fisherman

Lush, seamless and complete are definitely words I'd use o describe this piece. The way everything works together is fantastic... Russell's work is always fabulous. Already on my in-list of songs from the site.

Short but effective combination of styles! Good stuff, when I first heard a baroque-ish minor piano intro I wasn't at all expecting the beat to come in right after it. I have a beef with the high strings though - I don't know what the term is, but there's too much delay on each note. That effect is especially annoying in the section at 0:32 where they've got a lot of notes.

Fabulous composing... one of the best songs I've downloaded here. This could have been right off the soundtrack of some Lord of the Rings-style movie. I especially like the effective use of key changes, that's something that's overlooked too often... they make the song seem longer - in a good way. Every time there's a key change here, it separates the sections. It's almost like using paragraphs or chapters when writing... imagine if people wrote without those?

Rockin'! Worth the download. Quality guitar work. The drums and such don't sound too strange to me... djpretzel's joke that it might end up getting re/mis-labeled and thrown out on Kazaa isn't too unrealistic, it sounds not unlike a good loose/jam session-esque cut. This is one of those tunes that just amazes me when I think that it was written for the NES, especially the last part of the melody before it loops back on itself.

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Definitely applicable here. At /least/ an 8/10. Doesn't try to do too much, which is something I always have a huge problem with in my compositions/arragnements. Don't know what these comments about out-of-tuneness are... I can usually spot pitch clashes a mile off. Maybe it's just conflicts between the "voices" of the different parts.

10/10 all-star. Beautiful orchestration. This would hold its own performed as a piece in a live orchestra concert, which is just the sort of thing that makes me squeal with delight. Bravo. I've always thought it's because video game tracks tend to loop and not have a finite ending. This one's not /so/ bad... and I don't see what djpretzel meant about the hiss at all, it sounded spot on to me. About that ending though, the bass trail-off ending could have been replaced with a more final-sounding bass ending. For y'all theory geeks, my interpretation would be a 1---5---6---3-2-1--- (4 characters/quarter note, #'s=scale degrees) thing and a couple repitions of the tonic, potentially in octaves, to give it a lot more closure.

Worth the download. The 1-5-8-6-4-5 repeating thing is the soul of this song in both the original and here... the other things around it just expand on the mood, which mazedude does well. This tune lends itself so well to an adaption in this style, too. Also done well is the constant forboding feeling of tension and the unobtrusive charachteristics that would make this work well as background music and not only as a standalone work.

Simple-yet-catchy definitely describes this one. The background bass/rhythm is solid, and the melody is relatively complex, so there's a good complimentary relationship there. The tempo change things were slightly disorienting, perhaps because I'm used to techno staying right at it all the way through. Translated well into the genre though. Worthy of a listen and a download for sure!

9/10 I liked it. Industrial jazz, yeah... something not really done often. Something sounded slightly amiss though, somewhere in the gumbo. Maybe it was trying to do too much, I'm not sure... But the trombone was the definitely the weak link to me. Intonation was just far enough off a couple places that I winced... plus, the tone on the 'bone was odd - too mellow throughout... it would have sounded much more at home backed up by a contemplative drumset and lazily walkng bass rather than the funky, energetic, beat it's with here. But that's only a small part... overall, still very good. Not only is this industrial jazz thing not done often, it's done well here, so props.

This one gets my stamp of approval for sure... I'm as much a fan of pure classical mixes as anyone out there, so I was digging this just fine for the first 40 seconds... then the drums came in and I was REALLY digging it. One thing that's common among most McV covers is that he distributes the percussion sounds well between the high, mid, and low ranges. No exception here, as the groovin' hip-hop-eque rhythm and orchestral instruments blend with surprising wholeness. The only other thing I could conceive of any differently is the ending; it seemed to fade out too suddenly, especially for the laid-back mood it gets you in as you listen. All the samples were flawless (including the often-poorly-done choral thing... epecially liked the windchime effect, used in perfect moderation) except the cello/bass thing when it's exposed for a few seconds at the beginning. Horridly minor nitpick, though, as the line sounds perfect as soon as it has something over top of it (when the upper strings come in a few seconds later).

5/5 Deserves a place in anyone's collection. It starts out a little funky, but when the piano takes over just before 0:45, this song really gets into its groove. At any time after that you can just close your eyes and groove along to the music and get completely lost in it. The piano and flute sounds are great, and the generic strings backup rounds things out to an ideal level, but the percussion is what seals the deal for me. McVaffe uses such diverse percussion... normally all the percussion sounds in a track are nearly the same and it falls into a stiff sort of rhythm. Here, having so many different-sounding percussion sounds right after one another makes the top of the percussion line "flow" more. The bottom is still solid with a back-and-forth bass beat, but it's all those individual raindrop-on-pots-and-pans-esque pulses on the even beats that really makes this one great.

Quality. Short and sweet. To me, this one sounded like the opening theme for a TV show almost. Heh... Imagine Gauntlet the TV show.... The descending fifths part in the middle is probably my favorite part of the Gauntlet theme and I'm not only glad they put it in, but took a break from the oompa-driven feel of the rest of the track to do it justice.

Download this right now. Completely phenomenal. 2.5 minutes of audio bliss. I originally looked Mustin up because I saw him listed playing sax in a collaboration track and like real instruments... I got to this one and it blew me away. The fact that he played every instrument in the song makes me want to weep with appreciation for the musicality and virtuosity displayed here. The first few seconds of verbal intro was the only thing that turned me off the first listen through, but I like it now... gives it sort of an authentic feel... imagine you're sitting in the jazz club and the band leader says a few meager words before the song starts, because that's what band leaders tend to do.

A+ reccommended. Hip-hop meets jazz is what it sounds like to me, with top-notch samples. Bass is solid, vibes are amazing (sounds like the real thing), and the percussion is unbeatable.

Fabulously infectious swingin' track. Reccommended. I agree with the previous comment about the brass, some kickin' brass licks would have added a whole 'nother wing onto the building. The Twin Peaks clip blew me away. Totally unexpected, but somehow it works!

I'm not used to hearing voices in music, so when the vocal excerpts popped out, so did my ears. I found it best not to listen to this expecting music, because it's really not music to me... not a song.... it's more of an aural experience. That being said, what an experience it is though. I love the sax work. Live instruments make my day. And the intensity of the entire track is just insane. Very difficult to capture properly, but done here. Worth the listen... and one or two more after it just to get used to the thing so you can appreciate it.

This is one of those pieces that almost made me wet myself when I first heard it. I'm a sucker for classical/piano stuff to begin with, and this is beautifully executed. The tune lends itself so well to the piano solo style. The original was fairly flat, especially compared to this. Every single one of kLuTz's embellishments is tasteful, fits the comprehensive picture of the piece, and... I'd want to do a blow-by-blow of it, but I'd just end up saying what he did followed by "oh..." "perfection..." or 'beautiful..." 5 out of 5. 10 out of 10. 100%

In a word, bleh. Not bad, just not fantastic. The ReMix equivalent of elevator music perhaps? (0:40) Intro's okay. A little "dizzy..." (1:52) I absolutely hate this guitar. I really do.... It's too "runny." If there was a driving background, a little sloppiness might balance out, but the swung piano vs. straight perc. thing gives everything a subtle disorientingness already, just by itself. (3:16) Now, the distortion guitar I like. The raw sound seems to compliment the nebulousness instead of magnifying it. Maybe it's just the theory geek in me, but I love opposing meters, 2 vs. 3 or 3 vs. 4, 4 vs, 5 whatever! Now 3 vs. 5, that's weird...