Mystified- Demo

Mystified, with a penchant for experimental ambience and a background in scoring horror films, is something of an instrumental ambient/ethereal project centered on eerie processed ambient noise/electronics/instruments and repetitive underlying melodic and percussive content. This 40-minute demo is an amalgam of 10 experimental droning soundscapes that form a fairly consistent moody ambient/ethereal work.

Most of the material on this demo album is fairly good, albeit a bit trying at times due to its droning, repetitive nature. It's the type of music that I could easily see forming a fairly effective backdrop to a survival horror game or horror film of some sort, although attentively listening to 40 minutes of it on CD isn't necessarily an exceptionally pleasant experience (even for someone like myself who has occasionally written and recorded similar material in the past). Highlights on the disc include the moody ambient "Sliptide", "Overpass" (which gives a bit of a reprieve from the discs droning ambient material with the inclusion of electronic drums), and the swelling processed sounds and effective fading in and out of "Drifting Fumes", perhaps the strongest track on the disc. "Leakage" is also a fairly aesthetically interesting track, combining noise/static with keyboards and what sounds like processed violin string scraping. The demo's two remixes are a mixed bag, however. Droid If Machine's remix of "Sliptide", is a fairly weak and odd track that essentially sounds like 3 minutes of chopped up, skipping, random bits of the original track combined with poorly sequenced drum samples (complete with audio clicks and pops) and comes off as more than a bit amateurish. Robin Storey's remix of "Transit", on the other hand, is a fairly strong droning ambient remix that fits in well with the rest of the material on the demo.

While Mystified is certainly not a project for those with mainstream ethereal tastes, listeners with more of an appreciation for droning ambience and experimental soundscapes may find their work interesting. It can definitely be a bit trying when listened to in large doses, but the material is ultimately fairly strong and worth checking out despite, perhaps, being better suited to appear in a film or game soundtrack than on an album.