OCR00597 - Shadowgate "Death Rave"

Shadowgate 'Death Rave'

Pretty mediocre techno music here. It's good, but it didn't have the edge that a song titles "Death Rave" probably should - it wasn't intense, it wasn't energetic, and it made me want to keep sitting in front of my computer instead of getting up and dancing. So download it, enjoy it, but know that I've heard much better.

Hmm... No reviews... I guess I'll take this one up.

Nines has did his job here, though he could've done it a bit better. Good track to listen to when you're too busy to notice how uneventful it is. Mreh.

Maybe it's how this mix "creeps up" on me and then "rots" away, 'cause I find this goes well with horror stories involving rotting corpses and zombies with their entrails leaking out. But it also feels sad in an end-of-the-world-ish way. The Grim Reaper would be proud.

I played this at a small party with a few of my friends with a strobe light and everything, I also played Nines' FF mix, it was a kick ass night thanks to Nines!

I have to say this is a surprisingly appealing mix, full of catchy synths, and a very cool bassline. The drums are pretty weak/forgettable, but the real attention-getter is the way the piano adds some beautiful polychords on top of the pad progression. They are more subtle as it starts, but as the mix reaches it's end, the beat stops completely, leaving just the ethereal flow, and the chords on top. Very ambitious, and completely unexpected.

For a straight-up dance track, it's stunning.

Highly recommended.

The intro is good, kinda mysterious. And it stays in subtly, even when the beat starts. Gotta say, it feels like pretty standard electronica. Not that I don't like it. Something can feel standard and be pretty good. In this case, while I kinda wish it went in a different direction (the intro led me to believe it would try something different), the song is still good.

I just wish it did something more, it feels too generic. Especially at the end.

I was expecting a lot more from the mix judging by the title. It seems pretty standard fare, and I'm not terribly impressed. Nothing really stands out in the mix, and I found it hard to really pay attention throughout. There isn't anything wrong with it either, it's just a bit too cliche for my tastes. The ending is pretty, and and overall its still a nice mix, just not adventurous.

Alright, I haven't heard the source for this piece, so I can't make any judgments on that front.

I love the intro portion and how the midi-sounding portion keeps going in the background for ~30 seconds after the main beat starts up. The synth line starting at 1:30 is awesome, and then the higher melody that comes in afterwards is a nice break. The quiet portion starting at 2:10 is another neat touch to bring the mix back down to basics and rebuild the whole arrangement of synths. Throughout the whole mix the drums stay very unobtrusive but really provide a flavor to the song that is cool.

The last 2 minutes of the mix bring a piano to the lead and its a great slowing element that allows the song to easily segue into another track without any major shocks to the system. The ending flows well, without feeling forced or sudden.

Not a fan of that intro :S

It sounds very primitive, which in some cases works, but not in this case for me.

However, the production is good for its time

however, there are plenty of off notes in this that put me off further.

Its all very similar and boring as a result, but the break down at the end with the piano is a great change, the piano is handled well, despite sounding a little midi like.

It cuts off at the end, not cool :S

I like the production, but they are little flaws with this that make me unhappy with this one as a whole.

It's interesting how the reviews are all over the place here.

I think I was put off by the intro a lot, and I could really have done with that and skipped right to the meat of this thing. In fact there are several times in memory when I have hit the "next" button on my keyboard because of the intro alone, and this is just totally bogus. At the 30 second mark where you have that chiptuney sound and the other electronic elements meshing we have what should have been the intro.

That being said, once you are done with that ridiculous intro, you have an awesome track.

However as I am writing this, I have a huge smile on my face with it in the background. The piano in the end is absolutely killer, it is beautifully handled, meshes wonderfully with the other elements. Man, this mix is just all kinds of awesome. Good stuff, highly recommended here as well.

This sounds like your generic bad sample trance that you find in some of the older mixes that are on OCR. I feel like more could be going on throughout the song, although it's not an overly terrible framework for a song.

With no source to compare to, the least I can do is just figure things out by the structure of the track.

So from what I'm sensing, the early intro with the lo-fi synths and the flange work was pretty neat, and similar flange work going in throughout managed to give the track some life. A repetitive nature for the most part, though there were some shakeups in some of the more organic instrument; however, even then it wasn't quite for the better due to sometimes these instruments being in entirely different keys than the synth bass and arpeggio work, which to me came off pretty sloppy.

The synth quality is pretty good though considering its time, and I thought the echoed piano - while a little thin-sounding now - was also a cool addition. It's not a bad production side for 2002 at least.

That aside, the heavy clashing of the accompaniment isn't really doing it for me; it's almost akin to some of Beatdrop's early work where he similarly got keys mixed up between instruments, and for a firm production setting considering the age it feels to me like a disappointment. I will however keep looking through Nines's library to see if something was pushed more fluently in regards to notation; I sense good potential.