Various - Choice: A Collection Of Classics - John Digweed (2022 Update)

Azuli Records: 2005

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

In my original review, I waxed on a bunch about the need for compilations such as these. A chance for famed DJs with deep crates to show off the influential but outdated tunes from their collections. Music they could no longer reasonably rinse out on the weekends, but hold special or sentimental value to their developed playing styles just the same. Granted, the '00s compilation market grew rather bloated with multiple series covering similar ground, such that a few are all but utterly forgotten nearly two decades on. Yes, I'm including Choice in that category. Don't get me wrong, it had a decent run. It didn't last past 2007 though, bowing out when Azuli Records went into liquidation by the end of the decade, and isn't brought up in The Discourse anymore. Gosh, maybe I can find a couple on the cheap-cheap now!

I'd like to assume, had the CD market not collapsed in the wake of streaming services, such compilations would still exist. Would it, though? Like, you'd think curated favourites of famed individuals would be big business with so much music available to the masses now, but I don't see much hype around it. Yeah, a Drake or a Kardashian or a Gorillaz might share some mixtape release on social media, but I'm thinking more than that.

Like, those artist Radios you get on Spotify. Wouldn't it be neat if they were actual radios, music they'd play over radio waves, each their own version of a college rock station show? Instead, it's just another algorithm generated playlist, featuring a selection of artists that are similar to the one you clicked the Radio button for. Maybe handy for those just getting into some genres or producers, but wholly redundant if you've been at this a while now. Why can't the algorithm provide some proper deep dives, yo'?

Or maybe there actually is a thriving social media community out there making ample use of such services, one I simply haven't stumbled across. For sure outlets like Mixcloud or Twitch should provide the means, but then you're kinda' shouting into the ether-void to get attention. Unless you already have a brand with a prominent base, establishing yourself as some modern John Peel is an almost futile gesture. And to be fair, a series like Choice would never have gotten off the ground if it hadn't relied on DJs with some brand reputation behind them, ensuring some curiosity from consumers in such a product. These were always an additional item of interest though. You needn't get a Choice from Digweed when he still had Bedrock or Transitions as his primary outlets.

I dunno. Feels like this is just more 'old man yells at cloud' musing. Why can't things be like it once was, and such as. I'm sure music compilations like Choice or Life:Styles or Back To Mine still exist out there, even as a nebulous streaming service concept, but it sure was easier finding them back in the day.

Various - Chap. 2 Trans'Pact Productions (2022 Update)

Trans'Pact Productions: 1995

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

Gilbert Thévenet, the man behind Trans'pact Productions, and the bulk of the label's releases, passed away last year. From what I can glean, he suffered from Parkinson's, the disease taking his life just over 50 years of age. A number of artists I enjoy have died around that age, and that freaks me out some. I've no reason to believe my health will fail as I draw closer to my half-centennial, but I'm sure many thought so as well, some illnesses coming on sudden and severe. Don't postpone those physicals, is what I'm saying.

As my original TranceCritic review was excruciatingly detailed, let's talk legacy then. It's a bit of a funny one, in that Mr. Thévenet was among the earliest adopters of goa trance. His works as Asia 2001, Loren X, and Progressive Transe helped lead the genre out of its pure acid roots into something proper India influenced, all the more remarkable considering he hailed from the lands of the francophone. Like, you could understand a UK label like TIP Records getting some Goa vibes on, being a former colony and all, but what influence in South Asia did France have? Vietnam? But yes, Trans'Pact has the honour of being one of the first goa labels, even if it didn't much thrive during psy trance's mid-'90s boom period.

I mentioned in that old review how much of a free-wheelin' experimental vibe permeates Chap. 2, as though ol' Gil' was having a ton o' fun toying about with his drum machines and acid boxes. As many of these productions came out in that first year of Trans'Pact's lifespan, it makes sense the songcraft is so laissez-faire, almost no rules to acid trance such as this existing yet. It didn't take long for trends and formulas to take hold though, so by the time this CD came out, much of that adventurous spirit was lost. 'Martin Cooper' soon settled into a singular project alias, Asia 2001, which stuck to the classic squealin' goa stylee for its duration. Just as well, as the Asia 2001 cuts off here were the best tunes by a fair margin anyway.

Trans'Pact itself wouldn't last, the label's output drying out after '95. When it finally shuttered, Gilbert migrated to Avatar Records, where he remained until the very end. For a time, it seemed his Trans'Pact productions would remain elusive items on the collector's market, but in recent years, Avatar started digitally re-issuing his back-catalogue. Well, the original albums as Asia 2001 at least. Ain't no way they'd resuscitate a woefully outdated collection of proto-goa such as this though.

Then they went and did it! I don't know how I feel about this. For the longest time, Chap. 2 felt like this ultra-obscure item only true heads would ever hear, tunes never given the attention or care they might deserve abroad, forgotten to all but a select few. And now anyone can hear it on streaming whenever they like! Good, is how I should feel.

Various - Buckle Up Vol. 2 - The Trancelucent Garage (2021 Update)

Trancelucent Productions: 2005

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

You'd think with such hilariously tacky cover art, Trancelucent Productions wouldn't have been long for this psy trance world. I certainly wrote them off early on, believing they couldn't possibly survive the great Israeli full-on glut of the '00s, especially as more notable, credible labels ermeged on the scene. Yet their Discoggian data shows they lasted as far as 2016, going the digital route like so many others before. The only name from this compilation that remained with the label until the end was Cosmic Tone, though he spent more time on Trancelucent's sister label, Comp.Pact Records. Amazing that the one producer I felt had the weakest cut on here (the Danny Tenaglia aping Elements) would be the longest tenured. He even released an album a couple years ago, with music that sounds... exactly like what's on this fifteen year old compilation. Huh.

