Haye! Here is a review for Mike Grant's End 2 End label 3rd release, "The Journey", by Tony Drake.
-- Lay "Either fdisk or weakly-typed languages will bring us Armageddon" http://barkingcat.org/counterforce EE-003 - Tony Jackson - The Journey A1. Melodic A2. The Journey B1. Driver B2. Chi-town / The D A1. Melodic First time I listened to this one, it was a surprise to my ear. «Funny», «ackward», «strange», are adjectives that come to mind. Don't get me wrong, this track is very good, partly because of that same strangeness: you get a minimal hihat / kickdrum fast base in wich this hi-pitched organ is playing a repetitive and fast mellody. This fast organ has this nervous feeling, that constrasts with the background synth, that feels like a Moog changing back and forth in two notes, one note every bar. Really adds some warmth to the sound and works mainly with tha hi-pitched organ. I took about 15 to 20 seconds to get used and get into this sound, but when you do you can enjoy a very nice interplay between these few elements. Every once in a while the hihats hit a bit faster making your ear wanting to peek ahead in anticipation. Periodicaly, the melodic elements change their tone and come back to their original form after a while. All and all, a good track, specialy for people who are into more stripped down fast techno that's not banging stuff. In spite of being fast, it's still a warm and calm Techno track. A2. The Journey This one will be sweet for people who are into the classic Detroit sound. This song sometimes reminds you of some of Kenny Larkin's work: warm floating synths , soft cymbals from time to time and machine sounds here and there that contrast with the organic feeling of the whole sound. soft percussion and some harsher sounds once in a while complete the whole picture making this track a whole. Beautifull song, with a remarkable composition, it seems Jackson acheived here what is becoming more and more rare in Techno nowadays, the "song" concept instead of the "track". This is some well structured stuff and to be appreciated by listeners with some background in Techno. I usualy dislike the "journey" metaphor for songs, but while searching for adjectives or nouns to describe this song, I realy could not escape the "journey" word, because this song really has some sort of temporal feeling to it, without going into the "song stage" thing you see sometimes. In short, a good quality mental track to be enjoyed like one enjoys a 15 year old scotch. B1. Driver On side B we are presented with a couple of banging-styled tracks. The first one is definitly my favourite, and it's a night-peak track. It starts straight up 4/4 pumping Techno with an appealing metalic clang that goes on troughout the whole track and takes the proeminence of the sound. The background is pretty complex, with a heavy bass and advent styled cymbals composing into a very urgent and tense whole. The drums very often go trough a stop at the end of each bar, giving it that circular feeling. I can surely bet that peopl who get this track are going to take their next gig just to play this one off. I know I'd love to hear it in a loud system by now. The track goes troughout with a very nice game of alternations between elements, but make no question about it: this is loop-style Techno, almost circular at times. One thing that could be better about this track: its duration. Even though the vast majority of loop-based techno tracks are played for just 2 or 3 minutes, the richness of elements, detail and interactionbetween instruments makes this track some really solid stuff that doesn't make your ear go tired after those said 2 or 3 minutes. So you're gonna end up wishing you had more on this banquet. Well, nothing that can't be fixed with two copies and some skills. You should better have a pretty nice record to play after this one. B2. Chi-town / The D Just like the former, this one goes straight to the subject: it gives you the whole outline of the track at the beginnig. A classic pumping Techno track that resembles the Mills stuff sometimes. Basic elements such as drums, cymbals and bass kick in at the same time, but there are important subtelties even in the beginning that are important to the track further down the line, mainly some very low-volume snaredrums that seem somewhat like shakers at this time. If at the beginning - and up to a certain point, trughout the whole track - the congas are the center of the composition that give you the funky message, you don't stop hearing those snares trying to get ahold of the track from time to time. Nice game. >>From about half the track onwards it seems that Tony Jackson has made a bit >>of the DJ's homework here. In spite of the possibility of some DJ buyers not >>like the fact that the track is "pre-worken-out", this sounds really good: a >>period with all the elements; then another one with the proeminence of drums >>and bass; the back on. Good work here. The vocals most definitly put the >>cherry on top of this one: non-periodicaly, when you don't quite expect it, >>you get this reverbed «Detroit!... Chicago!» comming at you. All the while >>you have those mean congas funking the thing up. And the vocals should do the >>job they were destined to: bursting the dancefloor from time to time. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
