
                       Impressions -
            The debut album of Factor6 Reviewed

                by Zito/1oo%^mOOdS^[S]carab
[l


With  happiness  I  got a CD-parcel from my old czech friend
Factor6  in  the Amigascene, who is sadly a quite more known
musician  inside  the ZX Spectrum and C64 scene but knows to
ge  the  best out of 4channels with Protracker or XM though.
Anyway...   As  I  always  really  liked to hear and use his
musics  (find them in JP9, JP11 and Showtime 16 for example)
I directly listened to the huge archive of ZX tracks I found
on the archive and while browsing through the rest of the CD
content  I  discovered  a  directory  named "mp3" and when I
entered it, I was faced by a cover and 13 trackes those were
streamed from Factor6' first audio CD.

Wow!   He  never  told me about this!  I directly lunched my
mp3  player and started to listen.  And while I do, I know I
have  to  report  about this quite good record compared to a
lot  of other scene musician releases of the last time.  And
so I do here now...


[1 $01.[0   [2 "Remind The Atmosphere"[0  - Well, in my opinion a really
bad  track to start with.  Until the sounds really start you
have  to  listen  to  the same tone of a string that gets on
your  nerves pretty fast.  It gets interesting after another
string-only-break, but since the songs ended after 8 minutes
playing,  I  will  never  forget the strings and the strange
atmosphere  it  created  inside  my  head.  I would not have
started with this track.  Sorry for the honesty, friend!

[1 $02.[0    Again  something  string  oriented, but this time the
strings  are  not  as  dominating  as  in  the  first track.
[2 "Aspects  of  being"[0  features nice piano loops and a mixture
of  industiral beats and a simple melody that reminds on old
Speccy  games,  not  only  because  of  the  intrument.  5,5
minutes  are also not too long as this tune is splitted into
three  similar  interesting parts, those return to were they
came from at the end.

[1 $03.[0    [2 "Inphormation"[0   -  An  interesting  wordplay with the
name,   Factor6  did.   It  features  ununderstandable,  but
"fitting  to  the  atmosphere  of the song" czech male voice
samples  spoken  to  an annoying beat.  For sure a good tune
for  fans  of  this kind of music, but I do not like it that
hard.  The funky piano loops and synth effects in the middle
that  again suit my ears quite well although they are played
too long (about 7 minutes) at the end.

[1 $04.[0    Seems  to me some piece of a rave-like tune.  A remix
of  omicrons  [2 "The Bushmen"[0  featuring one voice sample again
and  interesting  sound mixing.  Clear hihats, cool bass and
driving beats.  Nothing more to say, listen...

[1 $05.[0    This  track  sounds  a bit like modern dadaism to me.
Factor  6  builts  a minimalistic tune around two samples of
people  talking  about  "Do  you  Like Parties?".  Here rave
samples  are  played  with  breaks  to  some  classical game
bassline.  The sound changes at all not that much, just some
minal  diffences  can  be noticed at the end compared to the
beginnging.  But this does not make this tune uninteresting.
In  the  last  part  starts a disturbing sound in the rhythm
that destroyes the song and let it end this way.  Nice idea.

[1 $06.[0     [2 "Full  Grip"[0   A  simple  techno  drumset  and  cheap
electronic instrument start to play and get featured by some
more  strange  sounds (which are tape loading noises from zx
spetrum  as  written  on  the cover) and a low noise string.
But than nothing changes and I got bored a bit.

[1 $07.[0    [2 "Went"[0 ,  a  groove trax remix, continues the sound of
the  previous  track  a diffent way.  Here you can hear more
happy  drums  following in speed a giving rave/house sample.
Both are followed by a simple melody leading in all parts of
the  song  structure as the background music does not change
from  this  strange  sounding  arrangements.   That does not
really  sound  groovy  enought  to  fullfill  what  the name
promised.  It ends in small crash and directly...

[1 $08.[0    ...the next song named [2 "Lower State (FT2 mix)"[0 , which
is  a  remix  of an amiga tracked song Factor6 release under
Liquid  Skies when this groups was in the starting position.
This  remix  sounds  more  polite  and  commercial  than the
original  one,  but is - in my eyes - a great diversion from
the  two  songs  I  listend to before.  The beats are nicely
arranged  and  underline the idea from the original mix with
some new piano loops.

[1 $09.[0    Game  song  deluxe?   What  is that?  I wondered when
[2 "Chronos  Theme"[0   gets  played.   Sweet  bells  and  a funky
bassdum and percussion following the seemingly crazy jumping
game character.  A Tim Folin Remix, well done.

[1 $0A.[0    And  again something totally different to the first 7
tracks.   A calm and slow piece of a diskmagstyle tune named
[2 "Diskmagination".[0    Beatiful  strings  and  bells  playing a
melody  underlined by smooth and silent drums.  With a break
and  some soli melody, this tune does not get boring for me.
I  could  listen  to  it  twice,  three times, four times...
Great.   I  wish I had have it as a starttune for JP before!
:-) At the end it fades out the traditional way and...

[1 $0B.[0    ...   the  next  tunes comes up.  [2 "Juicy Life"[0  sounds
like  a  typical  demotune.   Melody,  intruments, drums and
speed  let  me  feel  like  watching  a  megademo.  Only the
quality samples and the - a bit different from standard demo
tunes  -  second  melody  that  is  laid above the first and
played a bit too loud, let me know that it is something done
by  a  descendant  of  these  computer scene times.  After 2
minutes and 30 seconds comes a lovely and romatic break that
leads  smoothly dramtically into the second part, which is a
bit  more  wild  than the first one.  The finale comes as in
the old demos but is a slighty new interpretation.  I simply
love it!

[1 $0C.[0    [2 "Skylines"[0 ,  a  piano  piece.  Really nice and lovely
music  arrangement  featuring  strings and a sample sounding
like an oboe.  Sadly it lasts for only 1 minute and 50.

[1 $0D.[0   is the bonus track named [2 "Outro"[0  that makes use of the
Amiga  narrator  device  telling the greetings.  It features
nice   chipsamples  and  low  filtered  drums,  rounds  this
different in content CD up.

So  what?   From  totally  string  dominated  atmosphere  to
annoying  hard  raves  to strange minimalstics to happy game
sounds  to calm diskmag tunes to a special way of greetings,
this CD features everything Factor6 is capable of.  The only
thing  I missed was his disco and funk way of tracking.  But
the  rest  is  really  good  music  done in 2001.  I hold my
fingers crossed for the musical career or this boy!

[2 Supplement: The whole album by Factor6 has  been re-released
for the net under  mOOdS  meanwhile.  Go  and  leech  it  at
www.chscene.ch/moods/f6 and enjoy.
[0 

READY.

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