Official AIM Review!

Points for appropriate SFX, tasteful risers, and overall interesting presentation. Those chord stabs provide a sense of alarm, an illusory chaos, and a nice drone for a later major I chord development. Although I /did/ hate your string synth. Something obviously synthy or even low quality may have blended better.

After a while, it did feel suuuuuper repetitive, so despite those sick ass breaks, I did start to wonder what I was listening for. Solution may have been changing up some instruments, maybe tribal drum break, industrial noise, metal chairs... I can't quite nail any critique beyond hoping for a shift of the root somewhere along the line. Maybe some dirty wubs in a section to spice things up. Love my drone music, and I could totally zone out to this though.

Production quality was ace. Levels were where they needed to be. More points for that.

Thanks for turning out to this year's competition!

I dont know about everyone else, but to me the percussion really filled out the space in this piece (coming here from the no drum version). Even though the rythyms are a bit unorthodox, its still something to get down to. I do think it got a bit repetitive though; could have used a b-side or bridge I think. I thought the changes in timbre and little phrases of short silence here and there were cool and definitely added interest, but a switch-up would give some much needed colour to this. All in all though it's really good, keep it up!

Really chose a beautiful artpiece for this one! Reviewed that years ago and apparently started with 'So this is what you see when you feel the music'... so suitable. :D Dancing with wolves, with wings; with emotion... not getting those impressions with this, but more so the artists one I guess, focused on above, with shutting out the world and cranking up the volume. Can definitely picture that even if it's nothing I ever do. Doesn't seem to be a need to drown out the world, even if I love a good beat. The percussion's really heavy and unorthodox too, breaks, starts again, each stop and start with a somewhat satisfying zoom-kind of sound... it's pretty cool, even if the instability of it all also prevents me from really immersing myself in it and following the tune. I wonder if it'd be different with more than the percussion, or less pauses, or a more steady structure... whatever it is there's something there I'm missing,even though I'm real impressed with the smoothness of the sound overall, and the tribal undertones following the main hits, a lot more there than really meets the ear. Smooth intro too, and that occasional wooooo!

-cd-

---Official AIM review---

Really interesting collage of sound effects at the beginning. It was certainly engaging, but I’m not sure how the ominous electronic whirring sounds at :16 meshed with the dinner party vibe of the background chatter. I think you needed a stronger transition into :23. The synth work is quite impressive there, but the piece doesn’t have much of a strong sense of progression after that point. You simply needed a lot more moving notes to keep my attention after a while. I know you’ve put a lot of effort into the rhythmic elements and details, but without much shape, phrasing, or melodic content, the piece doesn’t fit my criteria very well. There’s clearly a lot of effort put into the mixing and mastering, though. You’re definitely a talented producer, but the composition here is really underwhelming and simply directionless for most of the piece. My favorite elements of the piece are the sound design and production. Keep at it, Quarl!

5/10

I listened to this track when you first uploaded it and again just now, from the perspective of a standalone song and also as more purely expressive standpoint. My only criticism as a standalone song would be that the main idea of the rhythmic accents can get a little repetitive upon multiple listens, but I didn't get the impression that you were going for the feel of a traditional song here so that may be a mute criticism. Also this isn't a style of music I'm very familiar with so I could be completely wrong there.

Listening from a purely expressive angle I feel I understood this, or at least I hope I did. The sampled crowd intro going straight into the track had me relating to what you said in the description about cranking your headphones and blocking the outside world. There is pure aggression in the arrangement and sound design which I really like, everything feels hard hitting and heavy whilst still having a defined place in the mix for each instrument, something I find difficult to do myself so good job on that aspect.

You can definitely tell you're a drummer, the tight rhythmic DnB beats with lots of hat work like at 0:57 are really cool. The poly-rhythmic and rhythmically displaced moments throughout are nice touches too, you have a way of creating really raw, unorthodox and interesting sounds which is always a great thing to see!

Hope you do well in AIM and keep bringing us these fresh sounds!