Carola Cortenbach - 1983 - Live at TYME

To those who weren't able to visit our Thirty Years MSX Event in Amsterdam.. well, you've missed out on something! One of the major acts was Carola, singing a large (nearly 9 minutes) show-tune by Wolf, called '1983'. This collaboration was easy to set up (Carola is wolf's cousin, music kinda runs in the family), but having it all ready for TYME took some time. Eventually, the final version for Carola to rehearse with was ready only a week prior to TYME, while the final mix was ready only the Wednesday before TYME - but hey, it was in time! In fact, TYME was the first time Wolf would hear Carola sing 1983. The audience loved it, as well as its reprise later that evening. Even at the event, people were asking for a version they could listen to at home.

As can be expected these days, people have their cameras ready, so you may have seen such camera versions of the performance already. Not completely satisfied with the sound of such cameras, Wolf has made his own live-version of the act, based on the camera recordings of Poke -1,170 and Latok, and based on his own studio version. It's the most accurate sounding version. For now! Because Wolf intends to do a serious recording session with Carola in a studio followed by a new mixing session. This won't be something that's done within weeks from now, but it's on the agenda. Maybe a video clip can be made as well, which would require some more time.

As for the song itself, it's a three part form. The first and third part are Wolf's own hyper-melancholic themes, mostly based on strings and piano. The second part consists of orchestral covers of well known game tunes; Nemesis 2, Dragon Slayer 6 and Xak - The Tower of Gazzel. What makes this song special is that fact that you can listen to its lyrics without knowing anything about MSX whatsoever. Wolf wrote the lyrics in such a way that all words could mean something non-MSX as well. Only real MSX-fans would understand that poetry in white within a blue sky means "COLOR 15,4,4 in text mode". Or didn't you?

Relevant link: TYME - 1983 - Live version