Tesselode - Subway 9

Hear The Track Here

There is an English term 'damning with faint praise' which I notice I do a lot, especially with music that I do not really like or enjoy. Take, for example, electronica. Couldn't stand it back in it's dance roots heyday, don't much care for it these days either, unless it's something really out of the ordinary. Re-reading my review of Tesselode's first track Galaxy's Edge (November 2011) I am definitely not all for it, but there are things in it that are interesting and/or different either of which will lead me to play it more than most electronica.

Thankfully, Galaxy's Edge did have some of that, certainly enough for me to rate it highly enough,even if the overall tone of the review wasn't exactly lets-have-a-party. It still left me wanting more, greedy **** that I am.I think my dissatisfaction with the genre has more to do with being a song man, as opposed to liking instrumentals although, as I say, there are exceptions. I made a comparison on Galaxy's Edge to early symphonic soundtracks, naming the Wing Commander series as a classic example of where it worked, If anything, it was the main reason I ended up liking it. A lot of that quality is evident in Subway 9 too, although this is a totally different track in feel; darker, more introverted - as befits the title I guess.

More to the point, it's a piano led piece and that always helps. You can never get enough piano right? Weeeelllllll, I guess that's another debating point but - like most instrumentation - I prefer that it play an active role if it's around. Now while it does that quite admirably on Subway 9, it still doesn't raise the level of excitement, at least to my poor tired ears. Now while I can endorse this as being worthwhile technically, from a listener standpoint it might be a different beast entirely. That would depend, as always, on what floats your musical boats and - as I mentioned - this genre really does that for me.

Piano led electronica.