september theme ... REVIEWS

[pHz]

reviews only please ... everything else in the GOSSIP thread ...

slainte rob

[Wopelka]

are we converted now? and sticky!!!

[Hovmod]

Yuskevich - I like your song a lot.
Cool sounds and nice atmosphere, with a funeral march feeling to it as well. Love the resonant lead sound.
Please grab the opportunity to expand it to 4 minutes now that the rules are changed!

[freeztar]

Yuskevich - Very good! No wait...Ver Very Good!! It's clean and dirty, spacey and tight, grungy and contemplative. A very cohesive piece that captures a great vibe and tribute.

Knockman - Not only hilarious, but morphically-enjoyable as well. I like the lyrics, singing, chord playin, and all. Tops mate, Tops!

Two great ones to kick it off! Voting will be tough this month. Wait...what's that?....no voting....ok....cool....I can finally have my top ~60 list where everyone is number 1.

[Marc JX8P]

Well, since this month things are different I'll break my habit of posting all of my reviews in one giant post at the end and try to keep 'em coming while tracks are added.

So, the first batch - my usual disclaimers for reviewing apply:

Time Returns All Legends To Glory - Benedict Roff-Marsh:
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Beautiful track this, I love the sounds and the flow of the chords. It has a very organic feel.

In Memoriam Doctoris Roberti - Yuskevich:
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Nice track, great pad sounds and I love the rhythmic elements. Also, the lead sound is very cool.

Flown - Barnadine:
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Deceptively simple, and all the more amazing for it. Great singing and I love the subtlety of the sounds you use. A very moving track.

The moog kook book - knockman-wildchurch:
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Once again the tracks submitted here range from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. This is a hilarious track and very well executed. I love the vocals and the spoken pieces. Great!

Scamme-Now_you_can_rest - Scamme:
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Interesting track, I love the build up to the main theme. That main lead sounds a bit thin, but I really like the rhythm sequences and the filtering that's going. It has a really nice feel to it.

[Benedict]

Thanks Marc JX8P

Knockman I love your track. So funny but musical and really got that early 80's novelty feel.

[Marc JX8P]

Next reviews:

KvRBullshit - Silent Mind:
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Cool track, bit too much distortion and compression for my taste, which is a pity as the sounds are cool and the melodies are interesting and this is clouded by the constant pumping of the speakers. The ending is a bit sudden.

Spirals for an Inventor - Khepira:
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I like the sounds and the experimentation going on. I miss a bit of a main theme, a central focus though.

In the Moog - Patrick9:
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I'm really sorry - I don't really like this, perhaps if it had been redone with vintage analog sounds, but this doesn't work for me.

In a blue Moog - Hovmod:
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Nice - really has a vintage feel to it, this track. The guitar blends nicely with the synth manipulations. Really has a kind of Pink Floyd feeling to it. I miss a kind of theme though, but it's wonderful stuff to listen to. There's a synth sound droning on in some parts that reminds me of Albedo 0.39, very cool.

[Marc JX8P]

One more, to at least get the impression that something's happening in this thread:

Allegro Assai - mchlwlsn:
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Very well orchestrated, although I feel it would have been improved a bit by multilayering to make the synths even more bombastic. I enjoyed it very much, though.

[emdot_ambient]

Hovmod -- In A Blue Moog: (repeat of what I've written on the auditorium) Mmmm, I like how this is, like, I don't know, wobbly sweeps in both ends of a fairly anarchic near-ambient field of undecided tonality. Very minimal in a lovely sort of way. I love how the abstraction of the Moogishness is offest by the lazy, laid-back clean strumming in the guitar. Nice contrast. I also like how it pulls your attention along without having to rely on melodic or rythmic structural devices. I could see this fitting into a much larger piece, one in which we're in no hurry to find movement or resolution . . . I don't know, this actually ends up being kind of, what I call, an Absolutist piece where the sounds simply are. It avoids culturally biased musical templates and speaks to the listner in a direct and immediate way: since it fits into no particular musical genre, the listener is not thrust into the typical judgemental stance ("Oooo, it's [insert genre here]" and I hate [genre] so I must hate this.") and instead has to react to the sounds from a direct, experiential stance. It's even more interesting that this can happen with sounds coming from ubiquitous sound sources (analog synth & guitar).

Sorry, I get that way sometimes. (But I am totally serious about all that!)

[emdot_ambient]

You(tm) -- Europa & The Pirate Twins . . . Awesome! Way better than the original Europa. Dolby's pretty much forgotten these days, though he had a couple good tunes. But as I said, this is much better, and is probably one of your best songs. Very complicated . . . love all the stuff going on in it. I really love songs with a lot of detail, and ones that really feel like the artist had a blast doing it as it does here. Excellent job!

[emdot_ambient]

Poepe -- Bob Moog Has Left The Building: WTF? This isn't my kind of song AT ALL . . . yet I still loved it! Great job! See, I know you've done something right when you can do that. There's a great mix of sounds here, all meshed together perfectly. Everything just sits so well: guitar/sax/synths/vocals/synth-vox, everything. Excellently performed.

[emdot_ambient]

Benedict -- Time Returns All Legends To Glory: Nice little retro-romp here, though it seems a bit underdeveloped thematically, especially since it takes more than half the song before the percs come in to give it some needed pep. Satisfying, but abbrieviated. Would have worked better with another minute of percy synth bubbles in the middle. I like the lightweight drums coming from your Orange-thinie. They remind me of my lovely old Roland TR-606.

Also, the mix seems to be a bit thin. Would probably do with a bit of . . . COMPRESSION AND REVERB

[Marc JX8P]

And heeeeeeeeeeeerrrrre we go again!

Europa & The Pirate Twins - You™:
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Great mix, very interesting how you combined all the different elements. I like those brass stabs. It does end a bit sudden, unfortunately, though and the vocal style is not my cup of tea but it's certainly done well.

Mood for Bob Moog - Beardedone Ambient Synthesist:
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Love this track! Great ambient rhythms and I love the synth lead.

Bob has left the building... - Max el Belga (poepe):
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Certainly something different... at the start I felt for a moment like HAL 9000 was speaking... Then the rest of the song kicks in. Very enjoyable; great guitar playing and well mixed. I do feel like I miss some energy though, but it's hard to say why exactly since I love all the constituant parts of the track (great synth soloing). Nice track!

[Marc JX8P]

And we continue!

The Call of the Universe - Diek:
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This definetely has that kind of vintage Vangelis-y kind of analogue synthiness to it. Quite lovely, and I love the symphonic sound that starts developing at the end - I was really sorry to hear it fade out there as I wanted it to go on. Top notch!

And then there was Moog - Ezy Ryder:
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I don't really like the lead sounds; perhaps they could have used some doubling or so to sound fatter. For the rest, I love it. It's cool to hear a different rhythm and it has a very mysterious athmosphere. Very nice!

[Diek]

Thanks, Marc JX8P, for your kind review.

I was thinking about a longer song, but after decided to go to the three minutes more or less for not saturating people with slow connections and because this song became my contribution to the Katrina relief, and I wouldn't like to eat too much room.

Thanks for you people that review, I'll try to do this month. I haven't done before because sometimes I feel my review is too rush, and if I try to soften feel like I'm betraying myself. I promise I'll try to do.