Reviewed by: 'Ffabbia'
Date: 22nd June 2001
WARNING!!!! This song is a tease!,
what are you trying to do here, give us all a heart
attack!!! (I'll explain in a minute... in the mean time on
with the usual preliminary waffle....)
Let me just check something first....Ok here's the
stats...I have done 15 reviews of various peoples stuff
since arriving (or should that be crashing) upon this
community, and inflicting the poor bods here with my own
perverse sense of humour and bizarre toonz. I have 20
tracks now downloaded within my 'Community' folder on my HD
(bear with me, there will eventually be a point to all
this!). Some of these toonz have had an instant impact,
causing me to audibly exclaim WOW! or words to that effect
and dance around the room like a maniac. Others seemed to
grow on me over a period of time and seem to posses the
qualities of a good Malbec (cool Argentinean wine try it!);
improving with age and repeat listens. You tend to notice
elements of the track that escaped you upon the first few
listens, causing you to re-evalue it's qualities all over
again.
'm not sure how other peeps do their reviews; I usually
listen to the track about five times with my headphones on
and utterly dissect the thing, categorising it into
instrumentation, delivery, samples/instruments used,
production/post production, ambience and emotive quality to
name a few. I dare say that others simply play it loud over
the speakers and get on with whatever it is they're doing,
letting the thing register in a more unconscious manner. I
recently decided to tape some of these tracks and promptly
did.
About two weeks ago myself, two 'laddish lads' and Our
Stevey drove up to Nottinghamshire for a day out (of
sorts). I decided to play my community tape over Our
Stevey's in-car stereo. Things went pretty well at first,
with MuZiCALs' 'Pumping Eetha' and Mark Lees' 'Deep Water'
putting the Laddish Lads in a fine mood. Unfortunately
ConKuss's 'Obsession' seemed to leave rather confused
expressions, Nev's 'Alien' didn't exactly get their heads
nodding, My own track 'Wilfreda' led to comments like
WTF?.. (I never admitted to it being my own work) and
finally Pro-Zac-Tiv's 'New World Order' led to pleas to
'stick Galaxy on instead'.
Luckily Scott's 'From Darkness to Light' got the Laddish
Lads firmly back in a good mood, and much head banging did
commence; as did Slippy T's 'W.O'.........and then on came
'Moonwalk on it's Way' by Dreamer...
It's funny, but at the time, I remember enjoying the track
immensely, but being worried about the lack of stereo
panning used. The track had certainly began to grow on me
however, getting multiple re-plays when pottering about at
home. In this case however; heard in the car, on a
different system, it just bloody well ROCKED!. The Laddish
Lads were nodding their heads and slapping their knees...I
think that a great deal of the effect is the manner in
which the song builds up, and more so with the gradual
increase in volume of the beats used.
'That one was alright' remarked Laddish Lad#1
'it was done by a 'bird'' as well ventured Our Stevey...
'a bird??? not bad for a bird.....'
Oh well..
And so, now presented with a second Dreamer tune, I can
honestly say that I was looking forward to something in the
same vain, using the same expectant build up and increasing
beats. With Techno Space, I certainly got it - but I also
got something more: complexity.
Firstly let me get the old 'stereo panning' bit over with
and decently buried, because in this case the panning in
implemented to perfection. Everything about 'Techno Space'
swirls around our heads like a hyped up swarm of wasps.
This track is rooted firmly within Techno Edition
territory. I actually recognised many of the samples used
as TE2 is my own chosen platform. Indeed I have used the
same bass within the second phase for some of my earlier
work. Not that this matters, it just made me need to put my
head in a slightly different position and remember that
this was someone elseís work, not my own (difficult to do
without mental discipline). The beats used within 'Techno
Space' are complex in the extreme, the multifarious and
multi-layered loops blend in with each other, sometimes
overlapping, underlined by engaging and modulated
percussion effects.
In what I now take to be Dreamers 'style' The build up in
intensity of rhythm is gradual, leaving the listener on a
hook, desperately wanting to whole thing to come crashing
in at max power....we wait and wait...we are seduced by
tantalising glimpses of something that seems to take off
and build up..only to be evaporated at the last
moment...this is basically what I meant in my first comment
about the track being a 'tease'. The power comes eventually
however, but never exactly as expected; the manner in which
the snares and primaries are implemented is unusual and
'clever'.
The intro to the toon is essentially a series of jammy and
snappy seqs, born up upon a strata of modulated percussion
and swirling effects. The soaring and spikey synth
sequences then kick in along with that subdued kick. I
wasn't sure about the second bass used after the intro at
first, it seemed to clash somewhat with the overall theme,
the pitch changed at regular intervals and I soon got used
to it, perhaps a little less volume in the first few bars
would have helped. The percussion that kicks in after the
short break, creating a panned and nicely harmonic backbone
to the first theme has a very emotive quality, sparse and
cut short closed hats interrupt us rudely from out state of
mellowness leaving us wanting more.
The deterioration of phase one into the subdued bridge
represents a cooling off before the main attack...gives us
time to gather breath before dancing...Then it comes,
breaking out from duel sequences with a mysterious and
staccatoed bass...in come the claps, never regular..teasing
again...a melt down leaving us wondering when the build up
is going to happen...the understated phase 2 creates more
anticipation. Phase 3 pulls out all the stops. Harmonies
take over and so do out feet....but just for a few
seconds...then the fade out.
This track is possibly the closest thing to a striptease
ever created using digital sequencing
software...erm...exactly what was this dancing that you
used to do? ROFL.
To sum up:
Once again Dreamer has displayed an intelligence of
production and post production that can only put many
others in the shade. A very understated track that plays
interestingly with out senses, leaving us wanting to see a
lot more, but blatantly refusing to give it to us
(deliberate?). I think it's time that I took a cold shower
now!
(sorry about the length of this review...I seem to get
carried away lately with my threads and my typing...maybe I
should continue work on my novel)
Track Name: In Techno Space (Renamed
Technosphere)
Reviewed
by: 'DJ SMW'
Date: 9th April 2001
great track....very aptly
named. the first 40-50 seconds are very spacey indeed, then
around the 56 second mark you go all funky on us. -the
transitions were very smooth and well executed. - the
continuity of this track is very good, with a constant flow
of builds and fades. - I listened to this a couple of times
and enjoyed it more each time. Its not too hard and gets
you in the mood to bump and grind...I can see plenty of
people sweating to this one on the df. overall i say 8.3/10