Internationally respected composer, Jeff van Dyck was born and raised in Va… Read Full Bio ↴Internationally respected composer, Jeff van Dyck was born and raised in Vancouver Canada. He was mentored by a childhood spent in studios with his father Ralph Dyck, also a composer and technology specialist. "My Dad worked in R & D for Roland and was pivotal in designing the modern sequencer as we know it today. I got to hang around when he worked with artists such as Toto and Michael Jackson. I didn't know who those people were at the time, but I was constantly surrounded by music and the creation process. It was inevitable that creating music would become my life too."

Since then, Jeff has made it his life's work to evolve as a composer and technology specialist. In 1992, at the age of 23, Jeff began to make his mark as a composer/sound designer at Electronic Arts, working on classic computer game franchises including FIFA Soccer, NHL Hockey and the dynamic Need for Speed series.

After 5 years of sports games, Jeff was ready to take on more cinematic styles of composing. He relocated to Australia and contracted to companies around the world creating orchestral, electronic and ethnic/historical soundtracks.

During this time, one of the most successful independent game developers in the world, The Creative Assembly, were looking for a composer for their new Total War franchise and Jeff was the answer. In 2001 he was rewarded for their first collaboration with a BAFTA (British Academy Award) for the Japanese themed soundtrack to The Creative Assembly's Shogun: Total War - Warlord Edition.

The globally recognised BAFTA Interactive Awards reward the achievements in innovation and creativity in the new media industries.

Jeff was once again nominated in 2005 for his original music soundtrack for the computer game Rome: Total War.

The top-selling game, garnered a string of awards which culminated in a cover feature in December's issue of Time Magazine, two BAFTA nominations and three Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) nominations.

The Creative Assembly has an operation based in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley, where Jeff is the Audio Director. In opening an Australian studio of this calibre, The Creative Assembly has recognised the technical talents and skills of Australian artists, audio engineers and programmers.

Jeff's music has proven so popular that The Creative Assembly have released soundtrack CDs of the Total War games.

Arabic Winter
Jeff van Dyck Lyrics

We have lyrics for these tracks by Jeff van Dyck:

Bird of Time See the golden sun on your face Fallen from your brow…
Divinitus Hellatorius victorialis Erastus necessitas Honararius desp…
Forever What awaits us? A cloud has fallen on our shore The mighty…
Journey to Rome Part II Hellatorius victorialis Erastus necessitas Honararius despon…

Little Android I'm just a little android And my battery has run…
Rome Total War Hellatorius victorialis Erastus necessitas Honararius despon…
Till We Meet Again We've travelled far, by moon and sun The path was…

The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos

TRACKS

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Comments from YouTube:

Doom Guy

3y↑143

One reason to play as any eastern faction. Just chills.

Keya Aghaei

2y↑10

Or Carthage or Egypt.

Caesar Augustus

2y↑6

Seleucids !

Seigneur Voland Fan

2y↑9

Or as any Greek faction.

gootube sucks

49w↑2

Parthia all the way baby
"So invaders keep coming, keep trying to take our lands and our wealth..."

Anon

3y↑157

This sounds like the ancient times laying dormant, sleeping forever

GrzybkiZcipki

3y↑14

poetic

Tome Ardjanliev

3y↑8

Like the Mummy of Ramses the Great ;)

Рудольф Мелконян

3y↑5

@GrzybkiZcipki grzegorz brzęczyszczykiewicz

JDFarin 1

2y↑10

Yeah, it feels almost like a legend now. Goes to show that no matter how great the empire, everything inevitably dies and withers away with time.

Seigneur Voland Fan

2y↑4

That is very sad, but true.

3 More Replies...

Deathwatch050

3y↑124

I used to use this track to meditate to when I was a teenager. :) Really relaxing, always puts me in mind of an empty desert by the sea.

Leo Bond Arenales

2y↑8

I use this track for a similar reason but now as an adult

ARTIMER

2y↑57

This music make me remember that time where my MOST decorated,victorious general Darius Julius "The Undefeated", 67, the one who conquered Gaul, Germany, England, a bit of Macedon and Greece, Spain, Carthage. he was at the head of a full army made out of elite veterans princeps, roman cavalry, rhodian slingers, cretan archers, an army that was stronger than the new legionaries, they had followed Darius everywhere he went and would soon follow him in death in a last stand in the Egyptian desert as 10 armies of Egypt attacked I had 3 battles 1st battle against 3 armies, Darius had suffered some loss here and there and a heroic victory, 2nd battle against 3 armies more trained and better units, we had most of the infantry and cavalry at half their capacities we won an heroic victory and in the last battle against 4 armies well trained well equipped and with quite a few Pharaoh’s Guards, Nile Spearmen, Nile Cavalry and Pharaoh’s Bowmen with the one leading being the pharaoh's himself, we lost a close defeat but we destroyed all the elite troops as well as killing all the general's and the pharaoh and not a single one of my units fled event when Darius died, Egypt had won a massive pyrrhic victory. In doing this Egypt lost their most elite troops and generals. The death of Darius brought a great shock to the Julii and 5 punitive armies made entirely of cohort and legionaries (+auxilia) to Egypt.
That music was the one in which Darius had his last stand

