awakenings
DREAM HOUSE

The oldest of the online tracks, save the classical ones. I have fun, here, playing with Impulse Tracker's Cutoff filter and manage to produce a plausible early-J.M.Jarre-esque piece. At around 2:25 (0:05, in the excerpt) a nice synth sound enters and a strong, Robert-Miles-style beat, heavy on the bass.

arctic coast
CINEMATIC / BIG BEAT

This track starts very sinister with thunder, a breathy flute and even breathy rhythm. The bass of string hits at the start is actually provided by a marimba sound transposed down a number of octaves. However, it lacks structure, sound quality and the initially promising percussion fails to deliver. There's potential though.

shaken, not stirred
SOUNDTRACK / DANCE

Not another James Bond remix? Yep. Following attempts to do a rave version of The Sound of Music and various Christmas carols, I strike success. Some well- placed sound bites and convincingly-recreated theme music make this entertaining, if nothing else...

the road
AMBIENT

One of the favourites at the time. An otherwise reasonably-engineered piece of music, let down by the usual duff and messy drums. I'll remix it and get it right one day. Imagine yourself in the car, driving down the motorway at night with orange lights sweeping shadows across the dashboard.

london to paris
DREAM HOUSE / DANCE

After hearing the Propellerheads indulging in 1950's sound bites to such great effect, I had to give it a go. This track also heralds the birth of a melody that lingered around for a while... one I've tried to remix frequently (see Our Island on the third album). The drums are better than most on the album, but still somewhat lacking.

perchance to dream
DREAM HOUSE

In part inspired by the classical suite's the Child (see below), this is a more souped up, 'clubby' track. I like the definition in frequencies between the timpani and marimba and love the deep warbling synth-bass sound at about 2:35 (0:13, to you). The tacky drums, later on, let the piece down, however.

classical suite

Without a doubt, the most progress I ever made learning to compose was at the times I threw myself at classical music. The endeavour taught me many tacit skills which carried through to my contemporary works. Indeed, the progress can almost be linearly charted through the four movements here...

	the explorer
	Imagine, if you will an explorer's adventurous voyage across the atlantic. The movement, as does the entire suite, suffers from its synthesized instruments, but with imagination I believe this makes for an atmospheric and evocative piece of music which would not be out of place in a film.
	the general
	The horrors of war and the toll on its wager comprise this movement. Since this was originally meant to be a symphony (this being the second movement), themes from the The Explorer appear occasionally. This piece houses a nice choir sound (vinyl crackle, no charge) and snare drum hit.
	the gentleman
	The third movement in a symphony can often be a waltz, which makes me think of Strauss and ball rooms - a place for true gentlemen. This movement shows the most music proficiency of the four and the computerised nature of the instruments don't present too much for distraction.
	the child
	The introduction of a music box was an inevitability when posed with this subject matter, and beginning with it, the piece charts the growth from infancy to teenage terror and has a theme of progressive development, that of the child being mirrored in the music. This one got the full treatment, later on (see Album 4).