Vapourspace
Sonic Residue from Vapourspace
Magna Carta
Vapourspace is Mark Gage, a remixing wizard who chose a handful of bands from the Magna Carta label to remix. The bands remixed on Sonic Residue are Attention Deficit (Alex Skolnick side band), Niacin (w/ Billy Sheehan), Steve Morse (of Dixie Dregs), Explorers Club (Trent Gardner), Liquid Tension Experiment (Dream Theater instrumental side project), Bozzio/Levin/Stevens, Steve Walsh, and Tempest (progressive).
I couldn’t really get into this, so keep that in mind. The music on the first disc would fall into some type of weird trance, dance, or techno genre, but it’s very weird and nonsensical. Most of the music is really spastic and crazy, with junglish dance beats jumping around fast enough to make the head spin!
Strangely enough, the only solace I could find on the first disc of this record was the Dream Theatre side project Liquid Tension Experiment. Their track, “Osmosis,” was really beautiful, dreamy guitars and keyboards being propelled by a really cool salsa type drum beat. It was very enjoyable, but the guitars were the highlight…they sounded like the guitars in Smashing Pumpkins’ (we all have our vices!) “Soma.” Really great song! Strangely enough, the other Liquid Tension Experiment track, “Another Dimension,” was also pretty darn cool! Strange, spacey guitars, loopy bass, and an overall spacey feel, made me think of Pink Floyd crossed with 1983 era-Cure…really!
I’m not really sure what the job is done by someone who “remixes” things. It seems to me that they pretty much just add different drum beats. Is that it? I’ve always been puzzled by that. Sorry for that little rant…
What’s cool about this two CD set is that you also get a CD of all of the original tracks, before they were remixed by Mark Gage. Shee-jus! The Liquid Tension Experiment stuff on the originals CD is AWESOME !!! Really cool Rush-esque metal stuff, complete with cheesy keyboards, but man, it ROCKS! Whew! I love theatrical prog metal! The guitars solos are totally on fire, too! AHHHH!
I hate to say it, Mr. Vapourspace, but the majority of the tracks from the Magna Carta artists were WAY better before you remixed them. I don’t know, though… maybe some people like to have their music softened for them. In any case, this is a two disc set which you can get for less than 15 bucks (I’m pretty sure), and you can use the remix CD for decent background music while hanging with friends, and you can use the originals CD for rockin’ your friggin’ pants right off of your artsy butt cheeks!
Magna Carta: http://www.magnacarta.net
