Imagery (imagery.it)

Posted by TMA Placeholder Account on Sun 6th Jun 1999, rated 8 / 10.

This piece is what Trance should be. It has enough variation to keep it going, but repeats enough to actually put you into the groove, to keep you in the mindset of the trance. A handful of speech samples, with help from a bit of careful doctoring, lend this piece its name and a distinctive ambience if you can decipher the words. "Imagery, like information coming backwards, filling in what you're not actually seeing." The quote fits the song well, and the undercurrent of a sinewaved bass definitely gives you pictures that wouldn't normally come from this sort of music. Parts of the song could fit into a chiptune, parts could fit into standard techno, parts could fit into just about anything, but it works nicely all together in one groove-intensive whole. Brilliant use of the instrument envelopes here, especially for panning on the bass thrum. The audio samples have been doctored, that much is plain to the naked ear, but it's done masterfully, to compress a large quote into a small beat pattern. This is another of the very few songs that has made use of a canned breakbeat to actually sound good, and keeps it well in the background to hide the minor flaws inherent in such a scheme. The piece runs for just about the right amount of time, and eases you out of the groove gradually, instead of dumping you on your head as you exit the song. Mellow Trance potentially at its best, this is worth a download for anyone listening for that genre.