IMP 9 Buzzsaw- really got to do reviews but there are so many entries and so little time, thanks to the new plugins. My entry uses four new plugins. By now there are eleven... including ones that fix the problems with murkiness and all that... but it's been happening instead of reviewing the tracks. I'd like to see more people do this, so I'll start. This is Awful Chris, due to lack of time, so I hope nobody's too hurt. Should at least be fun to read in a Gonzo Hunter S sort of way.
Please, return the favor, kindly or not
IMP9ChrisJ- big, flat- not shallow, but sort of limp. Nice intelligibility on the vocal.
IMP9-spoon- Leaner, more crisp with the bright things going on. The guy is a mystical lunatic emanating from out of a deep cave. Backbeat feels good.
IMP9_six_wax- Laid back, sort of grooving along. Makes me bob to the rhythm. I'm not very interested in the vocal, it feels like I can safely ignore it.
Imp9 - Nick Evans- Hissing and looming forward at me. Everything is extra super big, but I'm not sure why. I can't figure out why this is the way it is.
wes_pitzer_redfro_imp9- Look, a kick! Some sort of wispy little guy singing incongruously over a big hulking indie rock machine.
imp9_garret- Huh? huh again? You should be making the music with this kind of ingenuity
I'm just...um
you astonished. Whether I ever want to hear this again... I guess either I'd freak out and love it, or not bother. I can't decide what the groove sounds like. Not a big hulking indie rock machine, a small mechanical accordion with a hole in it, under a big spotlight. Very Dada.
IMP9_gatino- Sorta trashy. Very 'star' vocal treatment, always center of attention. It sounds like it wants to be a blues rock track but can't figure out what it's singing about. Something incongruous there.
IMP9_SingSing- Yay squished! Everything is coming from some inexplicable place. It's all like, drums, suddenly really loud hat, there's the guitar squished into the corner, woops there it went. Strangely, something about it feels right for the song... which is a big deal...
IMP9Henchman- You're scaring me with these drums dude, I'm not sure I ever need drums that emphatic
they're overwhelming everything so I can't concentrate on the vocal, and I don't hear a song, just a drum sound.
TomC-IMP9- Hey, suddenly a track isn't trying to KILL ME! Laid back. The harmonies are annoying me and going to the wrong notes, like major and minor in the wrong places. It does feel like it's about the song, with the sound effects on the back burner- except the harmonies, couldn't resist the harmonies, those are probably why the rest of the song is making room. If you did that with just one lead vocal it would feel like a song, though it wouldn't feel modern at all. But who really cares if I enjoy the feel of the song? Apart from the harmonies, feels very good and sets a mood.
macmandude_imp9tk1 192- Technical foul- space in the mp3 name
hey, suddenly we're AC/DC! Total disconnect between song and mix. This is brilliant work at forcing these indie guys into leather and spandex and lining up Marshall Stacks behind them and turning on the fog machine and a red spotlight, unfortunately the song wants a blue spotlight. Eek. God, this is a good AC/DC imitation, though. GOOD ENGINEERING that I don't want to hear on this song at all.
IMP9-ATOR- Creative moves immediately on display. Sounds kinda slick. Part of that is the bright hats and the gloss on the sound. Vocal sounds slick, like old Bowie or something, in a bright spotlight with a plate reverb on him, like he should be angsting in high drama, but it gets confusing when the song refuses to become high drama. You sit around waiting for something to happen to step into that spotlight, but it just goes on and everything feels like a backing part. Needs more exciting track- fails to click with the track as it is.
IMP9dconstruction- Are we Nine Inch Nails? We think we might be. I do like the way it sounds like improvisation is paramount this time- the guy does say so, right in the lyric. This is extremely weird and yet, something about it feels like it's part of the song. I could think of other mixes I enjoy listening to a lot more, but I like the way this understands the song. I don't think these guys are anything like as butch as these drums, though.
IMP9_judah- Nice and laid back here, not obnoxious. It feels a little uninvolved- this is about making everything sound nice and appropriate for people playing in a room, and tracks from The Band would sound awesome this way, or bluegrass, something that's not supposed to be a wacky studio mutation. Even the really tweaky tracks are tamed. I don't think the song stands on its own that well this way, it needs more of an environment.
imp9_scott_oliphant- We like big drums! big drums go crunch! Like the AC/DC guy only without the guitars. Singer is singing with a PA in a gym. Feels like a high school talent show that unexpectedly blows people away with a surprisingly hot band. Maybe it's just the drummers killing everybody with volume. I hear a band, don't hear much of a song.
imp9-maxim- Casiotone sonics? (dist wurly) We are pasting bits of wurly about. There's a foundation to this song that's mostly bass-oriented, and the vocalist is right there, intimate and upfront. It does feel unfinished, which is probably why the wurly cutnpaste. There is just something not there, which is mystifying because it's not like all the tracks were left out. Some of the other tracks do more as far as bolting bits of music together in a striking way. This is more understated, which turns out to not help the understated indie guys much.
