A Taste of Moonshine (atoms_fz.xm)

Posted by warhawk on Sat 22nd Jun 2002, rated 9 / 10.

"A Taste of Moonshine" as this XM is called, is a co-op between Henripekka Kallio and Matti Brockman. The style is dance, and the tune starts quickly, no intro or anything, it just goes straight to it. Fine with me, anything that gets you interested in the beginning is a plus, and with the speed this song sets right away, it certainly got me interested. The composers have used a number of samples in this song; piano, choir, strings, bass & drums to mention a few. That may sound like the standard setup of sounds for a dance song, but it does actually not sound that "normal". They have a clear sound in the song, which is due to good knowledge and good quality samples. They keep the tempo throughout the whole tune, it never slows down, and while at the same time always keeping you interested by changing the sounds and melodies. I had no problem whatsoever to make it to the end, in fact, as a dance tune, it was enjoyable all the way. And that is quite a feat for this style, where you must constantly change the song to keep the listener interested. At no time did I think it was boring. They use drumloops for the main drums, which reduce the technical score slightly, for it to be perfect they should have tracked the drums themselves. On the good side, you won't really notice the drumloops because the song is rich in other sounds. On another note, the volume effects on the strings really works magic in this dance style track. They used a "stress method", meaning the volume goes from 40-10-40-10 throughout the patterns, effectively increasing the tempo in the tune. Some of the negative things about this tune include the drumloops, slight lack of "pressure" (more stress), and the melodies could have been a bit better. These are minor complaints though, as the tune doesn't have much else to complain about. Overall, a very good dance tune which won't get you tired in the first place. Very nice to dance to, which was probably the purpose.