After being introduced to Magnanimous Records with the release “The halo effect” by Paradigm9 I was expecting quite a bit from this record. It’s a 8 track compilation featuring artists like Ligo, Jamesvanpilato, Seiss and many more. I hadn’t heard from any of these bands before, and sadly the webpage didn’t give much information either (yet). The compilation comes in a beautiful stamped carton cover, with an inlay telling what is what on the record.
It starts out with a dark and haunting piece by Ligo, consisting mainly of strangly deformed human talking, that sets a dark mood for the rest of the record. The second track, by Jamesvanpilato, seems to be made of an echoing synth supported by equally echoing field recordings of some basic ethnic drumming. After the opening track it’s a bit of a disappointment. The track by Greeni2600 (track 3) though is more in style with the opening again. A deep dark drone layer supports a repeating high melody, that is soon joined by a echoing bass line giving the track rhythm and structure. The track by Matthew P. is probably the best track of the compilation. Delivering original, very slow beats, with almost voice-like synths ghostly hoovering over them, sometimes joined by a high melody that made me think a lot of the track “They nicknamed me evil” by the band Cinema (recorded sound library).
The rest of the tracks didn’t really work for me, but they all stayed in style, never breaking the mood of the record, with one sad exception. The track by D-ork I found greatly disappointing. Sounding like your average Fruityloops tracks with a few extra effects it almost did break the so well set mood of this record.
Maybe you should compare this record to a book with a collection of ghost stories, with one or two Edgar Allen Poe stories in it. You do read all the stories, because they are entertaining, but you realise that writing ghost stories is a true skill. It’s the same with this record. Composing dark ambient tracks is a true skill. And altough 7 out of 8 tracks are good, only two really stand out (tracks 3 and 5).
