Aaron and Ivan - Freedom

Hear The Track Here

People who frequent Soundclick's forums (more commonly known as nutters) have been assailed by a new breed of forum beast - the Ivan (or ifunkus as he is known). Possibly the most loose mouthed human you are ever likely to meet. Ivan's outpourings have kept me entertained for years, even though he often steps over the lines people draw. I first encountered this phenomenon on another site a few years ago, and even reviewed some of his tracks if I remember correctly but they seem to have disappeared into the massive backup system I have. So much information and I haven't a fekkin clue where anything is, not that's what I call progress. I could, of course, root out reviews from pre-2003 but you know what?

I just can't be arsed.

Mind you, when put up against facing eight minutes and more of instrumental electronica from Ivan and (I presume) brother Aaron, even that idea has some merit. All merely because of two little words: electronica instrumental (shudder). Having spent years poring over the chicken scratchings of internet musicians, it's the one area that still retains its terrors - especially the long winded, overblown variety. As I say though, Ivan has been around long enough to know how to put it al together, so it's not gonna be the usual sonic maelstrom. Once I started to play the track it soon became obvious (despite it's initial disjointedness) that Aaron and Ivan were fairly serious about the way their music sounded.

Like a lot of electronica, Freedom is not really a tune as such. More like a series of themes held together (in this case very loosely) by some kind of unifying instrument - in this case a notoriously infamous plucked instrument sound. So although Freedom is definitely an easier listen than most material in the genre, it suffers from a lack of focus. It wanders much too much IMHO and there were times when I just thought 'get on with it!!' For my money, this track could lose at least a couple of minutes or more and still ably get its point across.

Still, if you like the genre, you may find it interesting especially in light of the sound quality.