United Kingdom · Born 1966 · Composer
One of the defining Commodore 64 composers, half of the duo W.E.M.U.S.I.C. with Tony Crowther, and the writer of music for The Last Ninja, Gauntlet and more than a hundred other games.
Ben Daglish was born in London on 31 July 1966 and grew up in Sheffield, where at Bradfield Comprehensive School he met the programmer Tony Crowther. The two formed W.E.M.U.S.I.C. — "We Make Use of Sound In Computers" — to supply music for games, and Daglish became one of the most prolific composers of the 8-bit home computer era. Much of his best-known work was for the Commodore 64, whose SID chip suited his melodic, often folk-influenced writing. His credits include The Last Ninja (with Anthony Lees), the home versions of Gauntlet and Gauntlet II, Trap, Deflektor and Krakout. He worked mostly as a freelancer but was employed for a time by Sheffield's Gremlin Graphics, and he wrote for the Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST and Amiga as well as the C64. His compositions run to more than a hundred game soundtracks. Daglish remained a performer throughout his life. He lived in Derbyshire, played with local bands including Loscoe State Opera, and appeared live with violinist Mark Knight and with the C64 tribute band Press Play On Tape, taking his game music to retro gaming events. He died on 1 October 2018, aged 52, from complications of lung cancer.