ROTY 2025 Winners
The Remixer of the Year (ROTY) 2025 Awards were were handed out earlier today during a live SLAY Radio show. The big prize was won yet again by Eivind Sommersten for the second year in a row! Congrats, Eivind! To find out the winners of all the other categories, head over to the ROTY 2025 page linked below where you can also watch the entire awards show as it was broadcast live.
Our heartfelt congratulations to all the winners, to all the nominees - and also to all the listeners who took the time to vote for their favorites! Last, but not least, also a huge thank you to Slaygon, Ziona, and Boz over at SLAY Radio for the fantastic awards show!
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BIT Live is Back in 2026 - With a Surprise Date!
The FastLoaders have announced that Back In Time Live will be held again in 2026 in Bergen, Norway, and this time with a - <checks his notes again> - summer date!?! Yes, that's right, folks, for the first time ever, BIT Live will be held as a two-day event smack in the middle of SUMMER on July 31- August 1! Rumors were abound last year that Norway does actually have a summer season, so this might be a good opportunity to fact-check that in person. The event will be at a new venue, too, at the Ole Bull Scene, still in Bergen's city centre, not far from where all the other Norwegian BIT Live events were held in recent years. Tickets are already available for the event at the link below.
Rambo Loader Tune by Matt Gray
Matt posted this tune with the following words on his Reformation 5 Kickstarter page:
I've just put up the new R5 version on Bandcamp of one of my all time favourite SID tunes, the Loading Theme from Rambo First Blood Part 2. Link Below.
Mr Galway excelled himself with the music on that game, and for me the loading track is possibly the greatest C64 game track ever. So I've taken my time in doing my 2nd version of it (the first being on the original Reformation and made well over 10 years ago now) to try and do it justice. I'm very happy with the result and hopefully you will enjoy also.
Work on the LN1 album is progressing nicely and hopefully March will indeed finally see its digital release.
Thanks so much to everyone for all the great comments on the previous R5 track uploads. It's very reassuring to know so many of you are enjoying the new tracks as much as I have enjoyed making them.
Have a great rest of the week all.
Another Single from Reformation 5: The Palace Main Theme
Matt Gray has released another single from his upcoming Reformation 5
album: the main theme of The Palace
level from The Last Ninja. Although Matt has already tackled this tune on his Reformation 3
album, he has reworked it significantly. It's availabe now on Bandcamp.
Mastertronic C64 Remixes - Part 3
The third part in the series about remixes of C64 games released by Mastertronic has just been published. In this one Waz looks at remixes freely available on RKO, and these are all remixes of games that were re-released by Mastertronic, either via the Ricochet label, or later via MAD, Mastertronic Plus and so on. You can read it at the link below. And if you missed the first 2 parts in the series, there are links to those, too.
ROTY 2025 Awards Show on Feb 21!
We are happy to announce that the Remixer of the Year (ROTY) 2025 Awards show will be on Saturday, February 21 at 18:00 (CET, Europe)! The awards show will yet again be hosted by SLAY Radio. Join us to find out which remixes were voted the best of the best by you, the listeners, and who will win the coveted Remixer of the Year
award! Mark your calendars!
ROTY 2025 Awards Show
2026. February 21. Saturday
Hosted by SLAY Radio at:
- 18:00 (CET)
- 12:00 PM (US Eastern)
- 04:00 AM (Feb 22, Sun) (AEDT, Sydney, Australia)
Remix News 2025 Bloopers
You've seen the videos, you've heard our guest announcers - now peek behind the curtains and laugh with us as we show you that reading a script is not as easy as they made it look in 2025…
A Temporal Shift
by Uncle Art
'Uncle Art' is the moniker that used to just be Dave Lowe, a musician and programmer composing and converting computer game music in the 80s and 90s for various platforms and for over 70 game titles. These days he is joined by his daughter Holly Jazz Lowe and the two of them work together as musicians, composers and producers. When Holly noticed how much love there is on the internet for the retrogaming days, she wondered whether there might be enough interest in them remaking her dad's original gaming music. One of Dave's most famous pieces of gaming music was for Frontier: Elite 2 with John Williams / Jerry Goldsmith esque thundering classical themes. What would this sound like with a real orchestra as it was originally imagined for, instead of the plucky but limited little Amiga PAULA chip?!
They crowdfunded the project on Kickstarter to see if there was enough interest and raised over £35,000 to make the album. This album would be called 'A Temporal Shift' containing re-recorded, re-interpreted and re-arranged fresh new studio recordings of Dave's best loved gaming compositions. These recordings are contemporary and exciting, a fusion of electronic music, samples and real and very accomplished musicians ship and use of live instruments. The album also includes Dave's two Frontier themes recorded by a 50 piece orchestra (the Chamber Orchestra Of London) at Abbey Road studios!
Phonographic Copyright (p) – Uncle Art Music
Copyright (c) – Uncle Art Music
Producer – Dave Lowe, Holly Jazz Lowe
Written-By – Dave Lowe
Arranged by SIDrip Alliance
Here's the second thing I really like about this remix: it's live (mostly). In fact, it's -a-live: you can taste that it's people playing great music for people who are willing to listen.
Here's what I don't like about this remix: the mix sounds a bit overcompressed to me. Maybe because the chords played by the synth seemingly disappear behind a metal cage. But in general I feel its flavor is suppressed a bit too much.
And again, here's what I really like about this remix: its fast pace! It's just mad, crazy - it's wonderful!
Review by LaLa
Arranged by Glyn R Brown
Now Glyn takes his own take on the main theme of the original piece, and makes it certainly his own with this remake. Something that really shows in here is that Glyn probably has a big Mike Oldfield collection (or he better have if he hasn't!: P) because there is that MASSIVE feel to this piece you get when listening to the likes of Mike Oldfiend.
Overall there are few remakes that I really feel honored to have listened to, and that the author took the time to create. This would be now in that top ten of music that I will listen to almost every day!
Thank you for sharing your vision of this already lovely piece - you did it justice!
Review by winc
Tetris [Mariko's Tale] (Encore64 V2)
Arranged by Barry Leitch
That is the charm of remixes, they bring back not only the music, but the memories. And the answer to what the original composer might have heard when creating this, on whatever equipment or only the mind, before converting it into what the SID and skill allowed.
This remix has it all, the stomping drums, the original-sounding synth kicking in at just the right moment (at 3:00), the orchestral grandeur (starting with the middle part at minute 11, with a lead string that is a nod to Game of Thrones?) and lots of interesting choices, like the hand-pan sounds, the
door-bellintermezzo at 9:43 and finally the unexpected 90 second, dreamlike extro, which makes one want to start the track all over again, just like the original did, back in 1988.
Review by Hendrik74
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