This is beautiful, Ectisity. This piece tells a story and I love the way you integrate foley or "real-world" sounds with the music. Damn, I wish I knew half of what you did. Was there a hint of Scarborough Fair in there? Or at least a very nice Dorian melody? Great work. I'm not surprised this won AIM!

My absolute favorite thing about this track is how it tells a story, not with words or letters on a page, but with music.

Your overall composition is strong, and goes hand in hand with the more ambient part of the story, and I think my main complaint is that those ambient sound effects, while being a key part of the storytelling, they end up taking too much aural real estate, at times drowning out the subtler musical themes found herein. Long story short, sometimes I feel as though the sound effects are too loud within the overall mix. When the music becomes softer, I would have liked the ambient sections to follow suit and be a bit softer within the mix, as well.

As others have mentioned already, those intro strings just don't really do your composition justice, and some of the other instruments lack that same credibility. But hey, I also understand that we can't all produce music with top-shelf, high-quality instrument bundles, so that's not honestly much of a factor in my case.

The general feel of your track is one of a hard and lonely life, and the conclusion is of course one of finite existence, mortality. The heart beating harder and faster towards its sudden silence exudes a sobering image of finality. On the other hand, the sound of the heart violently bursting actually feels less poignant, due to its less symbolic nature.

After that, the track ends rather abruptly, which does make sense as it pertains to the Lonely Hermit's solitary life. That said, it would have been a perfect opportunity for a brief requiem of sorts, made even more solemn by the complete lack of ambient sound. While life is indeed fertile ground for music, so too is death.

8.4 out of 10

The string sample at the beginning sounds pretty fake with the uniform vibrato and timbre. I like the mood of the piece - it’s very atmospheric and somber, with a rich texture. The piece is pretty slow to develop, although I thoroughly enjoyed the melody at 1:15. The instruments blend well, but overall I’m not sure I like the samples you used, especially the ones that tried to mimic orchestral instruments. I like the breakdown at 2:26, but I think the balance is a little off there. I would’ve liked to hear the moving notes in the foreground more, and the sloshing water effects kept in the background. The wind sample at 3:06 also struck me as a bit cheesy. The pacing of this piece started slow, but got even slower towards the middle...I think the ambient minimalism dragged on for a bit too long. The last part of the piece seemed pretty militaristic and brassy. There isn’t a tone of coherence in the piece overall. The dramatic ending was amusing, though. I’ve been pretty tough on you in this review, but I commend you for taking some compositional risks with this piece. With a little polishing (notably, switching out some of the samples and cleaning up the mixing in the middle section) this could be a great track. I very much hope that I’ll hear more from you, but as for now the sound design and lack of coherence did detract from my enjoyment of the piece, and my score reflects that. Keep at it, man!

7.5/10

Great song. I like how it tells a story. You can really picture the hermit wandering through a vast landscape, going home, eating, going out again, by the sound of it, it doesn't end well. I like there are all these sounds, but no voices. That really emphasizes it's about a hermit, because you can picture him doing all these things without talking to anyone. The sample's aren't of great quality indeed. Some of the sounds really blown up. Like overcompressed, or badly recorded. The brass especially don't sound realistic. It's quite a feet that despite the limitations, you've been able to create such a great song with them. I'm glad to discover your music.

Well this is just lovely. Reminds me of Tomb Raider! Some of these VSTs sound very familiar. It's gorgeous.