Freelance writer Jack Yarwood succeeded in contacting Jim Andron to talk about his work on the soundtrack of Tetris CD-i. On social media regularly tweets and posts pop up to praise the soundtrack of Tetris on CD-i. After all those years it is still highly appreciated, if you look for the music on Youtube you'll see they all have thousands of views, even in 2020. Moreover, earlier this year, an unofficial vinyl press was issued by records label 'Unfortunateface'. How did this end up to be?
The article is posted on fanbyte, read it here
Some highlights: Jim Andron also composed the soundtrack for the game 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' by Silent ASoftware. This was the start of his video game carreer. And even before that, in the 1960's and 1970's his name appears on several hits including “Green, Green,” and “This Land is Your Land.” Jim Andron was hired by Philips POV to create the music of various CD-i games that they produced between 1990 and 1994. So next to the soundtrack of Tetris CD-i (which was him most famous work), Jim Andron also composed music for the CD-i games Zombie Dinos from the Planet Zeltoid, Lords of the Rising Sun, and Girl’s Club.
Jim, who was signed to jingles company Wayne in Pennsylvania, got in contact with David Riordan (at that time heading Philips Media) and Cliff Johnsson (head of Philips FunHouse, another Philips Media internal studio). Together they talked about the possibilities and plans of the upcoming CD-i. Withthe compact disc, CD-i offered new benefits in terms of quality of the music that Jim could create.
So for Tetris CD-i, Jim Andron actually created music that went along with the visuals of the game: Philips POV sent him the FMV backgrounds so he could start composing the soundtrack. His equipment included a JV-1080, a JD-990, and a TG77 Yamaha, according to Jack. It was clearly a different direction, totally different compared to other Tetris games. Most other Tetris games rely back on the Russian roots, but the CD-i version was not. Jim chose to compose melodic electronic, orchestral soundscapes, which were very relaxing.
The soundtrack remains to be popular, mainly thanks to Youtube. Jim Andron was surprised that earlier this year, record label Unfortunateface actually released a vinyl version of the soundtrack, without his permission. Of course at first he protested, but after that he got in contact with them and it appeared that they were actually trying to contact him and even set aside royalties, so in the end it all settled out. Jim Andron is now retired.
Read the article here, with full of quotes and details by Jim Andron.
[Thanks, Jack Yarwood, Jim Andron]