Review: "I" By Deranged

Written by Makke

So here I sit, the 1st of May 1999, with a really evil hangover from the great "Valborg"-feast yesterday. I'm in the mood for writing something for Hugi, as I've written far too few articles for this very issue. I open up my mailbox to see if anybody wants to tell me something funny and inspiring, and guess what? There's a mail from Wolle/Deranged asking me to review their newly released musicdisk "I". As I was planning to download it anyway I said, "Sure!" And now I still sit here, with the beat of "Saw" by Tristan pumping out from my speakers.

I fired up the pretty cool interface (coded by Wolle) that this musicdisk is equipped with. Nothing extraordinary with the interface, more than that it IS extraordinary that a musicdisk has an interface these days. The interface has a music-selector (DUH!!!) and lets you see which channel of the track is playing and with which volume. You can also read a few words about the song from the musicians (Tristan/Deranged and Black Widow/Knights), though I would prefer to read MORE than just a few words. I'd rather like to have a whole scroller.

Ok, so how about some words about the songs? I mean, you download a musicdisk to listen to the music, right?

Ringelpiez

Happy hardcorish-song, with the interesting lyrics "Revolution in the scene". I guess there's nothing revolutionary about this song, though. It is actually a little strange. It takes a few unexpected "turns" here and there. Pretty good song, but as I said, nothing special. Give it a few listens. I didn't like it the first time I heard it, but after a few rounds it got better. It starts off with some lonely synth-tones and then builds up to a pretty cool HH-song. Got to check the dance factor of this one - (Makke starts dancing around his computer) - pretty good. The unexpected breaks in the song make it hard to synchronize your dance-steps to it.

Ode to Ugho

This song is way too basic! It sounds stale, and never really bounces off, which makes it boring. Nothing more to add.

Brainstorm

Hip-hop-break-beat-thing which only uses 8 channels (and as you probably know, I like it when songs are made with as few channels as possible). This song contains lyrics sung by Tristan's aunt(?!). I suppose the lyrics are in German and that my German isn't the best - I don't understand what she's saying! The voice samples are way too bassy! The low frequencies on the samples should've been cut. The first time I listened to this song I thought it sucked, but after a few turns it eats into your head, which starts to bop-to the beat. Not many instruments are used in this one. There are the drums and bass, then a lonely organ joins in after a few seconds. (Wolle told me the lyrics were: "Ich kam von Frankfurt nach Berlin, voll mit Kokain." Which in English means: "I came from Frankfurt to Berlin, full with kokain.")

Saw

In my opinion the best song on the disk. Sounds very dance-technoish, reminds me of U96. The only thing that I'd like to have different with this song is the b-drum. It's a little to "hard" and could need some softening.

Signpost

Average house-song. House songs aren't my favourite kind of music, and I don't listen very much to them. This one does have some potential, but it's a little "basic" and could use some more feeling.

Conclusion

The Deranged musicdisk "I" doesn't offer any revolutionary experiences. The music is mostly average, but partly pretty good, the interface is a nice feature though! More interfaces! Let's put it like this.

This musicdisk may not be the best one around, but it is surely worth listening. So take a few minutes and leech it from http://www.deranged.de.

- Makke/Hugi/Trebel