Andrew K Rock - Blacklight

Hear The Track Here

I think this is the first time ever where I was able to review two (very different) musicians who both happen to come from Russia. OK, no big surprise, Russia is a huge country covering at least seven time zones so there's got to be a few musicians there. More to the point, Russians have music embedded in their souls, its in the air and the water along with their cultural roots and I for one always have time for Russian musicians of all stripes. Andrew K Rock, as you may have gathered, is the electronic end of the field, whereas Andrey Mishchenko who I reviewed a couple of days ago is a classical pianist at heart. Takes all kinds, I say. Sooo, Man In Trouble (February 2010) was my introduction to what Andrew K Rock is all about and the title kinda/sorta described what was happening in the track. As I wrote at the time 'lots of ideas, not much action' and I suggested that he listen to the competition.

Presumably he's done that eh?

Well, not much I suspect, at least judging by what Blacklight has to offer which - to be honest - isn't much more than Man In Trouble had to offer. A track made up of too many ideas and changes of tempo, wrapped around a pedestrian beat. A track that would be familiar to anyone who started out their musical life on programs like Ejay and MAgix in all their glory. There is no doubting that - at least soundwise - most tracks made with these programs is going to sound reasonable, after all the whole point of 'instant music' programs and that you need to know nothing whatsoever about production or mixing. And, some would argue, know nothing about music either but I disagree. To get anything even remotely useful out of these programs you would need to know basic music elements; notes, chords etc..

Most people I know move out of this entry level stuff fairly rapidly and start experimenting with some of the audio big boys; Cubase, Logic, Abelton, Reason and Fruity Studio and that is were things get interesting. Personally, I think Andrew needs to look at this area because, frankly, this just shows that he can fit things together but it doesn't have a lot in the way of actual musical coherence, or focus for that matter. It's billed as Dance and the beats are of the genre but, as I say, fairly basic with patterns you will have heard more than a few times in the past. Mind you, I again find myself thinking that if I were 21 (as Andrew is) I'd be well chuffed at coming up with something like this.

Plenty of room and time to grow then?