This review covers the downtempo track Temple City – Europa [yur-ROH-pah].
It is unclear when this track was first released. Metadata obtained by Freezenet pegs this track as being released in 2006, but there is no real way to verify this. However, it was released online for free at one point in time.
The track starts off with a robotic vocal monologue. This is likely produced with a heavy vocoder filter. I initially thought it might have been a speech synthesizer, but there are enough variances in the length of letters to suggest otherwise in my view.
After this, there is a hit and the track starts with some synth effects. The main melody has a very 303 synth sound. This is backed by some very spacey pads that really help give this track a rather anti-gravity sound.
The percussion’s have an interesting presence. They largely only have a pronounced presence in the higher frequencies. The exception here is when the kick and snare come into play. As a result, they do and they don’t have much of a presence in the track. This helps keep with the more ambient side of things, while at the same time, give the track enough presence so that it doesn’t come off as dry.
Probably my biggest problem with this track is pretty much any parts with the speech. I normally don’t mind speaking in tracks, but in this case, they do disrupt the overall sound in the track. This is especially so at the beginning. The vocal additions in the middle aren’t so bad. In fact, if you lopped off the beginning monologue, they lose pretty much all annoyances. An exception here is the subtle female voice samples. They really help add to the theme of being in a space station. I get that there is a theme the artist is trying to hit in this track, but it’s laid on too thick in the speech samples my view.
Generally speaking, the 303 synths throughout are nicely done. The fact that they are also layered at times only adds to the overall sound. Some of the speech samples do spoil the mood a bit, but the track is still worth listening to anyway. With a slower tempo and interesting percussion’s that help give the track a very ambient sound, this track is definitely a nice relaxation track. If you want to chill out and only do minor work, this is definitely a great candidate to listen to. Totally worth listening to.
Score
7.5/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
