M.I.N.D.

To appreciate this, you must know what a module tracker is, and what it can't do. You have to be familiar with the massive amount of modules in existence, ranging from ingeniously great ProTracker MODs to crap multichannel technopop covers.

If you don't have this experience, please download and listen to all the mods on Aminet. Then come back here. =)

The story

In 1999, or was it 1998, a couple of friends of mine were doing a lot of tracking. They uploaded their stuff to Traxinspace, a site providing free webspace for tracker modules. Now, the staff at Traxinspace write reviews, and rate all uploads on a scale of one to ten. My friends thought that this rating system was unfair; often the highest rated tracks turned out to be very poor, while their own modules got far too low ratings.

Soon a devious plan began to take form: They were going to make really ugly music, hardly consisting of anything but beginner's mistakes, wrongly timed loops, instruments that were out of tune, and as repetitive and uninspiring patterns as possible. Then they would upload this music to Traxinspace and watch all the high ratings and positive reviews drop in.

They uploaded this music under the name DAS, or sometimes DASpack.

Now, I rather liked the idea of making deliberately crappy modules. So I, too, registered myself as an artist at Traxinspace. I took the name M.I.N.D. (Mind Is Not Das).

Here is a typical review I got (for the module "Love Is the Answer"):

[Reviewer Information]
Name     : The Nuke
Email    : kariorre@dlc.fi

[Detailed Review]

Overall Impression: 2/10

Artistic License  : 1/10
Comments about Artistic License : Samples don't work together at all,
the song mostly sounds pretty
horrible. Also in the ending the vocal is cutted too suddenly.

Arrangement       : 1/10
Comments about Arrangement      : The loops should be timed better,
they just click everytime a pattern
changes. Also the sample that is offsetting has some continuity
problems, it clicks also very badly when the pattern changes.
Transitions don't work at all. They are too sudden.

Creativity        : 1/10
Comments about Creativity       : There are mostly loops playing the
melody, and this song is not
actually interesting at all.

Sample Quality    : 5/10
Comments about Sample Quality   : Samples are on average level.

Does It Work as a Piece of Music: N
Comments about Your Piece's Working as Music: Sorry, this doesn't work
at all.

Review            : This mod has some severe problems. Most of the
samples are loops, but
they are wrongly timed. The song is also very short, and the samples
are very badly tuned.

The other reviews are available at Traxinspace. Just go to the M.I.N.D. page and click on the song titles.

The songs

These songs are still available at Traxinspace, but I'll put them here too for your convenience.

The hardcore song

This song never got uploaded to Traxinspace. I suppose I just didn't bother. The idea was that I'd upload the same module with several different names, have it rated by several staff members, and get widely different ratings. That's why this song isn't quite as bad as the others. It's somewhat bad, of course. =)

It was to be uploaded with the following names:

• Anaphoric Flang
• Cerebral Parenthesis
• Foo Metamorphosis
• Freaking Kebab
• Keep Ya Sugar
• Mind Washer
• Oyvind the Oyster
• Prospectal Anathemia

Bonus Track

The music you find on this page is all the music that M.I.N.D. ever wrote. The M.I.N.D. project has been dormant for some years, and I probably won't write anymore mAStah!PiECeSsSzz!!. But if you for some perverted reason want to hear more of this kind, you should check out the work of DAS. Here's one example:

I've got a banana in my ear by Mania Man of DAS.