That's not to say other acts didn't have fruitful careers in the wake of this release. I've mentioned before Electro Sun carried on for a while, as did System Nipel, but most of the artists featured on Trancelucent's second label showcase didn't amount to much after this. Many a psy-trancer lament the brilliant but brief outing from The Misted Muppet, but names like Aquatica, Systemic, and Noga barely have anything beyond here. That Noga is kind of funny, in that there appears a bunch of Discoggian data mentioning him being part of Cosmic Tone for their first album, then splitting after. Seems such a shame, as Noga's offerings are some of the purest, tranciest cuts among a bunch of tracks with that squawking synth. Not a single album listed though, just a single EP to his credit. Lots of compilation support though.

Another name that always intrigued me off here is Etic, and it appears he's had a very strong career since his Trancelucent debut, five albums to his name, plus a pile of EPs. Then why can't I find any of his stuff on Spotify or Bandcamp? Seems like a heck of an oversight, especially since much of his latter output is strictly digital. Maybe he didn't retain the rights for it, and Trancelucent's been in internet limbo since?

Ah, wait a second, Lord Discogs says Etay Harari, the man behind Etic, established his own label in Digital Nature. Still no Bandcamp option there, but it does lead me to a homepage. Ah, nice, it even has links to all the places you can find their music. Still neither of the two streaming services I prefer, but all the other usual suspects are here: Soundcloud, Beatport, iTunes, YouTube, JunoDownload, PsyShop, Amazo-

Wait a second! PsyShop is still around!? Holy cow, so they are! Man, what fond memories of scrounging for psy from that place back in the day. Wouldn't it be funny if they still had some of Etic's old albu- Oh. My. God!

Erm, anyhow, Buckle Up, Vol. 2. Somehow, it still has that vintage Israeli full-on charm, or it could just be the nostalgia talking.

Deep Forest - Boheme (2021 Update)

Epic: 1995

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

Somehow, this album keeps aging like the best wines. I have no idea how or why it gets better as I get older. Is it because there's ever greater distance from my initial disappointment in hearing it the first time, so unlike their self-titled debut? Or maybe I've grown more appreciative of how much of a musical gamble Boheme truly was, especially in light of the sort of music Deep Forest would go on to make in the future.

Like, it could have been so very easy of Sanchez and Mouquet to retread 'ethno-dance'. They still had an ear for the clubs in the mid-'90s, and if you doubt it, I simply point you towards their rub on Apollo 440's Liquid Cool as proof-positive. And if that still isn't enough, I give you the Peter Gabriel collaboration While The Earth Sleeps, made for the movie Strange Days, but added as a bonus to later versions of Boheme. It makes the fumble of Bohemian Ballet on here ever the more confounding, though I like Cafe Europa a little more than before. I attribute that to hearing it as performed in a symphonic nature, on the recently released Deep Symphonic. Oh yes, even Deep Forest (now just Mouquet) gave their old tracks the symphonic treatment. Considering how many producers and DJs in clubland have done so, it's surprising it took this long for Deep Forest to also get in on that. Then again, much of their post-2000 work involved multiple instruments, so it was a natural evolution to re-interpret the sample-heavy material as though performed by full symphonies.

Speaking of, can you guess what else Deep Forest got up to, after the split? No, go on, guess! You'll never believe it. Wait, you guessed dubstep? How did...? Oh, you peaked, didn't you.

But yes, once Mouquet took the name for himself, he started a series of country-specific Deep... albums. The first, Deep Brasil, sounded about what you'd expect from a Deep Forest project specifically focused on the South American country. Half a decade passed, then Deep India and Deep Africa dropped, and I don't know what crawled into Mouquet's brain, but boy-howdy must he have been influenced by the festival psy-dub scene in that time. For sure there's still 'traditional' world beat and ethno-ambient in them, but those half-step rhythms and mid-range bass noises too. Was he trying to get hep' to the youth? Just found those sounds too irresistible to not dabble in? It absolutely boggles my mind that Deep Forest - DEEP FOREST - would go dubstep. And even more damning, I... kinda' like it? What on Earth is happening!? Oh, he's been hanging out with Gaudi. Yeah, I'd trust him in guiding the way with basslines.

Anyhow, Boheme. I think what keeps drawing me back here is the roller-coaster of emotions it wilfully takes you through. The dark, mysterious, and melancholic, followed by unabashed exhilaration and jubilation. For a tight forty minutes, that's a journey worth taking.

L.S.G. - The Black Album (2021 Update)

Superstition: 1998

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

Not much I can really add to that old review. Heck, I probably exhausted every possible simile in describing what The Black Album sounds like. Won't deny, I literally wanted to start this Update with a few more fun ones, but nothing came to mind. Nada. Zilch. How does one top “cyborg jembe drummers” or “Unicron having a tummy ache”? Or this fun little nugget: “This isn’t the kind of stuff you’d hear from guys like Marco V or Sander van Doorn; Lieb’s material eats their tracks as a midnight snack and takes a second helping without asking.” Oh yeah, that was around the time I was getting annoyed at folks calling those chaps 'true tech-trance warriors', or some bollocks. Some of their stuff was good, sure, but compared to what Lieb was doing half a decade prior? C'mon, man.

I remain flabbergasted that not only did Lieb take L.S.G. down such a primal techno road, but that it also holds up strong-style over two decades on. It's been quite a few years since I last listened to this album, so some of it had slipped from my memory. Hoo boy, once it got going though, with the relentless onslaught of aggressive rhythms and minimalist industrial sounds, all the feral feelings came rushing back. It's like, it unleashes the reptile part of my brain, long deep in slumber, stirred awake by the sounds of nuclear reactors going off.

