Michael Diamond – Atlantis Rising

Before I go into the music itself, I want to get a little annoying technicality out of the way. Michael Diamond makes new age music which is not chillout. Well, not exactly chillout at least. To be honest, new age seems to be the American equivalent to European chillout. It tends to be less electronic also, but otherwise very close.

Atlantis Rising is a new age cd that follows the idea of new age is similar to chillout. This actually could be related to ambient at times as well. It does have quite a few synths in the music, but it is all flowing. At times it even seems to give off an organic feel. Throughout the CD though, it is very rich sounding. I wouldn’t call it as rich as someone such as S. Zeilenga, but it has good depth on every track. There is variety also. Not everything is very ambient nor is it all organic. Little bits of both will appear in every track though. Each leaves a distinct feeling in its wake, but all are very well done. One of the main downsides to the CD is its length. It lasts a mere 52 minutes and leaves you desiring more. I can’t say that the ends of the CD are poorly done though. The lead in and lead out tracks are particularly good at their jobs. It really can get you in the mood for what the rest of the CD is about to present. The end track, “The Hero’s Journey,” is a stronger and less delicate track that the introduction, but there is an organic element that ties the tracks together regardless. I would say the cd is pretty good overall. Most chillout lovers would be pleased.

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Success! – Part 2

Ok, upgrade complete. Everything seems to be good. Now for the DNS update so others can see the new site (that seems exactly like the old site!) Next post will be about my new found host.

Success! – Part 1

If all has gone correctly, this will be the first post on the new server. I think all is good. I’m also still going to update wordpress, so one more post before i’m satisfied.

Server Change – Again

This seems like I did it recently… oh well. It’s been 10 months since I got this server and now I’m abandoning it. I honestly can’t handle the cost of the server with no income from it. The changes that everyone will see should be virtually non-existent. Everything is going to be moved to the new server before the DNS is told to change. As soon as the DNS updates, everyone will be looking at the new server without any changes in view (hopefully).

I should start playing with mod_svn (which will allow web based access to subversion) later and so on. If anything seems to break, feel free to send me an email at quad341@gmail.com. More details will be posted when I finish the transition.

Clint Mansell – Requiem for a Dream Soundtrack

If you listened to “View from the Rainbow” from Cardamar, you heard 3 Clint Mansell songs from this album. That’s what inspired me to purchase it. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a whole lot more on the cd.

The best tracks by far are the ones named something about ghosts. Yes, there are actually 4 tracks with that name. There are slight variations, but all of the tracks are about the same. There are other good ones too. Summer Overture, for example, is a good track that isn’t named ghost anything. Any of the songs relating to emotions tend to be rather interesting in various ways, but there are other tracks that just seem out of place with genres such as House or Jazz cropping up. I didn’t particularly enjoy those tracks, but I was more disappointed by the lack of variety on the disc. I realize that in a movie certain songs might keep cropping up, but I don’t think the soundtrack needs to be set up in the same way. The few other songs are not good enough to correct for what I see as a major shortcoming. To be brief, I would call this cd OK. If you like chillout, etc., you might want to pick up the disc used or just get the ghost tracks off of iTunes or something of the like.

Music Update

This is a short post to be followed by a longer one soon.

I got my “In Medias Res” CD yesterday. I can say that the release version is even better than the version I reviewed. WTANR sheltershed counterbalance mix is very cool. While I like the original better, it is a cool, harsher take on it. Hymn is also very cool and a great closing track; it’s extremely downtempo and flowing. I cannot say how much I love this album!

I also got my Clint Mansell CD (Requiem for a Dream soundtrack). I’ll review that soon. BeatPort gave me 3 free tracks (well…USD 5.97 of credit) so I got a large compelation of music. I can’t remember what it’s called, but I’ll get around to talking about that hopefully by next weekend.