Tim Wright (Welsh musician)

For other people of this name, see Tim Wright (disambiguation).
Tim Wright

Tim Wright in 2008
Background information
Birth name Timothy Brian Wright
Also known as CoLD SToRAGE
Born (1967-07-31) 31 July 1967
Origin Wales Cymau, Wrexham, Wales
Genres Electronica
Occupation(s) Composer, programmer, creative director, managing director
Years active 1989–present
Website Official website

Tim Wright (born 31 July 1967), alias CoLD SToRAGE, is a Welsh video game music composer most known for his work in video game soundtracks such as Shadow of the Beast, Agony, Lemmings, Wipeout and Colony Wars.

His first commercial works were created using the Commodore Amiga in the early 1990s and featured in computer games published by Psygnosis / Sony Computer Entertainment Studio Liverpool.

Wright left Sony in 1997 to form Jester Interactive with the key goal of developing music creation software for home consoles. In his role as creative director at Jester he designed Music and Music 2000 for the PlayStation and MTV Music Generator and Music 3000 for the PlayStation 2 before leaving along with his brothers to form Checkmate Solutions Limited.

At Checkmate Wright developed several musical sequencing products for Empire Interactive plc. under the eJay brand. After several products were developed Wright left to form his own company, Tantrumedia Limited.

Wright currently manages Tantrumedia Limited and their audio division where he composes music, designs music sequencing software and oversees the production of websites and other multimedia projects.[1]

Career

While working as a computer programmer for Littlewoods/Index The Catalogue Shop in the late 1980s, Wright penned compositions for computer based demos, one of these entitled Puggs In Space caught the eye of Psygnosis' then Managing Director, Ian Hetherington. This led to Wright creating music for a number of Psygnosis' Amiga and Atari ST games, some of which won awards.[2] This initial freelance work eventually led to him leaving his programming job for Littlewoods and going to work full-time at Psygnosis Ltd as their Senior Sound Artist on projects such as Lemmings, Wipeout, Wipeout 2097 and Colony Wars (refer to Video Gameography below for full list of titles).

Leaving Psygnosis in 1997, Wright was involved in the formation of Jester Interactive Ltd [3] with the intention of bringing music creation and mixing to Sony's original PlayStation console. The MUSICtm and MTV Music Generator series received industry awards & accolades,[4] and spawned several incarnations of the MUSICtm Software before Wright finally departed with his brother Lee to form Checkmate Solutions Limited to design a new range of eJay music sequencing software.

In 2003, Wright formed his own multimedia company called Tantrumedia Ltd, involved in web space provision, website creation, software production, design & print and, of course, music. He also set up an official website to host much of his musical output under the name.[5]

In 2005, as well as releasing the Cold Storage double album Melt, he designed a new version of the Dance & HipHop eJay music software for Empire Interactive, and made a return to Wipeout, this time for the Sony PSP with Wipeout Pure.

2006 saw Wright create more music for games, this time on Nintendo DS, Sony PSP and PC for forthcoming titles.[6]

In 2008 Wright released his Android Child and Cold Storage HD albums.[7]

In 2009 Wright penned music for more games on DS, Wii and PS3, most notably Gravity Crash. He also released his 4th Studio Album entitled Project Moonbounce 2009 which features sounds created by bouncing radio signals off the moon [8] as part of World Moonbounce or EME (Earth Moon Earth) day.[9]

The soundtrack album to Sony's PS3 game Gravity Crash is released in 2010 and is Wright's 5th Studio Album entitled Gravity Crash Anthems. This is quickly followed by his 6th Studio Album, Tik Tak.[10]

Wright creates his longest track ever Tangerine which weighs in at 9 minutes and 31 seconds. This track is given away free to anyone who participates in a 2010 Cold Storage Easter Promotion, and as such is a limited edition download, unavailable in the public domain. ( This track was finally released to all on the Bandcamp service at Easter 2015 ).

Personal life

Timothy Brian Wright was born at 6 Fford Las, Cymau, North Wales and spent his formative years attending the nearby Llanfynydd County Primary School, a Welsh first language school. He exhibited musical aspirations at the age of 3, singing self-penned songs into a portable cassette recorder.

At the age of 5 he moved with his family to a farm just outside Henllan in North Wales. At the age of seven he began attending weekly formal Piano lessons. Wright lived on the farm with his mother, father and 4 siblings until he was 18, attending both Henllan County Primary School and Denbigh High School.

In his early teens he formed a short lived band called TUCAN with a fellow student. After completing his A Level examinations, he moved away to attend the Polytechnic of North London where he studied Electronics and Communications Engineering for 2 years. Whilst at college he also formed another two-man band in the shape of the snappily named Infinite Remix III Jnr.

Upon his return to Wales after his studies, he worked for 6 months at Sharp Manufacturing UK in Llay near Wrexham, but quickly moved on to work for Littlewoods in Liverpool, where he was part of the core team that programmed the in-house software for Index The Catalogue Shop. It was soon after moving to the Wirral that he also met and eventually married his first wife Michelle.

Leaving Littlewoods he spent 4 very prolific years at Psygnosis before leaving to form Jester Interactive with his brother. It was around this time that he also met his second wife Claire. 2003 saw Wright leave Jester to form Checkmate Solutions Limited again with his brother Lee.

In 2006, Checkmate Solutions Limited was dissolved leaving Wright to Manage Tantrumedia Limited, a company he originally incorporated in 2003 as a vehicle for his work on websites and music production.

Wright currently lives on the Wirral in the United Kingdom and has one son called Jacob.

Video gameography

Discography

Albums

Singles and EPs

Appearances on compilation albums

Filmscores and soundtracks

References

  1. ↑ http://www.bwrweira.co.uk BWRW EIRA
  2. ↑ "Golden Joystick Awards 2010 - About The Joysticks". Computerandvideogames.com. 2010-08-26. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
  3. ↑ "Composer Interview: CoLD SToRAGE (Tim Wright) - OCRWiki - OverClocked ReMix". Ocremix.org. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
  4. ↑ "Codemasters". Codemasters. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
  5. ↑ "Official CoLD SToRAGE Website". Coldstorage.org.uk. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
  6. ↑ "Music, Sound Effects and Voice Over for Games, Video, Film TV, Websites and Media Projects". Bwrw Eira. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
  7. ↑ "Cold Storage". Coldstorage.bandcamp.com. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
  8. ↑ jeriaska on 6 October 2009 12:00 AM (2009-10-06). "Sound Current: 'CoLD SToRAGE Audio Trip – Project Moonbounce 2009'". GameSetWatch. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
  9. ↑ "World Moon Bounce Day Celebrates 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 Moon Landing « National Space Society Blog". Blog.nss.org. 2009-04-07. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
  10. ↑ "Cold Storage". Coldstorage.bandcamp.com. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
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