Steadily it emerges from the depth of the spinal chord, making it onto the dry lands of the mammalian limbic portions of my cranium, crushing such things like emotions and values under talons and foot. Nothing stops it, only growing stronger and more determined in its path of destruction as The Black Album carries on, finally confronting the neocortex, the last line of logic and rational defence. The primate portion of the brain, if you will, an 800-pound gorilla of humanity taking on the unstoppable path of reptilian devastation. Who wins in this ultimate showdown of the psyche? I dunno. I think, by the end of The Black Album, everything's been abducted by aliens or something.

I still don't know what prompted ol' Oliver to go so hard into techno's domain. There was something of a movement burbling in the periphery of European clubland of techno bangers dominating the 4am timeslots, but it'd be a few years before the likes of Adam Beyer and Chris Liebing would truly dominate. And even then, they initially came at things from the Detroit angle, but I do find it interesting that Chris and Oliver both hailed from Frankfurt. Maybe there's just something in the water there, that makes their producers need to get their pure techno groove on, no matter what your main lane of music making may be.

So yeah, if you have never checked out The Black Album for whatever reason, I'm giving you a reason now. You want that epic confrontation in your brain. You need it!

London Elektricity - Billion Dollar Gravy (2020 Update)

Hospital Records: 2003

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

For some reason, I got it in my mind I'd written that original review a year later than I had. I know, I know, fifteen years on, and the difference is negligible now, but it does say something about the blurring of time within our memories. I recall us folks at TranceCritic delaying our debut d'n'b reviews for a long while, practically as a joke, though not as long as I apparently remember. In fact, beyond a couple key highlights (me realizing I was gonna' have to be more involved than just 'editor' if things were to get rolling; first time receiving promo packages for psy trance; getting snubbed by Paul van Dyk's PR team because of Jack's review of Politics Of Dancing 2; Cobalt drawing the ire of the Cult Of Schulz) much of that first year is basically fuzz now.

But you're not reading this to reminisce with me (well, maybe a couple are). You want to know whether Billion Dollar Gravy holds up after all this time, and whether there's any new insights nearly two decades of passed time can offer. To answer those curtly, yes and no. I mean, it's not like the liquid funk style was in much need of evolution, most of its defining traits and lasting appeal cemented with albums such as this one. Absolutely it could have gone down some different paths along the way, but as is so often the case with the d'n'b scene, stray just a little too far, and you've basically created yet another genre, purists of the old forsaking its offspring. And while the Electronic Music Genre Standards and Classifications Consortium still debates whether 'dancefloor' constitutes its own genre, comparing that stuff to liquid funk of old (yes, including Hospital Records stuffs) does improve its chances. In that 'dancefloor' is generally bollocks, and Billion Dollar Gravy is not.

I won't deny skipping on London Elektricity after this because I feared Tony Colman couldn't resist chasing that cheesy-pap trend. Some of the star acts signed to Hospital Records, like Camo & Krooked, Logistics, and Netsky, hadn't impressed me much (to say nothing of the 'evolution' of High Contrast), so I just assumed the whole of Hospital had gone that route, including the label's founder. A follow-up album called Power Ballads, the hokiest of sentimental aggro-music out there, didn't do much to allay my suspicions either.

Still, I couldn't well do a 2020 Update on Billion Dollar Gravy without at least checking out the latest London Elektricity album, last year's Building Better Worlds. And gosh, is this ever a mellow album. For sure it's still got that liquid funk pep, but more focused on the soul portion of the classic 'fast-soul music' concept. Are his other albums like this? *checks Syncopated City and Are We There Yet?* Huh, so they are, more or less. How about the rest of the Hospital crew, is there some variety there too? *scopes out S.P.Y.* Well, if that don't trigger the nostalgia endorphines, b'gar!

Various - Balance 016: Agoria (2020 Update)

EQ Recordings: 2010

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

Three things I need touching upon. First, and probably most important for a supposed 'review blog', how has Balance 016 held up? Pretty good I'd say, in that this was already such a marmite set, there's no way one's opinion of it would change a decade later. Like, maybe if you dismissed it after an initial spin, then returned to it with a different perspective, that might improve it for some. Or you forced yourself to enjoy it from the outset for 'reasons', then never gave it another play because 'other reasons'. That's certainly a possibility. Can't say either has happened to me though.

My thoughts on Agoria's contribution to the Balance series are about the same as they were in my original review from a decade ago (holy cow!). Some great highs (that The Field track!), some lows (French Kiss, just... no), and a lot of meandering middles that I don't mind while playing, but aren't in a rush to replay either. I will reiterate, however, that I do prefer Agoria's sloppier approach to genre-mashing compared to Joris Voorn's clinical take. It's somehow more exhilarating, like you're always anticipating the wheels coming off the tracks at any moment.

Second off, where did Agoria go from here? He got tapped for Fabric a year later, which isn't surprising since that series gets everyone eventually. Another album followed, but he pretty much floated around the DJ circuit with sporadic singles on various trendy labels throughout the '10s (Hotflush, Innervisions, !K7 Records). Eventually he set up his own print in Sapiens, and just this past year released another LP, which included... hip-hop? Huh, well, you do you.