IRL: to pray and respect the passing of general Darius Julius "The Undefeated" I open a bottle of w!ne and drank it all

Zaid667

2y↑4

Reminds me of my first playthrough of RTW, my first run as the Brutii. I had basically kept most of my generals stationary in the last cities they'd conquer, after maybe using them a few times in battle. The only two I kept sending out into the field, who both also would have a turn as the faction leader, were Aulus and Cassius Brutus, one deemed "conqueror" and the other "cunning". Aulus was one of my first starting generals, and I had him conquer all across the Mediterranean and parts of Thracia. Aulus had fought the rebelling greek and Macedon settlements, as well as the Greeks and Macedonians themselves, later pulling campaigns against the Numidians to assist the Scipii in their campaign, as well as earlier campaigns against Pontus which Cassius later helped finish. Aulus died of old age immediately after taking Constantinople from the Thracians, leaving the other generals to finish the rest of them off. Cassius came of age around the time Aulus was in his 40s or 50s, following him into battle and later leading his own campaigns against Pontus, Thrace, Egypt, and what remained of the constant rebelling Greek cities of Rhodes, Corinth, and Athens. I never really finished my campaign as the Brutii, since I was playing the long campaign and didnt feel like starting the civil war with the other Roman states then. Before I quit, Cassius would have lead a mass army with several other generals towards the end of his life, around 60 or 70 years old I remember. The plan was to take Jerusalem and the remaining citys of the Levant from the Egyptians, after they kept starting wars with us and our Armenian allies.

david. smnn

2y↑5

this gives me so much chills

J

2y↑2

Not from Rome, but it reminds me of this game I played as the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum for the Medieval kingdoms 1212ad mod for Atilla. Over the course of a few hundred years we expanded our empire by at first embracing massive cavalry armies then fully embracing gunpowder. We destroyed the Abassids who would constantly assault us and set up Baghdad as a secondary administrative capital. We then pushed into the Balkans conquering the Romans and leaving them as puppets in Constantinople. We pushed up to the Danube turning mighty kingdoms into our vassal and repelling crusades and Austrian incursions. We destroyed the Ayyubids and Makurians but left the Zagwes be. In various wars with the Hasfids and Christian kingdoms of Iberia we gained control of Sicily, Southern Italy, Ifriqiya, Mallorca, and Southern Spain. We had an ally to the east, the Zengid Empire, who conquered most of the old Khwarazmian land. We married someone into their royal family and to our surprise, the Zengid Shah died so our family member became regent. We then used this as a pretense to invade their land. We set up administrative capitals in all major regions, turning them into massive citadels with mighty armies stationed in each one. We even sent an expedition to Lithuania and kept a trading outpost there. All these cities however paled in comparison to Ancyra. We turned Ancyra into a wonder of all time, Babylon, Constantinople, Nineveh, and Rome all in one. The minurets of the great mosques went into the heavens and gardens and palaces filled the city. It was protected by the "Sultan's Hand", the most advanced army the world had ever seen, under the direct control of the Sultan. We were the East, our empire stretched from Samarkand to Al-Andalus and north all the way to the Alps. Were weren't a Sultanate, we were the Sultanate. The only other Islamic power was the Almohad Caliphate, the only thing remaining from the previous age. At this point, the title of Sultan was no longer a generic title for leader, it was fundamentally linked to our empire in the same way Emperor is linked to the Romans. For this reason, we tolerated a rival Caliphate as we had no interest in being Caliphs ourselves. Eventually, I forgot who the Sultans were, they all melded together under the same steel mask. Hundreds of turns went on in that game but nothing would change, it was like a river, just constantly flowing. The Upstalbloom league formed a massive coalition in Germany and France and they would often go to war with us, but nothing would ever change. We were an eternal empire, un moving with time. I think I got to the year 1700 before leaving that campaign. I like to image that the Sultanate continued for hundreds, thousands, millions of years; a truly unknowable amount of time. The all encompassing Sultans observing from their palace in Ancyra. With the empire's collapse being just as much of a mystery of its beginning. Eventually, all that's left being fragments in a hidden library encompassing all that's lost.

Anspol

1y↑7

"Arabic Winter" took on so much meaning for me over time. Since the beginning of my gameplay, I have been listening to this song to be in my ideal, calm spot to dream and live inside.

When I close my eyes, I always dream of that place as one of the vast desert hills, somewhere in Arabia. It is an unearthly night, full of stars in the dark blue sky with glossy parts, shining and fading away continuously. I always lie down on my back in the warm sands, scatter them with my arms and feel the warmth of the silent night, only hearing the gentle whistle of the winds. I dream in that dream, about the best experiences that I could get and how happy I could be in the future. Sometimes, I see the woman I love lying next to me, holding my right hand but not looking into my eyes; instead, gazing at the spacelike heaven. She seems to know that what she is witnessing is truly unique, which she may never experience again. In just a second, she forgets all the concerns she carries in her mind, realizing how mundane they were.

