The Speed Freak - Freakwaves FLAC

This release is quite the piece of work, I can't imagine the time and effort Martin must have put into it. The samples he used alone, from The Sisters of Mercy to the theme from Star Wars to George Bush, to Achmed the dead terrorist, to Basement Jaxx, to, well the list would be too long to go on. Damm really put himself on the map as an extremely good producer with Freakwaves, one may not be into Frenchcore, one might not enjoy this particular style of Frecnchore (chaotic, epic, catchy at times), but one can not state that this is badly produced and be right at the same time. This is probably, from a technical point of view, his best work so far. There's not one track on the album that I found to be boring or even not worth paying much attention to. It's energetic and captivating from beginning to end, all tracks are impressively well structured and Damm really proved himself to be one of the most eclectic Hardcore producers out there. Amidst the chaos there is a certain consistency to be found, all tracks, except from "Kung-Fu(ck You ! - I'll Use My Sword)" and "Face 2 Face", are very much what one would expect from Martin Damm. One could even still argue about those two, but they definitely differ in style (KFYIUMS being sort of an Industrial Hardcore track and F2F being a dark DnB track). If you had a very strong feeling about Disinformation Overload, you'll probably have the same feeling but stronger about Freakwaves, whether it was positive or negative. Freakwaves is more eclectic, more epic and filled with even more surprising turns. Freakwaves is a more dark feeling to it than Disinformation Overload. If you're hoping for more tracks like "Devastator" or "Steel-Finger" you might be turned down. A lot of catchy tunes on here, no doubt about that, but it's more rough and 'heavier' with more metal riffs and more DnB influences in his tracks. Everybody who liked the way Martin Damm was taking with his style will really enjoy this album. The people who are more into his older works should at least check out "Freak on a mission" before asuming anything, eventhough some tracks definitely won't be appreciated by them, this particular track really takes me back. The only downside I can think of is the LP not containing all of the tracks from the CD. They should've made it a 3x12", I mean, one can do without the intro, but missing out on "Buttplug", "Gunja-sex Weemix", "Kung-Fu(ck You ! - I'll Use My Sword)", "Reload All Your Shooters (Album Version)" and, my favourite, "Hated" is the definition of 'missing out on'.

3 times in a very lengthy post? Also, if you don't know what it means and think it's some kind of festival-ish house genre featuring cakes, whatever man. If you do however, I'm open to suggestions for an alternative term to Electronic Dance Music if only to be able to switch it up now and again but I don't really see a point to it apart from that. If you can't handle someone using a word a couple of times in a long post, maybe just, you know, don't read. Ever.

Thanks man, but the point was that they were missing from this release =)

Some of the tracks mentioned (not on the vinyl release), were actually released on other records:Hated - http://www.discogs.com/Speed-Freak-Things-That-Go-Boom-In-The-Night/release/988802Ganjasex (weemix) - http://www.discogs.com/Hellfish-Speed-Freak-Ganjasex-Remixes/release/1404010Buttplug - http://www.discogs.com/Speed-Freak-Driveby/release/1558153

Can't really take someone who drops the EDM term (about as many times as a 12 year old girl say's OMG) too seriously.

Why insult me? You obviously don't know anything about me, I'm actually into most EDM styles (far more than Damm ever produced) and have been most of my life. I've also been an amateur producer for almost ten years now and a pretty critical guy overall. I do know what I'm talking about sir, I know he's been around for quite a long time, I know his work has always been of fairly good quality (at least), so I also know he's been 'on the map' a lot longer than you think I thought he was. I'm definitely not disregarding (or disrespecting) any of his previous work, I simply find that this is his best album yet and, to me, the first album to be truly impressed with. Technically it's breathtaking and practically not even comparable to scene standard anymore, but it's also the first Frenchcore album I know of that combines top-notch production value with such creativity, attention to song structure and diversity in tracks, it doesn't only stand out from other Frenchcore albums but from most EDM albums (especially nowadays.) To elaborate:He's always been good, and even great at times, but not great enough to really transcend the scene standards. What I mean by that is most tracks from any particular genre (or style, scene, w/e) can only be compared to other tracks from that genre to 'establish' their (relative) quality, this of course goes for albums as well. I believe this is due to the facts those tracks and albums are all produced within certain boundaries (coming from an idea of what the specific genre should be like and thus tracks of that genre should be like) and that most people will judge the quality of these tracks or albums first and foremost on to what extent these tracks or albums stay within these boundaries. This causes genres having (thought to have) certain limitations, one can only do so much in between boundaries, and usually leads to most producers only focusing (or focusing too much) on the aspects they think are important in a genre when producing a track in that genre, not even noticing other possibilities or neglecting them out of fear to be rejected by the scene, and go and set even more of a scene standard (or 'limitations') for others to conform to, while conforming to the current scene standard. Since every genre has it's own 'limitations' most tracks of a specific genre are very hard to compare to tracks from another genre because those were made with other limitations. It would be like comparing a small child's grip on reality to the intelligence of someone with Down syndrome. In terms of music it would be like comparing a (modern) vocal trance track by Armin van Buuren to a mainstream hardcore track by Tha Playa: Both suck and it'd almost be impossible to establish which of the two is better, without mixing in your personal opinion of both genres.Luckily this does not apply to ALL tracks and albums of a specific genre. These tracks and albums are not produced to conform to a scene standard and thus transcend that scene standard (eventhough they could, to a certain degree at least, sound similar to that scene standard nonetheless.) By transcending that standard they don't have to be compared to other tracks and albums of that genre to establish their (relative) quality, but can now be compared to tracks and albums of other genres as well (as one doesn't have to take this genres 'limitations' into consideration) and by doing so their (absolute) quality could be established.These tracks and albums can be pretty rare in some EDM styles, in some genres (like Frenchcore) even next to impossible to find, but these are usually the true masterpieces. And I think Freakwaves is an album (and Damms first album) to fall into that category. Of course it would be weird comparing this album to, let's say, Tiësto - Elements of life, but you could, and if you would you'd discover both being well produced from a technical point of view but Freakwaves clearly exceeding in creativity and song structure, mostly due to Tiësto's album being produced to conform certain scene standards.I can understand a lot of people not agreeing with me on all of this because Freakwaves has a rather 'commercial' sound to it, but that's exactly one of the things that makes that this album transcends the scene standard. Sure, he has made commercial tracks in the past, but those were either still clinging too much to a genre standard or too commercial. To me, he found the perfect balance between those two and with that, while maintaining his own standards of quality and originality, he produced a Frenchcore album finally truly surpassing the Frenchcore standards. And that's why I said he put himself on the map as an "extremely good producer", as opposed to the "good, sometimes great" producer he was before.

i don't normally write reviews but i could not let sulphuria creatura's statement that "Damm really put himself on the map as an extremely good producer" stand. To suggest that Freakwaves, released in 2008, put Damm "on the map", is utter rubbish and obviously written by someone that knows little about Martin Damm's long musical career, which stretches back some 20 years and whose work has been, almost without exception, masterful, and covering such a broad range of hard electronic styles under numerous aliases. In short, Damm has been "on the map" for an awful lot longer than Frenchcore newbies might think.

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