Charles Li's other songs?

[Hydrus]

I heard that Charles Li (who made music for Icarus: Alien Vanguard) also made other midi tracks and uploaded them to AOL. Does anyone, by any chance have copies of these songs?

[T-Rex]

According to Jeremy Doyle, Charles Li composed two tracks for Icarus: Alien Vanguard which were used in Map 09: The Moat and Map 20: WarTemple. I couldn't help but feel that he might have also composed the music track for Map 23: Painful Discharge, due to having the same type instrumentation heard in Map 09's track, even though it's been apparently attributed to Jonathan El-Bizri, so I don't know if it's either just an error on Jeremy Doyle's part given the wad was made back in 1996 and the track was indeed by Li, or if El-Bizri managed to do a close imitation of Li's music style.

[Hydrus]

I have to disagree with that. Lots of songs have the same instrumentation; you can only do so much with MIDI music. And I think the MAP23 theme is too slow to have been done by Charles Li.

[JDoyle]

I have only 1 (well, technically 2) other tracks that I know for certain were composed by Charles Li, one is a midi titled "Trippin' in a Groove Hole" 

 

The other is a song that he and I collaborated on titled "The Beginning" which I'm frankly too embarrassed to let escape into the wild of the internet. 

It's possible he also did Map23, but to me that track has the signature Jon El-Bizri minimalism which I don't hear in Charles' known work. 

Something that has been mentioned which I never considered is the possibility that Charles wrote Icarus's intermission music. It fits his sort of jazzy / funky style and is clearly not quantized, which we can see from his other songs. 

I wish I could get back in touch with Jon El-Bizri or Brian Kidby to finally put these mysteries to rest! 

 

[Cammy]

I wonder what ever happened to Mr. Li; despite my best efforts, I've been unable to find where he is now. If I could find a way to contact him, he'd have been invited to a MIDI pack or two by now, that's for sure. His music is great - hope he's doing alright these days!

[LadyMistDragon]

I mean, how much info is available on his background in stuff like the TNT lists? Not everyone is exactly Jonathan El-Bizri but we can guess why he's said little when requested to speak on his music.

[T-Rex]

I hope we'll be able to know who truly is responsible for Map 23's music track. While it's true that Jonathan El-Bizri has a minimalistic style as heard in tracks like "Soldier of Chaos" (TNT Map 07), "Let's Kill at Will" (TNT Map 11), "Cold Subtleness" (TNT Map 14) and "Blood Jungle" (TNT Map 16 and 26), the opening for Map 23 starts off with an accompaniment that uses the same instrument that is used for the accompaniment in Map 09's track. That said, it is interesting figuring out the composers behind the tracks as it's easy to tell who did which based on the styles they use widely in their music, like David "Tolwyn" Shaw has a distinctive and striking music style that captures Doom's atmosphere, making him pretty much the successor of Bobby Prince, Tom Mustaine has a tendency towards melodic repetition, and Jeremy Doyle, he is to Icarus what L.A. Sieben is to Evilution, since he composed undoubtedly the best tracks in the megawad full of wild, incredible melodies, and an adventurous compositional style that rivals Sieben's, whose pumping hard rock tunes, improvisational free-form guitar riffs and diverse instrumentation as heard in his tracks for TNT Evilution, Perdition's Gate and Hell to Pay not only feel right at home with Doom's run-n-gun action, but sound like something out of the Mega Man games.

Edited July 19, 2023 by T-Rex