Maskalin - Way Of Life

[Basilisk]

Maskalin - Way Of Life

 

Artist: Maskalin

Title: Way Of Life

Label: Balloonia

Date: 2001

 

Track listing:

 

01. Freakish

02. Music

03. Ride On

04. Turtle House

 

Review:

 

Freakish opens with subtle reversed kicks and sliding samples, slowly

grooving into predictable territory. With only a minute and a half left to

go of this housey number a beautiful melody enters and plays around for a

while, but this is one track that suffers from "too little too late" - not

to mention a bad choice of samples. Nothing special, but a great warm

groove. 'Musik' is slowly building, much more subtlety and low-end bass with

little melodic tricks. A voice drops in to remind you what the name of the

song is - that's always very helpful so you don't have to check the

tracklist [nyuk]. Breaky, progressive, throbbing in intensity with thick

rolls of hairy bass, this is a monster tune that still doesn't excite me so

much. Ride On is lush with bass bubbles and squelching effects - a much more

promising intro here. Doesn't go too far though... suffers less than the

other tunes though! Turtle House closes off this four-tracker and again, it

is a good loop plus some tasteless samples and doesn't live up to its full

potential. The repeating "droids" sample really gets irritating when it is

used over and over without being dynamic or 'smart'. On the whole, the EP

has a good modern sound which will surely capture the listener's ear for a

second... but it also is hurt by the failings of the modern vibe to have

much more than a superficial impact on the listener's ear. I'd want

'Freakish' sans samples with that great melody kicking off a minute and a

half INTO the track, not 1m30s before it ends. There should ideally be no

period in music where the listener is just waiting around for the artist to

get to the point... but that's what I found happening here. Got bored,

waited for the good part... ah well, it goes without saying that the two

artists here have made much better work in the past but regardless of what I

think of the music I hope people enjoy it since it was a nice attempt at

capturing something halcyon.