About the review

Title: antegrade
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Artist: dj io
Genre: Electronica: Other
Reviewed by: Novus on October 24, 2007 (All reviews by Novus)

Review Feedback: 
dj io gave Novus positive feedback for this review.
Novus responded: Thank you as well. :)

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Review

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1Overall Description
Breakbeats in a 5/4 time-signature. Okay, that gets my attention!

DJ I/O has put together a very intriguing piece of electronica here, very intelligently composed and cleanly produced. The rhythms are by far the strongest part of the song. Putting together any sort of a 5/4 drum rhythm is a tall order in and of itself. Doing it with breakbeats is nothing short of spectacular.

I wish I could say the same for the melody. The song is driven by a meandering synth melody with no sense of direction and no real distinctiveness. It feels to me almost as if it was just tossed down on top of the beats and backing pads just to round out the sound of the song and fill in the higher frequencies. That's not to say that it sounds bad; there's nary a sour note in here, and it never repeats itself and even establishes some nice rhythms on its own. But the melody is completely devoid of a hook or any central identity, and that really hurts this song.

Overall, "Antegrade" is worth the download just for the novelty of hearing those 5/4 breakbeats. But novel breakbeats do not a complete song make.
 
Comments
Oct 29 2007 6:29 am
by Novus
Yeah, I probably should have found a better way to phrase that. I guess you could say that particular sentence was "tossed down." My apologies. Bear with me; I'm a little rusty at writing reviews, and on top of that I'm trying to write them shorter and quicker than the ones I used to write. You know how wordy I can get... ;)



Oct 28 2007 10:22 pm
by dj io
thanks for the review man! however the melody was not "tossed down" in any way. i was really inspired when i wrote this, and honestly i like the melody even more than the percussion on this. again my music goes misunderstood, but i can see the angle that you're coming from. i'm just not a "repeat myself a lot pop-song" kind of person