My thirdly item doesn't have anything to do with Agoria, but rather the Balance series itself. Seems Balance 016 was the end of a particular era, where ultra genre-showcases and challenging DJ mixes went by the wayside. Following this, Balance started tapping veteran jocks of the proggy tech-house scene with more regularity, only a few token nods to newer cats taken in the ensuing decade. I'm not sure why this sudden change occurred - perhaps due to the series branching off from EQ Recordings into its own independent label? Gotta' draw in new fans with old reliables, I guess. Won't get you high marks with Resident Advisor anymore though.

It was this change of distribution when I stopped following Balance, no longer so attainable through Canadian shops (not that they were before). I kept in touch with the series just to see who'd do a set and all, but it wasn't until much later that I reconnected, thanks to one particular, and surprising DJ coming in. At that point I figured some older releases had come down in price enough to warrant a splurge. A few, which is where all these non-TranceCritic reviewed Balances are coming from (sans 007). Obviously, Holden was not among the 'Balance on a budget' spree, though I've heard upon the southern winds that a reissue happened this past orbital cycle...

Loop Guru - Amrita (...All These And The Japanese Soup Warriors) (2019 Update)

North South: 1995

(click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

It's been over half a decade since I last talked up Loop Guru, and I still haven't gathered any more of their albums. Not that they're super-hard to find or anything, most going for a tidy pop on the Amazon market now, but something keeps me from finally diving into their domain proper-like. Trepidation, that's it. A worry that they just won't live up to whatever expectation I have on them, even with the limited amount of exposure I've thus far provided myself. Wait, how is that even an excuse now? Most of their albums are also on Spotify (though not this one, oddly), so if I want to hear them to confirm my unfounded fears, I can at any time. No, there must be something else, something buried deep in my subconscious that's holding me back. I wonder what it is?

Actually, I think I know: no matter what, I will never recapture the feeling I had when I first heard Amrita. It's not a terribly significant event, but it's a vivid moment, furiously flashing across my memory membranes every time I hear Diwana or Often Again. It was a few months after I'd moved out on my own into Vancouver, and I'd just gotten this CD on one of my trips to an A&B Sound (RIP), intended for a TranceCritic review because why not.

Sometime in the wee minutes past midnight and feeling the buzz of a smoked bowl, I got the munchies and decided to walk the five blocks to a 7/11 for some snackables. As I'm strolling in the clear spring evening, the swinging tribal sounds of Loop Guru playing from my discman, I come to a startling revelation: I'm honestly and truly free, the boundless opportunities of bachelorhood open before me. I'm living in my own apartment, doing recreational drugs when I want without worry of neighbours or roommates, going for strolls in the middle of the night with nary a care or concern of where I wander, in a city I hadn't even dreamed to live in but a few years past. And this all dawned upon me while listening to this album. Now, I'm not saying it wouldn't have occurred to me if I hadn't been playing Amrita at the time, but I cannot deny something about the music here made everything click right in that moment.

And without a doubt, there is a freeing jubilation in Amrita, the sort of tribal exuberance that makes you want to kick off your shoes and dance up a dust storm in the sandy floors of an outdoor party. Yeah, Papasus and Fumi show their dubbier, chill side too, but damn, those drums in Gianyar! That chant in Yayli! That flute in Diwana! That rhythm in Sun! Can you blame me for being hesitant in exploring Loop Guru's discography further? How could anything else they do top such ebullience?

(sorry, that seems like the sort of cheeky word they'd use in liner notes)

Eat Static - Abduction (2018 Update)

Planet Dog/Attic: 1993/1995

(click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

Finally, an album long overdue for a spiffy re-review, one of my earliest, cumbersome efforts. Time to give this early goa trance classic the prose it justly deserves, none of that regrettably dry track-by-track description nonsense. Let's do this! *cracks knuckles* ...*stares at screen* ...*re-cracks knuckles* ...*makes some tea* ...*checks Twitter and Facebook for a bit* ...*watches some Ten Minute History videos on Youtube*(hehe, *thunk*) ...*stretches every ligament in body*...*stares at screen some more* ...*receives call from Seattle friend that he's waylaid at the Vancouver airport overnight, so meet-up for drinks and a VIP showing of The Freddy Mercury Movie* ...*gets back to computer, stares at screen even more* ...*realizes he's succumbed to paralysis by analysis*

Okay, so turns out I have perhaps a tad too much on my mind, with no clear idea of how to approach. Like, all the traditional angles are covered elsewhere (historical importance, themes explored, etc., etc.), and I see little point in re-iterating points. Really, there's only one that immediately springs to mind, and as usual, it relates to where things sat when I wrote that first review.

Oh, not so much me, as I've gone over that plenty 'nuff. No, I'm talking about Eat Static themselves, and how their career was looking in the dread year 2005 (music-wise, at least). It'd been four years since their last album, In The Nude!, which may not seem like a long time, but for an act that was releasing LPs on a near yearly clip, is quite a gap. And even then, were they still considered part of the psy trance lexicon? That album plus previous Crash And Burn! were showing far greater exploration outside the conventional psy parameters, which wasn't too surprising given the general trajectory the old goa guard seemed headed. Juno Reactor was getting big and opulent with Japanese concerts and orchestras, and Simon Posford had redefined psy-dub for a new generation, so why wouldn't Eat Static, what with a prog-rock background, also start feeling the need for something different? They must have worked it all out of their system though, as by 2007, they'd come back into the psy fold with De-Classified. And yeah, I didn't like that one at first, feeling it a regression of their songcraft, but compared to most psy of that time, has aged remarkably well.

