The land of fantasy (dn-thela.xm)

Posted by Arne Puszelski on Tue 13th Jan 2009, rated 9 / 10.

Yes it´s true. It´s a land of fantasy! Very good composition and good choosen samples (very clear). I like the echo-guitar-melody! Very good work!

Posted by Rikimbo on Fri 4th Feb 2005, rated 9 / 10.

You can hear the influence from Awesome right from the beginning of this track. It opens with some animal call taken straight from Awesome's "Ancient Stories". This one has a darker, more mysterious mood however, established by the opening chords. Pretty soon the echoed accoustic guitar comes in and prepares you for the general feel of the song, followed by the drum section a little later. The drumbeat is pretty simplistic, but it just about does it for me. I personally really like this almost indian style of drums, and it fits the fantasy genre perfectly. The accoustic guitar dominates the first half of the piece (up till pattern 24), playing different variations of the opening idea. Even though the same riffs keep coming up, it really doesn't feel all that repetitious. The reason being that there are some interesting things going on in the harmony, and there are a couple of breaks where the other instruments take over. Removing the drum section for a bit is a nifty trick that's been used here also. At pattern 24, the piece takes a different turn. A panflute then takes the lead, the same panflute that seams to be quite commonly used in fantasy mods. This is when the piece gets most interesting, I find. After the flute leaves the spotlight, a clean electric guitar (or at least that's what I think it is) takes it away until the end of the piece, backed up by a subtle but important vocal section. This last section achievessome pretty neat vibes and is superbly done. Overall, it is very well put together musically. It has a very relaxed feel, which was the intention of the artist, but I wouldn't limit it to just that. Strongly recommended for any ambian or fantasy fan. I'm always out of breath by the time I get to the technical section (figuratively speaking of course). So let's have a look at this. The samples are all 8-bit, save some 16-bit percussion samples, yet the filesize is still a whole megabyte unpacked. This really isn't much of a concern these days though, what with high-speed internet and almost limitless storage space. Pointing these things out is really just a formality. The whole thing is tracked using 32 channels. The echo effect the artist has set up here really eats up alot of channels, but it is a great thing to add to a fantasy piece. It give the whole thing a bigger, broader sound, contributing alot to the mood of the piece. There are also a number of sound effects hidden in there, and though you may not notice them at first, it makes a big difference. Very well set up, this is. So kudos to Area 51 DNA for this great fantasy piece. And if you like this one, you may like his sequel to it, "The Land of Fantasy II" - find it on his artist page.