #2

Instant Remedy

As some of you may know, I'm a big fan of videogame music, particularly of the retro variety. It was around... hmm, I guess 10 years ago now, that I started my collection, initially by recording MegaDrive tunes using the splendid Gens emulator, but I didn't discover the remix community until a bit later. It was while searching for the original OutRun music that I first encountered Instant Remedy, and it opened the door to an unimaginable number of songs.

Instant Remedy is Martin Noriander (formerly Martin Andersson), a Swedish guy born in 1976, and a Commodore 64 fanatic who has spent a good deal of his time and effort remixing some of his favourte SID tunes. Now, one of my biggest embarrassments as a gamer is that I've never played, or indeed even used a Commodore 64 - I was always a Speccy fanboy until I moved onto consoles - so I've never even heard any of these famous SID creations everyone keeps raving about, but that didn't stop my elation at hearing Magical Sound Shower, one of my all-time favourite game tunes, in an exciting new way! And so began my collection of remixed game tunes. Instant Remedy was the first and I soon discovered just how many more talented enthusiasts were up to the same sort of thing!

I'm now proud/embarrassed to admit that I have somewhere in the region of 120Gb of game music, and much of it is awesome remixes (or 'arrangements') of all manner of classic game soundtracks. A vast majority of them, including Instant Remedy, are done in a dance/trance style, as you might expect, and I hope to cover some of the other awesome musicians here at some point, but for now, wrap you ears around the one that started it all for me.... Instant Remedy OutRun!



And if you like this track even nearly as much as I did, it might be worth you investing in some of Martin's other Instant Remedy tracks, available here. Apparently, Martin also has a CD available featuring the same tracks (listed below with original composers in brackets), so grab a copy of that if you get the chance too!

1. Last Ninja - The Palace (by Antony Lees) 1987
2. Flimbo's Quest (by Reyn Ouwehand) 1990
3. Comic Bakery (Extended Version) (by Martin Galway) 1986
4. International Karate (by Rob Hubbard) 1986
5. Game On (Issue 09 to 89) (by Markus Schneider) 1989
6. Ghosts 'n Goblins (Trance Version) (by Mark Cooksey) 1986
7. IK+ (by Rob Hubbard) 1987
8. Last Ninja - The Wastelands (Club Version) (by Ben Daglish) 1987
9. Trolls (by Adam Gilmore) 1993
10. Warriors (Club Version) (by Thomas Mogensen) 1989
11. Commando (V2) (by Rob Hubbard) 1985
12. West Bank (V2) (by Fred Gray) 1986
13. Last Ninja - Wastelands (Extended Version) (by Ben Daglish) 1987
14. Comic Bakery (by Martin Galway) 1986
15. Commando (by Rob Hubbard) 1985