About the review

Title: Think
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Artist: ancient.medium
Genre: Electronica: Chillout/Lounge
Reviewed by: VOiD on April 08, 2010 (All reviews by VOiD)

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1Overall Description
A nice, dreamy little number with a subdued yet airy atmosphere here. Unintrusive pads, smoothly chopped guitars (?), some simple organ phrases and light percussion adds to a promising piece which ultimately lands just short of its potential.
 
2Creativity Description
Although the composer breaks no new ground here, this is no major crime in the chillout genre. The important part is to maintain atmosphere and not break the chill. Still, the song suffers a little bit from a lack of variation and starts to wear a bit thin about halfway through when the melody starts to repeat itself.
 
3Arrangement Description
The arrangement is simple enough: the main portion is a simple two chord vamp which is countered by a moodier and more subdued bridge portion. Some of the melodic transitions could have been smoother; there are some seemingly unintentional disharmonies around 1:50 and 2:45 which detracts somewhat from the listening experience. Also, adding (or removing) some different elements after the midway point could be enough to keep the listener's interest going instead of feeling like a rehash of the first half of the piece. The mood has been established already, now play with it!
 
4Sound Quality Description
Overall sound quality is very good throughout, the instruments are clean and blend well together. The panning, especially on the percussion, sounds well thought out. Having said that, the piece would benefit from some mastering - the bass drum should kick just a little bit more, and there should be a little more snap to the snare. Some more action in the high frequency range would also be a welcome adjustment. It's also possible that using slightly higher quality percussion could give the piece a little bit extra, as they sound a tad washed out at the moment.
 
5Does it work as a piece of music Description
Yes and no. Most of the piece sounds very good, but too much repetition and some sound quality issues, along with a couple of small disharmonic flubs, means that I'm not giving out top scores just yet. In the "quiet" genres (ambient, chillout &c) it's very important to work at the little details, because that's where you make up for a lack of melodic or dynamic variation. A little more work on the details in this piece and we're looking at a higher score right away. I enjoyed listening to it, but would like to have enjoyed it even more. :P
 
Comments
Apr 08 2010 7:12 pm
by ancient.medium
Really, thank you so much for the review. Your criticism couldn't have been more constructive. I'm still working on this track. The version I posted here was sort of a first draft. I'm still working on the midway point; it's very short in my opinion, and needs to be 'richer' in a sense. Again, thank you so much and I'll be waiting for your opinion when I re-post a somewhat final version of this track :)