Greg_Dixon_IMP9- Straight. Straight straight straight. No horrible tricks, no ugly sounds. The vocalist needs a lot of help, he sounds and feels tiny. bigness goes from kick=big to vox and overdubs=small. There's virtually no startle factor here, everything is very smooth. I want more startlement from the vocalist, like when he tosses off a line unexpectedly it should startle, it should have a front edge. Maybe not the backing vocals tho.
IMP9_LouMan- Also pretty normal. Slick vocalist! This sounds gothy! It sounds like something, no question about it. A bit understated maybe, but something about this feels like 'hey, what band is this?'. It feels like a genre that I don't know about but a good example of it. I am very impressed with this one. I think it has to do with the way things are emphasized, the way there's no attempt to make everything be emphasized at once. Stuff has a specific character and sets a tone which works with the lyric, the vocal performance etc. The backing music has similar ebbs and flows of energy to the vocal performance.
IMP9-Pleasant_Groove-Luzern-UnderTow- longest mp3 name award. Sort of beefy and butch. Like the song as a disco version... I'm not sure I've generally liked the drums-heavy versions, perhaps because the mood of the song doesn't feel pounding and heavy. This mixer would do excellent dance and house music, everything works for that style.
Imp9NickT- Let's be really loud!
Could I hear this mix again on a song about taking too much crack and peeling your lips off? Belongs on Lou Reed songs. The vocalist is too serene for this mix. There's nothing glossy or sentimental about it, which is a wrench considering the way the lyrics are sort of misty and emo. I don't think this harshness works with the song, and I'm surprised not to hear it on the harshest background elements where it DOES work.
VolthauseIMP9- Big cavernous snarling growling thing. I feel sorry for the feeble little vocalist singing out of a pit filled with such savage instruments
metal mixer much? Again with the big drums. They're cool sounds, but the song doesn't support them much. It makes it feel like there's not much of a song there.
imp9-cary- Need to express self with sound design rears its ugly head again
Big thumping and gloss. Sounds like these are supposed to be normal people playing MOR music of some kind. This is the Journey version. I'm totally missing the edgy, half-cocked weirdness and amateurism that I know is present in the tracks. It feels stable. In one sense that works, but in another sense it glosses over aspects of the song that are capable of getting attention.
IMP9-ScotcH- Bright and clean-sounding, crisp- something about this feels too crisp for the vocalist to sit into. There's a plainness here that reminds me of some types of electronic music. It's a bit empty. It feels like a demo, or like it came out of a white room or a studio with guys standing around in white lab coats. Part of that is the high clarity on things like voices and hihats.
JHallImp9- Big-n-crunchy, much need to have the hihats go bapbapbapbapbap at you. This is another drum-heavy mix, like an indie version of AC/DC without quite the guitar focus. The chorus lifts, it sounds like a B-side except you wake up for the chorus. There isn't enough space in the verse for the singer, the drums are just too overwhelming. They feel right for the song, except there isn't a song except when the vocal takes over with a melody line. There's a song when the chorus melody comes in, or when the verse digs into a melody line, otherwise there's just drums.
IMP9_VKorehov- Let's play with the guitars! Actually this makes an interesting bed for the song. It's all about the wash of guitars, which anchors the song firmly in indie-land, for me. I like the way the drums are strong but very much a secondary element. I am noticing that the vocals don't seem that important, I'm listening to the guitar washes instead. The guy could be singing anything over it- that's a handicap, the best mixes I heard needed THAT vocalist singing THAT stuff to be right.
Greg_Dixon_IMP9-1- On the small side. There's an intimacy to this, though. The vocal is smaller than it could be, but apart from that it goes with this little, cozy mix. It's a bit like Henry Cow or something- the idea being indie guys making personal music on little portastudios, music you have to listen into, you have to reach out for this music to get it. One thing about it, the song works with that treatment, if you like that sort of thing. Very personal, very intimate, very cozy.
IMP9_tlester- Bright and aggressive, like a very big clock. it's like the vocalist is meditating on mortality to the tick tick tick of the hat, with other elements staying out of the way so you can get a sense of how the guy feels about it. For that alone this is not bad. I can feel mood in the voices, which is a damn good thing. I think I'm impressed here. The only thing is that the mood feels subtly off, in that I don't quite get the lyrics on this one, it feels like they're somehow singing something else, that the meaning of the lyrics is somehow not there.
imp9_mark_fassett- I hear various effects doing various things. The low end goes 'tonk', the wurly echoes. Sort of like the vocalist singing his song while around him, faintly odd sonic things happen. Like he's stranded in a strange town, lost, and bemused at the odd things he sees. It doesn't seem like they knew the streets at all. Disconcerting mix, slightly puzzling, which the song's arrangement very much helps to convey.
IMP9_HephaLuemp- Big and punchy, sort of crunchy, super-hot vocal. Why is this fellow not Rod Stewart? With this treatment he should be singing Maggie May or some boozy party song. There's nothing feeble or off-kilter about this one, all the odd elements are presented as if they are bedrock solid, it doesn't recognize its own incongruity. Rather than looking for the song, this time I'm looking for the indie... looking for a recognition that some of this stuff is more arbitrary. it's presented as if we're supposed to think it's a rock hit, and it's not really that.
Whew!