Waxko - Destroyer of Pictures at an Exhibition

Hear The Track Here

Now you may look at this geezer and, not surprisingly, think that he is a rum looking cove. Well that same rum looking cove also happens to be one Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, a prime influence in Russian and classical music and a man responsible for composing one of my favourite peices, Night On Bald Mountain as well as Pictures At An Exhibition. You may remember it being crucifie....um.....portrayed by 1970's longhairs Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Me? Give me Blue Rondo a la Turk by The Nice anyday. Anyway, we are obviously talking about covers here and classical ones at that, so bear that in mind while reading on.

(Ed: and enough of the fekkin links. Whaddaya? Working for Wikipedia??)

There's no doubt that Waxko's version is more like ELP than anything even close to the classical field, although having said that I do recognise the central theme of the original here but somehow it misses the point. Not musically because this is a hard peice to pull off no matter who you are, but in inception and execution. I know that this track is part of some compo somewhere so I will put down its rushed feel and fumbled approach down to deadline issues, but Lordy I am certain sure that a peice of music as vibrant as this deserves to actually SOUND better than this. I'll admit I am not a big fan of classical music, and even less of the strivings of todays musicians 'inspired' by the genre - it all reminds me of how po-faced ELP could be at times.

However, musically this never stood a chance anyway because it was sabotaged from the start by poor sounds and even poorer production values. It definitely hangs together and I'd guess that if Destroyers of Pictures at an Exhibition were cleaned up aurally and were given some decent soundsets to work with it may work very well indeed. This though, is a pale imitation. There's a generic, plastic-y GM (General MIDI) soundset being used here and for my money it kills whatever richness this track could have. I know that we all struggle to make music in our own different circumstances but even the slightest effort can get you decent soundsets these days and I would urge Waxko to take that time and get some power behind his undoubted musical talent.

An interesting take marred by chronic sound samples.