Alexander Brandon (also known as Siren in the

demoscene The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual ...

and tracker community) is an American

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

, former member of

Straylight Productions Straylight Productions was a team of video game music composers and producers, founded in 1994. Overview The founding musicians were Andrew Sega and Dan Gardopée, joined later by Alexander Brandon. Straylight composed soundtracks for Origin Syst ...

, who composed

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

mostly for

games A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such ...

produced by

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, M ...

, or games based on Epic technology, including ''

Unreal Unreal may refer to: Books and TV * ''Unreal'' (short story collection), a 1985 book of short stories by Paul Jennings * ''Unreal'' (TV series), a 2015 television drama series on Lifetime Computing and games * ''Unreal'' (video game series), ...

'', ''

Unreal Tournament ''Unreal Tournament'' is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the ''Unreal'' series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Microsoft Windows, and later r ...

'', ''

Deus Ex ''Deus Ex'' is a series of role-playing video games, set during the mid 21st century. Focusing on the conflict between secretive factions who wish to control the world by proxy, and the effects of transhumanistic attitudes and technologies in a ...

'', ''

Tyrian Tyrian may refer to the following: * Tyrian, an adjective for Tyre, a city in the South Governorate of Lebanon * ''Tyrian'' (video game), an arcade-style shooter video game by Epic MegaGames * Tyrian purple, a colour * Tyrian, a person who worsh ...

'', ''

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 ''Jazz Jackrabbit 2'' is a 1998 platform game produced by Epic MegaGames. It was released for Windows, and later for Macintosh. Like the first game, ''Jazz Jackrabbit'', ''Jazz Jackrabbit 2'' is a side-scrolling platform game but features addit ...

,'' and the cancelled game '' Jazz Jackrabbit 3D''. Brandon is also a voice actor, having been cast most recently for the parts of Ancano and Amaund Motierre in the Role Playing Game '' The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim'' by

Bethesda Game Studios Bethesda Game Studios is an American video game developer and a studio of ZeniMax Media based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was established in 2001 as the spin-off of Bethesda Softworks' development unit, with Bethesda Softworks itself ...

. Brandon started composing music at the age of 14 when he got an

Ad Lib In music and other performing arts, the phrase (; from Latin for 'at one's pleasure' or 'as you desire'), often shortened to "ad lib" (as an adjective or adverb) or "ad-lib" (as a verb or noun), refers to various forms of improvisation. The ...

music synthesizer card for Christmas. He worked in several

MOD Mod, MOD or mods may refer to: Places * Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band * M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...

music groups over his composing years in the late 1990s, including the

Kosmic Free Music Foundation The Kosmic Free Music Foundation (a.k.a. Kosmic, or KFMF) was a worldwide group of computer musicians, artists, and coders focused on the PC demoscene. Most members were from the United States, Canada, and Australia. They created music - mostl ...

. During that time, he also composed for several musicdisks such a
Return to Stage 9
Brandon has built several audio departments, starting with Ion Storm Austin in mid-2000. This was followed with an audio director position at Midway Home Entertainment in San Diego until 2007 when he started the audio department at

Obsidian Entertainment Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Irvine, California. It was founded in June 2003, shortly before the closure of Black Isle Studios, by ex-Black Isle employees Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, Chris Par ...

. In February 2009, he built the audio department at Heatwave Interactive, also providing business development and overall media management. In April 2010, Alex launched Funky Rustic, an independent audio production studio, working out of Georgetown, Texas.

Past nicknames

During his tracker career, Alex has used several nicknames: * 1995: first tracks released under the name "Chromatic Dragon" * end of 1995: name changed to "Siren" * middle of 1996, during KFMF membership: name temporarily changed to "Sandman" * end of 1996: name changed back to "Siren" Note that there were several (two or three) tracker musicians around the world, who have used the nickname "Sandman" independently of Alex.

Influences

Alexander Brandon's influences include

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

Dream Theater Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of the ...

Frost* Frost* are an English neo-progressive rock supergroup, formed in 2004 by Jem Godfrey and members of Arena, Kino, and IQ. Frost* released their first studio album, '' Milliontown'', in 2006, before splitting up. In 2008, Godfrey reformed Frost ...

Andrew Sega Andrew Gregory Sega ( ; born May 20, 1975), also known as Necros, is an American musician best known for tracking modules in the 1990s demoscene as well as for composing music for several well-known video games. He was a member of the synthpop d ...

Steve Vai Steven Siro Vai (; born June 6, 1960) is an American guitarist, composer, songwriter, and producer. A three-time Grammy Award winner and fifteen-time nominee, Vai started his music career in 1978 at the age of eighteen as a transcriptionist for ...

, and

Ozric Tentacles Ozric Tentacles are an English instrumental rock band, whose music incorporates elements from a diverse range of genres, including psychedelic rock, progressive rock, space rock, jazz fusion, electronic music, dub music, world music, and ambi ...

, among others.

Personal life

Brandon lives in

Georgetown, Texas Georgetown is a city in Texas and the county seat of Williamson County, Texas, United States. The population was 67,176 at the 2020 census. It is 30 miles (48 km) north of Austin. Founded in 1875 from four existing colleges, the oldest of ...

with his family.MAGFest - Alexander Brandon
Retrieved 2018-04-19.

Works

Video games

Other work

Voice acting

Books

References

External links

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...

Developer Bio
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

Musicography and tracks collection for 1995–1999
(Chromatic Dragon / Siren period)

(incomplete) * *
Artist profile
at

OverClocked ReMix OverClocked ReMix, also known as OC ReMix and OCR, is a non-commercial organization dedicated to preserving and paying tribute to video game music through arranging and re-interpreting the songs, both with new technology and software and by vari ...

Interviews

"Interview with Alexander Brandon"
MotherShip Server: Kemmerer, Peter (June 1999)
"Interview with Alex Brandon"
DeusEx-Machina.com: (Jan. 2001)
"Alexander Brandon Interview: Going Solo"
Game Music Online (November 1, 2007)
"Epic Composer Interview: Alexander Brandon"

(May 16, 2012, archived)
PC classic commentary: Tyrian 2000 with Alexander Brandon
.

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games ma ...

(July 3, 2014) {{DEFAULTSORT:Brandon, Alexander American electronic musicians American male voice actors Demosceners Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Tracker musicians Video game composers People from Georgetown, Texas 1974 births