And Eat Static (mostly just Merv now) just keep crankin' out the LPs, almost at the same rate as the '90s. Who'd have guessed they'd still be doing this when Abduction was released? Heck, who'd have predicted that scene itself would take the twisted turns it did. Listening to Abduction now, with how much it owes itself to the progressive house of the era as anything Goa or alien based, there truly is a sense of the UK raving masses still being a communal thing, willing to hear any crazy new idea so long as the rhythms last, the melodies soar, and the pills remain pure.

Yes - Yes Remixes (2018 Update)

Rhino Records: 2003

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

Boy, did I hedge my bets in that old review. I was already reaching out on a limbful of good graces even attempting a Yes review for a one-year old trance review website, but I had all this honest-to-God enthusiasm for the Remixes project, see. The concept alone blew my mind like so many Star Trek twists, that anyone would feel inspired enough to recreate songs famed and obscure by prog-rock elder statesmen for an audience that probably didn't exist. Like, ain't no way the old timers who were down with Yes since the Peter Banks days would have much interest in hearing these songs all danced-up, nor would the clubbing masses give a care either. Who does that leave, then?

For sure there's the absolute die-hard Yes fans that must consume everything the band's ever put out (and all the concert bootlegs), but just because they got this album out of completist obligation doesn't necessarily mean they got the album either. There may be some Boomer music enthusiasts that are always on the hunt for the strange and esoteric, who embraced every bit of electronic sonic weirdness from the earliest musique concrete through krautrock and ambient, and all the way into the era of IDM – they do exist, though not in significant numbers.

Finally, I suppose there's dudes like me, younger generation types who enjoy the techno boom-booms as much as the prog-rock of yesteryear. I don't know how many of us there number, only familiar with two others in this demographic: Virgil Howe, the son of Yes guitarist Steve Howe, and the guy who made this album of Yes remixes, plus Mark Prindle of Mark's Record Reviews: An Interactive Site Featuring Music Critique By Mark Prindle And Music Fans The Worldwide (Founded 1996 – Retired 2011) fame. I assume there's more though, just because us kids mid-life adults are more accepting of new musiks than them old peoples are. But don't you Millennials dare sully Yes' legacy with your mumble dubwave racket, by g'ar.

While I was so totally down for Yes Remixes ten years ago that I'd sneak in a TranceCritic review for it, I can't say I've returned to it much since. I mentioned that, more often than not, you're gonna' turn to the original pieces, or maybe live renditions, over a one-off experimental concept as on offer here. Yes, it's cool hearing Tempus Fugit rearranged into catchy, looping hooks befit of pop radio, Wurm of Starship Trooper turned into a d'n'b tear-out complete with Moog solo, or the shorty Five Percent Of Nothing cut up from samples and extended into a regular length song, such that it stands on its own as a piece of music rather than a gimmick. Unfortunately, that's all Yes Remixes ultimately comes off like, a gimmick. Respectful, oftentimes clever, and even enjoyable on its own merits, sure, but one that's only worth a spare indulgence. There's just so much other Yes music to consume, see.

Sasha - Xpander EP (2018 Update)

Ultra Records: 1999

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)


Feels like this has been a lo-o-o-o-ong time coming, the last of my earliest reviews needing a proper overhaul. Technically, that's not true, another from those first few shaky months of TranceCritic writing lurking down (up?) in the 'A's of my album collection. Doubt there's much anticipation for another Eat Static review though, whereas everyone's always interested in another take on Xpander. Especially when one's original take is a grotesque word salad of amateur track-by-track detailing.

Frankly though, there's not much I can expand upon the Xpander discourse (except bad puns, clearly). The tune holds up astoundingly well two-decades on, still sounding light-years beyond what its prog contemporaries were offering, and there was no lack of bombs from the year 1999, believe you me. I mean, obviously the big synth leads and twinkly melodies are the memorable features, but mang', listen to what's going on in that rhythm too! What even is that burbling, churning low-end? Not the bassline, that's for sure – it's just superficial fluff, yet the sound design on it is astounding! Is it any wonder folks were hot for Airdrawndagger to drop if that level of detail was put into a big, obvious anthem like Xpander? Imagine hearing such music for a whole album's worth. No, really, keep imagining it – we never did get what folks were expecting with Sasha's final LP effort.

It's not like Mr. Coe had to craft such an exquisitely produced track with Charlie May. When this single came out, it was more in service as what was expected of top tier DJs of the time. No matter how deep your crates, how impeccable your track selection, or how masterful your mixing, the punters of the world demanded a signature anthem to your name. Digweed had Heaven Scent, Oakenfold had If I Could Fly, Tenaglia had Elements, Tiësto had his remix of Delerium's Silence, and so on. So too it appeared the case with Sasha's Xpander, the requisite anthem folks going to his shows could happily expect to hear every time. Only he overshot, and now the tune is getting orchestral remakes. Take that, Digweed!

The other tunes on this EP were obviously overshadowed when Xpander first dropped, but have gained more respect over the years for not being as blatant as the main track is. If anything, it showcases where Sasha's muse more generally wanders, never quite coalescing into something easily identifiable while plucking traits of personal favourites of his past. Belfunk's got that chuggy, proggy groove before melting into Orbital, morning-after bliss. Rabbitweed gets in on that ominous prog-breaks business with shades of Way Out West thrown in – and again, just an insane amount of detail in the percussion. Baja provides the lengthy chill, comedown vibe with ethnic samples and dubby percussion. Huh, y'know, under another producer's handle, this could have passed for psy-dub. Never noticed that before. Oh, the strange alternative timeline we could have lived in had Sasha been swayed into the psy camps instead.

