Thursday, April 11, 2013

Band Review: BearTrax


One thing I realized this week is that I have no idea how to review a DJ. I thought I felt out of my league with metal, but club music is so much more beyond my ken – I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for.
However, BearTrax did follow me on Twitter, at least temporarily, therefore is on the list, and in the process of trying to review, I think I am at least able to help with the navigation.
First of all, the Twitter account leads straight to Beatport, where you can purchase Shalim EP and its individual tracks. Sales are important, but there are two problems with this. One is that you can only hear tiny samples of the songs, and there are only three. I must also add, they seemed expensive.
Now, I see today that the prices have gone down, so perhaps I was right. It was $7 (down to $5) and change for the whole, which seemed high for only three songs. That may be a genre issue again, because these are much longer tracks. Three tracks are about 22 minutes of music, compared to maybe 11 for regular songs.
However, what another tweet revealed when I was poking around was that there is in fact a Soundcloud page as well, and you can listen to quite a bit there. Yes, some people may be tempted to just listen, and not purchase, but I still very much value the ability to listen to something and know that I like it before I buy it.
On Soundcloud you can listen to individual tracks as well as DJ sets, and so you can get a much better idea of what you are getting, and if BearTrax is for you.
Is it likely to be for you? Again, I do not know how to answer this question. I can confirm that I liked it better than M83 – it tends more towards music and less towards ambient. I had it running in the background while I was working and it was fine, with no vague sense of irritation gradually increasing. That in itself is a win. There is some variation; it does not all sound the same. So probably, if house music is something you are into, this will work for you.
It is just not my genre, and that is nothing personal. As it was, various parts of writing this kept reminding me of Henry Rollins, and I will now be putting on some rock.

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