YourSound.com about Demo's of Saturn

Calling Ajax Ray O'Vaque's debut CD, Demo's of Saturn, "diverse" is like calling the planet Saturn "kinda far away". Over the course of 15 tracks, this multi-talented poet/musician/producer (real name: Anthony J. Resta) touches on elements of industrial, jazz, classical, synth, beat poetry, goth and straight-ahead rock, among many others that defy easy categorization. Some tracks feature spoken word over heavy sampling and noise; others, spacy moog lines and multi-tracked vocals. Still other tracks have complex orchestration and a single repeated phrase .

There are two unifying elements that work to pull this confusion of musical directions into a coherent whole. The first is hinted at in the title of the second song: "Ahh, the wonder of technology." Each track contains electronic elements and each, in its own way, demonstrates a success of meshing older musical styles with today's means and methods-Moby would be proud. The second is the seamless production-Resta is best known for his programming, mixing, producing and assorted studio work for such luminaries as Duran Duran, Collective Soul, Blondie and Megadeth and he certainly didn't slouch on his own debut effort.

Self-recorded, -mixed and -produced (at his studio in North Chelmsford, in 1997), you can tell that every last sound on Demo's of Saturn is exactly as Resta intended it.

© 2000 Joshua Slobin, YourSound.com, Inc.