L.S.G. - Volume Two (2017 Update)

Superstition: 1996

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)


I may have overstated Netherworld's importance. I'm sure there were other records around the time that did a better job defining the progressive trance template than this one. Do any of them kick as much ass as Oliver Lieb's mini-opus though? I think not. What were some of its competitors in the year 1996? X-Cabs' Neuro? De Niro's Mind Of Man? Transa's Prophase? Bangers for sure, but comparatively simple and straight-forward when stacked against all the stuff happening in Netherworld. Who else had the balls to include an electro bridge in the middle of an anthem? Yeah, it's a feature that goes overlooked since most remixers jettison it in their rubs, no matter what direction they take it - it's all about the vocal sample and those gated pads, man. What I wouldn't give to hear a late '90s electro hero take this tune down their gnarly paths though. Anthony Rother, maybe? Dopplereffekt? Boris Divider? Boris...? Boris...?

Speaking of unexpected remixers... Holy cow, did you know Banco de Gaia did a remix for Volume Two? I sure as Hell didn't! Not in all the years I've followed both Toby Marks and Oliver Lieb (two decades strong) did I hear of this. Yeah, I knew Lieb offered a rub on the Kincajou single, but I had no clue the remix favor was returned. Yet there it is, included on a supplemental record full of remixes and Vinyl Cuts care of L.S.G.'s original home of Superstition. Ah, hm, I think I see the problem there. Netherworld was the only real EP to emerge from Volume 2, and that was handled by Hooj Choons - I'd almost argue Netherworld was specifically custom-made for that print, so out of sync it was with the rest of Lieb's L.S.G. works around the time. Any other remixes of Volume Two tunes would undoubtedly get way overshadowed in this marketing scenario, so Jules Verne must thank his lucky stars Hooj picked up his rub as well. Hey, more Netherworlds, amirite?

As for Banco though, he took on the industrial-breaks of Get Out for his rub, and it's... okay, I guess. Right, so there's another reason I never heard of this before: no one really gave a toss about it. Lieb's go with Kincajou was already a stretch, and while ol' Toby brings some tribalistic drumplay in his take with techno, it's no surprise he seldom ever tried his hand at it (think Gnomes Mix of Kuos).

Another surprising remixer in that original vinyl collection is Terry Lee Brown, Jr.; aka: Norman Feller; aka: another classic German trance producer that shared some songcraft attributes with Lieb. Obviously they ventured on drastically different paths from this point, but it's cool seeing the two on the same record nonetheless. Mr. Feller even does something different with his rub, a typical Terry tech-house cut he was producing at the time, but with snippets of various tracks from Volume 2 thrown in. He called it Terry's Patchwork Of V. 2. Cute.

Vector Lovers - Vector Lovers (2017 Update)

Soma Quality Recordings: 2004

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)

I remain woefully neglectful of those two Vector Lovers albums between this and iPhonica. I simply don’t know if I’d like them though. I mean, I’ve heard some of the singles Martin Wheeler put out around that time, and they’re all tech-hausy, or deep-techy, or dub-hausy. Fine if you’re a DJ looking for some rinse-out material, but I enjoyed Vector Lovers for the touching electro melodies and groovy robot funk, so I haven’t been in a hurry to- Eh? They’re not like that? How can I corroborate this info? Oh yeah, Spotify. Guess I should do some ‘music journalist research’ on this then. Hold on.

*a couple illuminating hours later*

Um, oh wow. Huh. I had no idea. Just goes to show you can’t judge an album by its associated singles, eh? Still, despite my primary reservations, I’d likely have dropped some cash for those albums if I spotted them on the cheap. A decade on, and they still haven’t come down from full price, some of them fetching upwards in the hundreds of dollars now, which is mind-bogglingly bonkers. On the other hand, these are decade-old CDs now, released on a label that probably didn’t have a huge production run of them in the first place. For sure Soma Recordings has clout in the world of techno – they got this particular album into the Vancouver shop I stumbled upon in the year 2006 after all – but even they must run out of copies eventu- Eh? They still have copies for sale on their online store? Um, oh wow. Huh. I had no idea. Say, that British Pound isn’t doing so well right now either, is it?

Since my original TranceCritic review of Vector Lovers is already plenty and exhaustingly detailed, here’s some additional items of interest I gleaned in my Spotify trawl of Mr. Wheeler’s music. First off, the 2011 Electrospective didn’t just gather up a ‘best of’ collection of Vector Lovers, but also offered them up as ‘remastered’ versions too, essentially beefing them up musically, practically turning them into remixes. For the most part these are handled with enough class as to not render the originals moot, but Spotify does, replacing the original tracks with the remastered versions on the albums too. That… just might make the CD copies rare collectibles now, the only place one can hear the originals. Incidentally, five tracks from Vector Lovers made the cut on Electrospective.

Another track that did was an A2-side to the Electrobotik Disco single, Shinjuku Girl. It’s a nice little downtempo electro number in that easily identifiable Vector Lovers stylee, but I must draw attention to another cut off that EP, Electrobotik Disco Part II. Holy cow, if you thought the album version, or even Electrosuite, was ace dancefloor material, this tune takes all that robot future-funk, then feeds it through a galloping techno beat that’d have all the ‘electro’ guys of the mid-‘00s quivering with hearts in their eyes. How have I missed this for over a decade!?

Various - Unwind - A Journey Into Global Grooves (2017 Update)

Com.Pact Records: 2005

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)


When I first reviewed this compilation eleven years ago for TranceCritic, I gave it an overwhelming ‘meh’. Four years later, when I provided a quickie update, my thoughts hadn’t changed much. After that additional listen, I figured Unwind would forever after sit lost in a tower of CDs, unremarked, unloved, save a passing fancy to hear that nifty Psionyx track again. Well, that’s not what happened at all. First, I’ve ditched the wavy towers in favor of some bitchin’ wall-mounted shelves, since they’re more space efficient in an increasingly cluttered apartment (must… move… soon…), and makes what I got easier to organize. Right, that’s totally unrelated to anything here, but I gotta’ get my ramblematic on as I always do in these 20xx Updates, so may as well do that now.

