095: Magic & Mayhem, by Afro Celt Sound System

Afro Celt Sound System (United Kingdom)
Magic & Mayhem (1999)
12 tracks, 41 minutes
YouTube playlist

You’ve heard hidden tracks before, pieces of music that are ‘hidden’ in an album in some way, usually just by being left unlisted on the packaging, sometimes after a long silence at the end, and sometimes with some tech wizardry, like being placed before the music starts. Well, this one is the next level: a whole hidden album.

Magic & Mayhem is a real-time strategy video game from 1999, with a sort of high-fantasy theme. Video games were only just being able to include full soundtracks of pre-recorded music (as opposed to programmed music that is ‘played’ by the game itself with MIDI or similar sound chips), and the makers of Magic & Mayhem leapt at the chance to utilise this ability to its fullest, and they hired pioneering world dubtronica outfit the Afro Celt Sound System to create their score. As you played through the game, it was to the grooves of the Afro Celts. So far, so relatively normal. But it turned out that if you stuck the CD-ROM of the game into your CD player instead of your computer, it played the soundtrack there as well, all twelve tracks just as it would a normal album. I’ve never heard of that technique before, but it’s a great idea.

And, because it’s the Afro Celt Sound System, the music is great too. Fitting the game, the tracks are divided up into three realms with four tracks each: there’s music for Celtic, Greek and medieval worlds. Each has its own feeling, of course. The Celtic tracks are classic ACSS with uilleann pipes and whistles; the Greek ones feature harps and guitars; and the medieval tracks, perhaps a bit oddly, are a bit more new-agey, focussing on electronic instruments but using ancient-sounding scales. From those bases, everything is given rich layers of luscious synthscapes, appropriately Afro-Celtic drum loops and an overall dubtronic production treatment. This soundtrack is maybe not as adventurous in terms of the amount of international influences and guest musicians as on their standard albums, but the quality is great nevertheless and it shows a different and little-known side to the group that went on to be so successful.

Magic & Mayhem wasn’t the only time ACSS combined their music and video games with hidden content. Their second album proper, Volume 2: Release, also from 1999, did the opposite of Magic & Mayhem: it was a standard audio album, but when you opened it on a computer, you could install a small game called Noodle, in which you could remix the track ‘Whirl-y-Reel’ from the group’s first album. The way it worked was really interesting, each instrument was represented by a little moving graphic, and each played a set of loops that you could mix and match, bring to the fore and let fade away, and even save your favourite configurations. The amount of hours I sunk into Noodle as a kid is probably too embarrassing (and too long ago) to tally. And again, this was hidden: you wouldn’t know about it until you tried it in your computer and opened that unknown and suspicious .exe.

So hurrah for hidden content and hurrah for the pioneering mix of world music and video games – it still doesn’t happen enough. More please, but until then, let’s enjoy this little-known gem of an album, hidden perhaps too well.