Kosmic Free Music Foundation
The Kosmic Free Music Foundation ( KFMF for short or Kosmic ) was a worldwide group of computer musicians , artists and programmers from the PC demo scene . Most of the members were from the United States , Canada, and Australia . Using trackers, they mainly created techno , trance and ambient music and designed various artworks and demos. All of their productions were offered for free download via bulletin boards (BBS) and on the Internet. In the 1990s, the KFMF was known to have many of the top musicians from the tracker scene among its members. Their early presence on the internet made them one of the first net labels . The leader of Kosmic was Dan Nicholson, who used the pseudonym Maelcum within the demo scene .
Development history
The group was founded in 1991 with the name Kosmic Loader Foundation ( KLF , but without direct reference to the British music group The KLF ). The group's original intention was to create BBS intros and ANSI art (similar to ASCII art ).
In 1992 Maelcum began releasing MOD music files under the group's name, making KLF more music-oriented. Inspekdah Deck (later called Venom ; not identical to Wu Tang clan member Inspectah Deck ) operated a BBS called Trancentral II at home in New Jersey , which became the group's platform on which they communicated and published their music ("Trancentral" was also the name of the recording studio and the "spiritual home" of The KLF).
From 1994 onwards, KLF started using the Internet for themselves by setting up an FTP server and a website . At first they had only a few members, but the group grew quickly as they recruited new members on their IRC channel " #trax ". At that time many musicians began at the KLF Multitracker from Renaissance to generate MTM instead of MOD files to use.
In 1995 the group changed its name to Kosmic Free Music Foundation to emphasize the reference to music instead of demos and intros. After recruiting a coder named GooRoo, they presented their first full-length demo " Flight " at the NAID party in Quebec, which won them third place in the competition. The Kosmic members Maelcum and IQ also received second place in the "Music" category with " Hitchhiking Reticulan ". This track was later released on FTZ's CD " Nothing Is True ", produced by Maelcum's own label Area 51 Records . Further demos and music disks followed, whereby the publication of individual pieces of music remained her mainstay.
In 1997 Kosmic offered their first archive CD for sale, which contained all of their music releases up to 1996, plus a few new audio tracks. Some members began releasing their music in the new MP3 format instead of tracker formats. Many members of the original #trax rush had since withdrawn or left the group for their own projects. Two more archive CD sets were released, but by the early 2000s the group had finally drifted into inactivity.
Member list
Organizers
- Maelcum (formerly ModDan) - Dan Nicholson: President since 1991
- Inspekdah Deck (later Venom) - Andre Cardadeiro: Vice President 1992-1995
- Phoenix - Andrew Voss: Vice President 1995-1996
- Draggy - Nicolas St. Pierre: Vice President 1996-2000
Coder
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Musician
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Support
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Publications
- Exceedingly Great Grooves (EGG) - Musicdisk (1994)
- Exceedingly Great Grooves 2 - Musicdisk (1995)
- Exceedingly Great Grooves 3 - Musicdisk (1995)
- Flight - Demo (1995)
- Little Green Men - Demo (1995)
- Dreams - Demo (1997)
- Trip demo (1998)
- KFMF Archives Volumes 1-3 (1997-1999) - data and audio CDs
Web links
- Official website of the Kosmic Free Music Foundation (KFMF)
- Publication list of KFMF in the demo scene database "Pouët"