Caltrops - No Stairway to Heaven

Forum Overview :: No Stairway to Heaven

by mrs. johnson 06/19/2003, 3:38pm PDT

Decoder â€“ Concussion

I am not entirely sure, but Decoder may very well be the same human being as Technical Itch. Regardless, itâ€™s good DNB. Dark and not too fast, it is both good to listen to and dance to. Often times, the melodies are extremely catchy, and composed of what seems to be an incredibly distorted man saying wah. The progressions throughout the tracks are interesting and while the variety is not the great, each tune is fairly distinct. Good workout music.

Blame â€“ Into the Void

I would classify this as Drum and Bass as well, but I donâ€™t know how right I would be. Some tracks seem to keep the classic jungle drum structure, but the other musical aspects are not exactly easily pigeonholed. Safe to say that if you look for a bit more in your DNB than just some drums, some bass and a melody, this would satisfy you. Interesting effects take place throughout and the drumming is not too repetitive. Not quite as ambient as my next reviewed artist, but close. Almost manages to give some sort of meaning to DNB.

Source Direct â€“ Exorcise the Demons

Two men, one dream. Ambient Drum and Bass. I would say that they succeeded. The Drumming is sporadically in and out of the track, taking place amidst the high volume of smoothly flowing noises. The last track, (I forget the name) starts out with a man talking about a ninja, and then there are sword noises which could also very well be effects. Incredibly atmospheric and appropriate for any time you want some potentially evil sounding background music, this is very unique jungle.

Levin Marotta Gorn - From the Caves of the Iron Mountain

As a fan of King Crimson, I tend to follow their individual playerâ€™s side project. Tony Levin, the bassist has teamed up with two guys Iâ€™ve never heard of and they apparently went insane. Hereâ€™s the story behind this album: the three men, along with a small team of sound engineers and a horde of equipment, went down to the Catskill Mountains and recorded a track every so often as they were heading deeper and deeper. First of all, I recommend using headphones for this one to get the full effect. Anyway, the three instruments are usually bass or the stick (an electric stand up bass), an Eastern sounding flute, and some sort of drum. Often times, the drummer plays on water. The effects are both eerie and incredibly relaxing. This album has been in my rotation for a while and it will very likely stay that way. The music is interesting and extremely skillfully played, and the weird acoustic ambience created by the caves adds quite a bit to the music.

Here, Iâ€™ll just list a few of my favorite soundtracks to movies as reviewing them would be ridiculous. Why? Because they are pretty much reflections of the movies/anime I enjoy and my liking of them musically is biased by that.

American Beauty
Apocalypse Now
Pi
World Traveler
Cowboy Bebop (I know there are tons, but I like them all)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Curse of Monkey Island (This isnâ€™t available anywhere, I had to rip the 120 tracks by hand and name them all. It took 6 hours. Contact me if you want the results of my labor.)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Fight Club
Grim Fandango (Same Story as CMI)
Hellsing Raid, Ruins
Ghost Dog
Snatch
Solaris (Probably my favorite of the bunch)
Spy Games
Super Mario World (The greatest game ever? Maybe.)

Coming up next: Techno and Electro get the mrs. johnson treatment, will I only review things I like again? Stay tuned.

the mrs.