No, the strange development involving Unwind is I’ve… kinda’ grown more fond of it in recent years? It’s somehow managed to curate a form of ‘scrappy underdog’ vibe for yours truly, where my fondness for the chill musics keep me coming back to give it another chance every so often. Yet sure as the rising sun, the moment I play that opening track of Spring Thing from Solarians, a sharp shiver spikes across my spine, my shoulders cringing upward in the vicinity of my earlobes, and I want nothing more than to turn the disc off, sending it back into the shadows of my stacks o’ CDs.

Turns out I should have followed the advice from my original review: simply skip that track and never think of it again, giving these other tunes a chance out of that gosh-darned Full Album Context I always demand. Wouldn’t you know it, that’s super easy to do when you’ve got everything ripped to a harddrive and stumble upon an occasional tune through the magic of the Shuffle feature. Wow, how did I miss that U&K’s Sähkövalo or Visual Paradox’ GaYo is so darn trip-hoppy? Or that the tunes from Sunfire and Wilson Stout wouldn’t have sounded out of place on that ultra-Balearic collection Ambient Ibiza from the ‘90s? I still can’t say these are anywhere near the best examples of such genres, but considering they’re appearing on a CD from an Israeli psy-trance print that seldom broke mold from the popular full-on strain, I have to hand it to Unwind for offering such a wide range of diverse chill-out. It’s a bold move when, given the typical Com.Pact Records audience, Shpongle clones would have been the safe bet.

A pair of the more interesting tracks, the dubby Blue from Lish and breaks action from Sesto Sento’s Slow Move offer some interesting tidbits of career info since Unwind came out. Sesto Sento’s gone on to be one of the more successful full-on psy acts, still producing music to this day, while Lish managed a minor, collaborative hit when they paired up with Ace Ventura for The Light. Poor Psionyx though, disappeared shortly after. G’ah, would have loved an album from him.

2562 - Unbalance (2017 Update)

Tectonic: 2009

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)

That old review opens with an attempt by yours truly at cataloging dubstep’s myriad permutations into neat, tidy sub-genres, and for the year 2009, it made some sense. ‘Wobble’ had yet to morph into the now-commonly accepted nomenclature of brostep, mainly because it had yet to go full-bro on all our asses (but oh was it ever just over the horizon!). There definitely was an ‘atmospheric’ side to the scene, though most now refer to it as post-dubstep, or future garage if they don’t want their sound associated with the ham-fisted bro anthems dubstep at large ultimately catered towards. And finally I brought up ‘funky’ as a refuge for UK garage fans missing the glory days of Artful Dodger, or some-such. Yeah, I had no idea what the 2-step I was talking about there – UK funky is more an Afro-house thing, and I’d have known that too if I’d ever listened to the stuff back then. Dammit though, the UK bass ‘n’ urban scene was splintering into so many dozen-and-done micro-genres at the turn of the decade. Like I had much time, interest or care to sample all of it, no matter how much Pitchfork or Guardian were telling these were Very Important developments in music culture.

Still, the techno-infusion dubstep was seeing towards the end of the ‘00s intrigued me a little. Between Scuba, Sigha, Shackleton, and 2562, it seemed the genre was leaping out from the urban alleyways into bold, brittle dystopian cityscapes, all the hot journals just as quick at hyping this new development as any other. Alas, t’was as short lived as most hype goes, hotter hotness replacing their names, all the while dubstep soon regarded old, stale, passé, and poo after the bros invaded everything. Some went onto other genres, while others carried on despite the turning tides of fortune, retaining loyal fanbases within dedicated scenes, rather glad the spotlight no longer shone so bright upon their careers. Can’t say 2562 is one of the latter, however.

In the years since I originally wrote that TranceCritic review, Dave Huismans kept himself busy, but as with many of his ‘post-dubstep’ brethren, slowly moved on from the broken beatcraft of his early works. Shortly after releasing Unbalance, he took his 2562 alias out from his Tectonic deal, and started self-releasing material on his own When In Doubt print. Lord Discogs lists his last release as 2562 being The New Day back in 2014, a record with as much techno going for it as anything dubstep. Given how techno-leaning his music was already, it’s hardly surprising he’d go all the way with it eventually. His other alias, A Made Up Sound, has kept him more active in the singles market to this date, with a double-LP retrospective coming out just last year. That one’s gone as techno as anything coming out of Berlin now, so it must be serving Mr. Huismans’ career well enough. After relistening to Unbalance though, it does leave the current creative possibilities a little wanting.

Terra Ferma - Turtle Crossing (2016 Update)

Platipus: 1997

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)

And finally this CD. Turtle Crossing is the last time I’ll be doing a full 20xx Update post for some time now, in no small part because my current alphabetical backlog is ridonkulus-yuuge, looking at a ten week trip through it all. How did that happen? I didn’t even take on anyone’s collection! Well, unless you count raiding used shops. More than that though, I’m almost through the CDs from this blog’s initial, aborted run. I posted eighty-nine reviews during that time, and with this one, have done forty-two 20xx Updates. About twenty-one of those original posts will never see an update, as I no longer have the releases associated with them – not surprising since a good chunk of ‘em were singles promptly deleted from my harddrive soon after (gotta’ save on that 2.3GB of space!). That leaves a grand total of just twelve more 20xx Updates after this, a ‘milestone’ that I’ll probably reach… oh, next year, maybe. Ha-ha, hah …I’m never finishing this project, am I.

