My friend Kevin Blom just put together a new CD of his synth fun under the Nom de Midi “Warlord of Marz.” I enjoy his work and I never get near my Dreamhost bandwidth quota, so I thought I’d offer it to the world in an open directory until such time as I get around to helping him put together a music web page.
His older album, Mars Rocks! 2004, is there too. There’s yet a third album which I don’t have online yet for some reason.
Here’s my little micro-review-summary-thingy I sent him after listening to the tracks, as a guideline for what is what in case you want to check it out. Inbetween each track is a short spoken word thingy in a synthesized voice.
Beat All —
I would describe this as “deep murky club groove”Chainsaw —
I remember the original version of this, and I think the choral voices that have been added to it give it some more interest & depth. Beat struck me as awkward in places, giving the song a kind of deranged quality.
Chimera —
I would describe this as “slick and intense interwoven beatwork.” If this were a soundtrack it’d be to a montage sequence in a science fiction movie that included lander pods descending from starships and emitting battle-armored which scout around to and fro searching for something… but their prey is much stealthier and faster than they are and eludes them.
Danse de Deimos —
This has a style that’s familiar to me but I can’t quite place it. I would describe it as “frenzied, dense buzzy dub.” Maybe sounds kinda Keith Leblancky. Yeah, a lot like Major Malfunction or Stranger Than Fiction.
Shield of Heracles —
Trippy. The female robot voice alone would be kind of boring, but the one with the English accent makes it freaky.
Martian Groovin’ —
I’d describe this as: “Hip-hop beat moving into rhythmically spastic piano loops and goofball robot voices”. Most light-hearted track so far. Fun/funny. :)
Net of Hephaestus —
This starts with some buzzy frenetic bippetty boppety stuff and then gets all orchestral — is this the bit with the Vangelis-synth-clone stuff maybe? Shoots off from funky beats into trippy 80s synthland, and then back again.
Pain Panic Famine Oblivion —
Orchestral, Classical-sounding segments alternating and interweaving with synthy loopy piano and drums. Lots of really majestic sounding long buildups, moving smoothly back and forth between grandiose and funky.
Rendezvous on Phobos —
Feet back firmly on the dance floor. Pleasantly dense, groovin like “Beat All” but with a lot more melody and tone, where Beat All is mostly percussive. Longest song on the CD. Gets rather cosmic before the end.
Two Robots On Mars —
Peppy funky percussion and old-school “robot beep” music, thickly interweaved with effect-enhanced samples.
Water On Mars —
Opens as if it were a movie soundtrack, with ambient “rain” effects and moody, slower tunes without the usual beat… a meditative track.
Bonus Track
Renedzvous on Phobos — Piano Version — A pleasant minimally electronicized human performance. Hard to believe this is behind the hyper-techno Rendezvous track!