(disclaimer: AIM judge review here! these are just my opinions and thoughts, you can take from them whatever you like! music is subjective and all that. <3)

this track makes me feel awash in a great, complicated, otherworldly maze for sure; not necessarily in the complexity of the track itself but the mood coming from the open 4th/5th harmonies, long reverbs, and plucky, warm synthy textures. it's a cool fit with the artwork you chose, which i think most reminds me of megaman battle network geometrically? which, incidentally, the rhythms of your track also feel geometric, with lots of parts focusing on shapes of 1 bar or 2 beats etc. it captures a world unlike our own, and the feeling of being within it, all while remaining a groovy, catchy, easy-to-get-into song. i think this one's really great! just enough going on and just enough detail in the soundscape to keep things interesting without feeling too loopy.

AIM 2023 Judge Review

I was surprised to see someone using Solarvagrant's art for this compo. I'm a big fan of the BackDoor games and the inspiration used appears to be concept art for the first game, so I was interested to hear how this would be interpreted from the get-go.

The things I like about this entry are the rising arps and the repeating chords that fill the space between the breaks in the arps. As the chords echo, they become almost vocal-like and whether intentional or not, I think it adds that sense of wonder you intended to incorporate. The rising arps help to give the piece some range - I like how there is always a feeling of their presence by having their echoes filtered. In general, the chords and arps combination was quite pleasant to listen to.

The art inspiration has a mysterious and otherworldly concept - the world between worlds - that I think there was more opportunity to explore musically. This entry is almost entirely based around an even-metred groove and while it is pretty, it doesn't quite feel like it explores the idea of a world between worlds thoroughly. What if the "worlds", in the composition, were two different melodies or metres that shift in and out of one or the other and/or play simultaneously? What if instruments carried the same lines, but morphed into other instruments or slowly started going into microtones and back to their initial pitch? These are just a few suggestions to consider, but I believe for an art inspiration like this, you could go wild and stray away from a more straightforward composition.

I also feel like the track could use some refining in the production. The piece is considerably quiet and every layer feels very flat. I'm not sure if panning was used - I think I hear a bit of it, but I do think there could have been a lot more playing around with it, especially when dealing with a more repetitious composition.

Overall, this entry manages to convey emotions of wonder effectively with pleasing sounds and a simpler groove. I think it does have a spacey, kind of mysterious feel that's a bit on the lighter side, which complements the loose, lighter style of the art.