An international
Amiga demo scene group born in the
UK.
Quartz was formed in 1991 by British ex-members of Flashing Bytes led by Jaz. Armed with the good musician Hydlide and several other productive members, the group produced many small intros and demos but nothing spectacular. In 1992 Quartz started expanding outside of the Great Britain. They started divisions in Denmark, Sweden and even one in South Africa (which was led by Bjørn, a dane who moved to SA).
Now this is where things get complicated. More or less the entire Danish division left for Majic 12. The Swedish people recruited the megaswapper Speedy in Denmark, and he in turn let a 13-year-old swapper/musician Neutralizer form the Finnish section of Quartz. The main division in UK soon found out that the Swedish people were - in good old scene terms - lamers, and they were kicked out immediately. The British people also initially meant to get rid of everybody hired through the Swedish section. In the end, the Finnish section was allowed to stay while Speedy moved on and joined Parasite.
The scene back then was worse than your average soap opera, eh? But let's move on...
1992 was pretty much the best year for Quartz. The British members released the great music disk "Project Techno". It was based on the old idea of mixing together many modules into one giant megamix, but it was done better than in any similar scene production up to then. Quartz also acquired the very talented swapper Majic Mushroom, whose packdisks were very popular. A small party was also arranged on summer '92 in the UK.
Meanwhile, the South African division produced numerous intros during the year. While the quality varied, at least one couldn't call them unproductive. The same can't be said about the Finnish division, though. While it had grown to 3 members, including swapper Daftworm (who joined from Origin) and the talented musician Beadwave, the Finns failed to release anything due to a lack of coders. There was some talk about arranging a small demo party in Hämeenlinna, Finland along with Groo of Virtual Dreams, but this plan never became a reality. During The Party 92 Quartz UK released their best intro yet, "Space Trip", which used one of Beadwave's tunes, so at least the Finns achieved something. :)
Quartz slowly faded away in 1993. A mediocre music disk "Go For the Record" was released by Bjørn, but with Majic Mushroom joining Lemon and the British section falling into a coma, things were pretty much over. The Finnish section died as Daftworm quit his scene activities due to being too busy with his studies, and Beadwave disappeared without a trace. Finally, Neutralizer changed his handle to Breakbeat and left for the old Danish Quartz member Speedy's group, imaginatively titled Speedy.
In case you didn't figure it out yet, I was once known as Neutralizer/Quartz.
(I know it's a silly pseudonym - hey, I was 13 years old! :))
Amiga Scene Groups
You don't honestly think this was cut'n'paste, do you? :)