Review: Cyber Shaman by Tangerine of T-Rex

Written by Makke

Facts

'Cyber Shaman' is a music pack with 4 XM modules composed by Tangerine of T-REX. Downloaded from HORNET. The songs were played both in FastTracker and ModPlug player.

This music-disk has been lying on my harddrive for a few weeks now, and I think it deserves some attention. This is the first music-disk by Tangerine I've ever listened too.

Let's get down to the various tracks right away!

Sleeping City (Tan-city.xm)

Yes, a sleeping city. That is not hard to imagine while listening to this song, as it is a slow partially mellow synth/ambient track.

One of the first things that hit me was that the chords were really cheap, and as the chords are pretty important in ambient songs I got a little confused. But after a while you don't mind them, they fit into the monotonous drum-beat very well, and Tangerine has worked well with small effects all over the place.

Cyber-Shaman (Tan-cybs.xm)

Once again I get struck by the cheap chords, and once again I don't mind! This song contains some loops, I don't mind loops as long as they don't take over the track completely, and in this case the loops are more like the backbone. The song is built up on the loops, not dominated by them. I can also see why Tagngerine used loops. It's hard to get that psychedelic sound without loops.

Good song, but doesn't really knock me of my feet.

Second Ring of Power (Tan-ring.xm)

Cool song! Pretty slow and mellow, kind of like Sleeping City, but not that ambient. The first time I listened to this song I didn't like it, but after listening to it a few times it really sinks into your head.

Yellow Leaves (Tan-yell.xm)

Techno?! After all this ambient/trans stuff?! Ok:

As Tangerine himself writes in the sample-text: 'childish techno.' Guess so :-) It's a pretty good techno track, sounds really 80's. But I guess it would be better with real lyrics. This could have been a really hit in the 80's. (And I like 80's synth :-) That is my childhood, next to the heavy metal!) Good Techno-track that never really bounces off. This could be solved with, as I said, some lyrics. (Hey, Tangerine! Can you sing, man? :-) )

So, if we should sum this music pack up I would say it's a really good music disk with professional sound, and original songs. But Tangerine should learn how to make better chords.

I give CYBER SHAMAN 4 Russian fur-hats of 5 possible.

TANGERINE's NOTES/REPLY TO THE REVIEW:

I have to say a few words about your view of chords in my music. This music-disk is composed in a very specific style - somewhere between trance (with big Juno Reactor influence), minimalistic ambient, ethnic and trip-hop. In my opinion, trance music must have simple chords (if any), because it has to bring you into special "shamanic-trance" state of mind. Most attention is paid to _texture_ of sound and to rhythm (of course!). Not all of my music is like this, I strongly recommend you to get few singles - tan-saga.zip, tan-hhll.zip and tan-cran.zip to see my works in another dimention. I hope you will not be disappointed by those singles, they are made in sweet celtic/hip-hop/ambient style.

I would like to say some words about the "Cyber-Shaman" track especially.

What loops do you mean? I suppose acid/303 sequences (they are all made by me in our own program Orangator), but not drums, because you didn't say _what_ loops I used ;)

I say it because i think that it's a little lame to build a song just on few big unoriginal DRUM-loops, that happens too often with jungle/breakbeat composers nowadays...

About "Yellow-Leaves" - I think that it's sounds more like Jarre then 80's techno. Well, maybe I think so because I like JMJ's music very much. I like to sing sometimes but I don't like to record my voice, because I'm too unprofessional on this field. :)

- Makke / Comic Pirates

Big thanks to Tangerine!