Although I am mostly alone in there, it is always the best way for me to feel like an eternal. Looking at the horizon of sand dunes, knowing that there is nothing but more hills behind. The only special place on earth is where I lie down. And that's it...

TheAuricom84

3y↑25

This track literally got me through lockdown last year, and now it's doing the same thing for me this year. I wish it was longer.

J J

What about now

UltraAdonis

3y↑47

Dear Mr van Dyck,
Thank you so much for uploading it! Now I just have one wish left to becoming the luckiest fan of your art ever!
Would it be possible to upload an extended version of this master piece? I can not tell you how much this song means to me. It not only feels like coming home in my old house of my childhood like no other song do so, it often helps me a lot getting through bad times by the years or falling asleep after a hard day and so on. It is like a lullaby for me and now, when my own little daughter can't sleep, she listen to it and calms down too!
Thank you and please dont stop producing such art!
Michael

Don Tarbox

2y↑17

This song it always makes me think about philosophy, time, peace and life.

Benjamin Jeffery

3y↑49

This is so atmospheric! Would love an hour long remix/version

Miles Griff

1y↑11

I just visited the Pyramids of Giza, riding a camel with this song resonating through my earphones. My mind catapulted back to 2005 when I first laid hands on RTW as a young child, it was hard to contain tears streaming down my face as all the emotions of my young self began to wash over me and my childhood dream had come true.

Anspol

1y↑2

It is amazing to see someome who carries the same dream as you. I am so happy for you honestly, while hoping that I could have the same in close future.

Tony Mann

I spent a year in North Africa and the Middle East in 2006 and whenever I listen to this now it makes me cry because I never wanted to come back from the Sahara and especially Southern Egypt. Now it feels like a sad memory I'll never reclaim

Eddie G

3y↑35

beautiful. we will not let their memories fade.

Sam Borremans

3y↑17

This track gives me a vision of a lonely legionary wondering in the cold dark night desert.

Kasha UG

1y↑3

Ahhhh the ancient times
Wish I had a chance to experience it
Peaceful music...

JoeL Hänel

3y↑13

Listen to this again after playing Rome total war remastered... what a memories... amazing...

Minimalist MGTOW

3y↑17

Imagine listen to this soundtrack at night in the Caucasus Mountains

LAUZAU Adventures

1y↑1

I did it !

seemo

1y↑1

@LAUZAU Adventures im jealous

Asher Kosmos

3y↑10

Just absolute nostalgia. Just. Excellent. Bravo

DDT

46w

When I listen to this in headphones: 😐🙂😊☺️😌😴 (This music calms me so much that I can forget about all problems and anxiety and fall asleep peacefully.)

Mirth Baron

3y↑16

Ethereal , as if in a dream.

Kerem

While listening to this song, I think of the vast barren lands of Anatolia reflected by the sunlight.

Кавун

This track is better than that wise mystical tree vibe. Brings me nostalgy

Jason Ho

3y↑17

I don't know why when i always heard this music i just thinking of Alexander the Great with Bucephalus slowly vanished from the horizon sun in the middle of the deserts.

Mircea Zaharia

2y↑3

He has forged his legend. Now, we must forge ones of our own.

Based Bulgar

@Mircea Zaharia Amen, brother. Onwards we march

Minimalist MGTOW

@Mircea Zaharia faină această coloană sonoră

Leo Bond Arenales

2y↑1

Played RTW as a kid , now jamming the soundtrack as an adult as chores / gym music

Peluchan

2y↑3

i love to imagine that im in the desert in night camp looking at the stars with this music behind

Meh Meh

3y↑22

When my half beaten Roman army is marching through Numidian territories towards Egypt. Being attacked by hordes of Egyptian armies, knowing that they'll never make it.

nikita Link

2y↑2

это было 20 лет уже и жизнь скоро закончиться с такими темпами

Molhem Alaa

2y↑3

I'm so happy I found this on youtube

Destroyer120296

3y↑11

Yay an uppload from the man himself.

MY fav part of the soundtrack great job

Artem Bobrovenko

1y↑1

Me playing for Parthia and observing peaceful life in cities

ataberkin

3y↑7

you are greath man ..this is divine!!!!!

Beelaroos

3y↑12

Mighty General!

maxim yakovlev

44w

Sounds like heaven

Oliver Smit Saunders

2y↑2

The Indian flutes sound mesmerizing in this music

Our Father In the Green

2y↑7

D U N E V I B E S

SpaceMarine500

3y↑2

Imagining Pharaoh Ramesses II looking out into the horizon from his palace.

Henrique De Antoni

2y↑3

Reminds me the deep blue mediterranean ocean

F Karaman

42w

strikingly similar to grand prix world main menu ambience

Tim de Hoog

1y↑1

I always think about the great Empires the Middle East had when the Romans were just a bunch of squabling tribes on the banks of the Tiber. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Hittites and the Assyrians. Proud empires but grounded into the dust when the game starts.