Search - Various Artists :: Directions

Terrific music marred by dumb technical production

Douglas A. Greenberg | Berkeley, CA USA | 02/13/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This dark progressive mix is a collection of tracks released on the Sumsonic label, one of many little-known but high-quality U.K.-based outfits that keeps releasing wonderful dance tracks on 12" vinyl. The ten tracks have been skillfully mixed by DJ Chris Gainer, and overall, what's been produced is a fabulously deep and rich sonic journey that's also great for dancing.What's even better is that only a few of these tracks will sound familiar to even the most ardent prog-heads like myself. Most of the material sounds fresh and hypnotic and dark and highly entrancing, and this is the whole appeal of this beat-heavy musical subgenre, which is definitely short on vocals and melodies.What's incredibly frustrating, however, is the apparent act of brainlock on the part of whoever was responsible for producing and manufacturing this mix cd. Dj mixes feature separate tracks, but the music flows nonstop and the listener should not be aware of the specific point at which track one becomes track two, and so on. Here, however, there is a glitch whereby there with each transition there is a small gap, hesitation, hiccup, or whatever you want to call it, making it clear just where the track marks are located. This might be considered a minor matter, but in a dj mix that is supposed to be "deep" and hypnotic, these glitches are definitely annoying, even jarring. When I contacted Bliss Productions, which is the cd's distributor, I was told that the error will be "fixed on the next run," assuming there is a next run. In the meantime, I was motivated to perform some do-it-yourself surgery on the mix, using a WAV editing program to snip away the offending microsections of sound from each successive track and then reburning the cd on my own PC. Once repaired, the mix sounds as terrific as it was supposed to in the first place. Overall, I rate this mix five stars musically, but I think that a one-star deduction is definitely in order here for the technical boo-boo."