


by s7ing and Mop of Alcatraz

Without doubt, Jogeir Liljedahl is recognised by the whole worldwide scene as one of the many entrepreneur scene musicians that have nowadays gained legendary status.
Log into any tracker music site, and his name can be found in the top search hits list. Although nowadays a member of Alcatraz, we thought that it would not be fair to skip this
brilliant musician from the Mudia Art hall of fame.

In this issue you will only find 3 tracks from Jogeir. It was a much arduous task to try and select just three tracks out of his vast repertoire. Throughout his scene life, Jogeir has literally composed hundreds of tunes.
The exact number stays unknown to date! We recommend anyone to log onto music sites like AMP or BITJAM and search for more of his remarkable tunes, as the ones presented in Mudia Art are just the sweet cherries on a much more succulent cake.

Jogeir Liljedahl hails from aalesund, a town situated in the west coast of Norway. 40000 inhabitants and an explosion of nature adorn the beautiful aalesund. "Our nature is unexplainable, you simply have to visit Norway and see the landscapes and breathe the fresh air", sighs Jogeir.

In the Christmas of 1984, young ten year old Jogeir found a commodore 64 under the fir tree. "Somehow I got most fond of music in games", remembers Jogeir who confides that he was so much taken by the c64 tunes that for the following few years he didn't even care much about the commercial music which his friends listened to. "the tiny sounds of the c64, with its 3 channels was by all means more than enough for me", he remembers fondly!

"I will never forget the way I felt the first time I heard the music from 'green beret' which was the second game I bought from my local  computer store. The music made by martin galway was unbelievable!" This was the time when youths all over the world had big posters of Michael Jackson, a-ha, Europe and other big bands from the mid 80s, all over their room. "I did like some of the commercial music from that time, but deep inside me, all i ever wanted was to have the opportunity to sit down and relax listening to c64 music"
Some might shake their heads in disbelief at such quotes, but Jogeir's honesty shows his great devotion to the real roots of tracked music.

Jogeir thumbed with the c64 for the next 4 years or so, and during that time he accumulated a whole library of games, demos and music related software. He started to stitch any short musical ideas that came into his mind in Soundmon. 
"I never had the c64 long enough to develop myself as a decent musician, so I ended up without ever releasing anything. i used most of my c64 days listening to the awesome music by martin galway, rob Hubbard, Tim follin, ben daglish and later, maniacs of noise and Chris huelsbeck"

His contact with the active Amiga scene started around 1991 when he joined Razor 1911, mostly pushed by one of his best friends, Stein-erik Giske; Bug, for you sceners! Jogeir and Bug composed 2 tunes together, "flass jazz" and "addiction", which he is very fond of even to this day, not because of the 8-bit sounds, but mostly for the music composition itself. This was the time when the music group "noiseless productions" was formed on Amiga. "i guess we wanted to create a music-label like maniacs of noise did on the c64 with several musicians having fun sharing music experiences and to offer freelance music for software companies"
Although they never got that far when it comes to game music, Jogeir signed most of his modules as noiseless productions, and with much fond memories, he confirms that he doesn't regret it at all after all these years. Indeed Noiseless Productions garnered much following amongst all module collectors.

Between 1992 and 93 Jogeir and coder Nosferatu released the music disk "dizzy tunes 1" under the Razor 1911 label.














At the same time Jogeir ended up at the second place in the music contest at the gathering 1992 with his "variations".
This was very good promotion for him, as not many sceners had yet come to know of Jogeir apart from his previously released tune "face another day".












"face another day" was a 22 minutes long new-age tune with varied themes. with this tune Jogeir got his big break in the Amiga scene. Many complemented him for the music style, others wondered how it was possible to make a module of such extensive length. Most probably this was a scene world record, if there ever was one!

In the summer of 1993, together with two friends, Jogeir was on his way to Denmark for a holiday, but planned to visit the rendezvous 93 party in kristiansand, Norway. He competed with "guitar slinger", which won the competition and most probably became THE tune sceners connect him to, even to this day.

In 1994 Jogeir joined Virtual Dreams, the Amiga demo making section of fairlight and was lucky enough to be the musical brain behind the cult Amiga demos "full moon" and "love".












Like many of his fellow Norwegian sceners, Jogeir tried his luck in game making, when he joined Funcom in 1994. Funcom was a true phenomenon, as they practically had all the most known sceners of the time on their payroll! During his stay at Funcom, Jogeir joined Scoop, even though he didn't own a PC yet, but Adept of Scoop was kind enough to offer his own machine and Jogeir decided to give it a shot. "Apart from the 32-voices shock i was very pleased, as I was now able to release music on the pc in addition to the Amiga"

It was only 2 years later that he got his first pc, a Pentium 90. "It took me about 6 months before I felt that my work was good enough to put my name on. It was quite brain blocking to suddenly compose music with 32 channels in 16-bit quality, instead of the 4 8-bit channels I was accustomed to on Amiga". His first PC release was the tune "moonlit" featured in the official invitation intro for the gathering 1996. Weeks later, the music disk "ambrozia" was released under the pulse & noiseless label. "Scorpik had just joined noiseless, so it was probably the best time for us to release a pc production. There was almost a 3 year long break since i last released any kind of music, so it was quite relaxing knowing that ambrozia grew to be quite popular".













"When i look back at those days, i certainly must admit that i have had a lot of fun, and i have learned a lot about music making, listening and doing everything you think is right for a tune. i made the kind of music i liked, so i stuck to that. we all tried different genres, but usually you end up with what you're comfortable with, and stick to that for the best results, right? I think this is an important issue for every musician's inspiration and motivation; at least it was and still is for me. from the time when i first started, i would say that I've expanded my musical spectrum much wider compared to what i was doing back then. today, it's easier to make a tune sound good, relaxing and easy-listening compared to 1990 when it was always a struggle trying to impress myself and everyone else with technical and difficult music. i guess i "grew" up during these years, and i must say that I'm glad that i had some kind of "inner flame" burning for knowledge for music, how to do what, when and if."

The ever smiling Jogeir says that without artists like martin galway, rob Hubbard, ben daglish and Tim follin, he would not understand music the way he does today. Besides he also adds that movies are a great inspiration for his musical work, as a movie must have a good soundtrack to amplify the atmosphere in the film. Jogeir is also a dedicated Trekkie, and eagerly follows everything the Star Trek universe has to offer! He also "collects" music in general. "I'm not into any specific genre, it's simply impossible for me to do that. One day i listen to seal, mike & the mechanics, genesis, mike oldfield, jarre and vangelis. Next month i could be listening to pink floyd, a-ha, Europe, the cure and queen...  that's me, so one could say that I'm a typical "all around music-lover".