Okay, enough statsing; we’re here to hear music, not crunch numbers. And playing Turtle Crossing again, yeah, she still holds up, though there was little doubt she wouldn’t. Whatever ‘dated’ aspects you might level against Terra Ferma’s debut album would have been the same nitpicks I highlighted in my original review for TranceCritic, so if you need to read them, click the linky above. No, trust me, there are some actual critiques in all those words. You just have to dig for them, sifting through the dry prose like they’re the gritty gravel and stones of so much frozen, alpine wastes. Mind the yeti though; he’s cantankerous at times.

As there’s not much else to say regarding Turtle Crossing, here’s some interesting details about the man behind Terra Ferma that I’ve since unearthed. I mentioned how Claudio Giussani was also an initial member of Union Jack with Simon Berry, and while the two no longer collaborate, Giussani did provide a few remixes for some of Berry’s recent Art Of Trance material. For some reason though, he used a completely new alias of Kaukuta for the rubs. What, is Terra Ferma locked into some legal limbo? Maybe, since those Art Of Trance singles came out on Porcupine Records, the short-lived successor to the original Platipus print. More recently though, Berry re-relaunched his old label as Platipus Music, and has been in the process of making the label’s entire original catalog available again. Sadly, Turtle Crossing remains among the missing albums, but you can get a mail-order CDr, if you so desire a hardcopy.

Finally, a tidbit of pre-Platipus information regarding Mr. Giussani that totally blew my mind upon learning it. Before he discovered acid and trance, ol’ Claudio had his hand in the early UK hardcore scene. Par for the course with lots of producers, but his partner behind the console was none other than jungle legend Aphrodite, working under the name Urban Shakedown. I honestly can’t even with that info drop!

Various - Turbo Studio Sessions (Vol. 1) (2016 Update)

Turbo: 1999

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)

And now this CD. Series too, though I thankfully don’t have to write a full 2016 Update for all three volumes of Turbo Studio Sessions. It’s gonna’ be difficult enough doing just this one, as almost all the information you could possibly want or need to know was dealt with in the original review. And I’ve gone on and on and on (with the halcyon!) recounting how the Turbo of old had very little to do with the Turbo you knew or would come to know – label’s done some evolution during its near two-decade life. Heck, even a redone rundown might come off redundant, as it feels like I’ve talked about Thomas Krome’s The Real Jazz and Isolée’s Beau Mot Plage a few times now. Though credit where it’s due, Turbo Studio Sessions, Vol. 1 is about the only place you’ll find these particular remixes from Erot and DJ Q, respectably. It’s all about those exclusive cuts, yo’.

Not too exclusive, mind you, though Turbo certainly gathered tracks well off the beaten path. The dubby, minimal groover Bad Hair Day Theorem vs. Swayzak came from a M_nus record early in that print’s lifespan. While Steve Bug would go on to a steady, prosperous career in minimal tech-house, his partner Acid Maria for the track Down With Us was one of the last things she ever produced. Funny enough, the label it first came out on, Steve Bug’s Raw Elements print, also folded shortly after releasing that record. Lehner & Biebl, who’s slinky electro cut Bobby R. showed hints of Turbo’s burgeoning taste for electroclash (not even a thing yet!), also disappeared shortly after this.

And as for poor Nytolbooth, this and a previous Turbo sampler CD are his lone entries within Lord Discogs. Or hers? Robot, mayhaps, what with that ambient electro thing going on with Orange. What’s funny is, within this CD’s inlay, a little blurb mentions Nytolbooth was due to drop a Turbo album the following year, but clearly that never happened. The closest any album within the label’s catalog that sounded like this particular track is Peter Benisch’s work, and I’m one-hundred and four percent certain this is not Peter Benisch (my brain’s margin of error is around seven percent). With no name and no further mention with Lord Discogs’ archives of ‘Nytolbooth’, the alias’ identity remains one of Turbo’s longest mysteries. Maybe I should ask Tiga, if I happen across his path in the future. Yes, I’d totally waste an Ask One Question chance on something so inconsequential!

Other names on this compilation carried on for tidy careers in the ensuing decade, but the works of Hans Nieswand, Universal Tongues, and Turner essentially disappear after that. DKMA, also known as Callisto and Krimp, but as Dana Kelley to the boys at a Boston pub where everyone knows your name, sadly died in 2013. No rhyme, no reason, just unexpectedly in his sleep at the age of 49. No words now, just peace…

Various - Tunnel Trance Force Vol. 30 (2016 Update)

Tunnel Records: 2004

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)


So these CDs. Or singular CD, if I’m honest, having lost Disc 1 some time ago. Right, I ‘technically’ never had Tunnel Trance Force 30 in the first place, as this was a ‘special request’ review from TranceCritic’s ‘man in charge’, the chap who early-on always got us poor ‘writers’ promoting contemporary hard ‘trance’. Fool, only old-school hard trance is worthy of my ears, but sure, I did the deed; with increasing levels of ludicrous hyperbole should you brave all them words and stuff. Since I resided on the West Coast though, and he on the East Coast, the only means of music request procurement entailed digital transfers via internet tube connection. Yeah yeah, big surprise TC’s ‘promos’ weren’t always ‘legal’, but when you’re scraping from the ‘bottom’, some ‘corners’ had to be ‘cut’. I’m in a very ‘apostrophatic’ mood this afternoon.

Anyway, I burned the two mixes to CDr, listened to them a couple times, got that review out, then figured I’d never play them again, collecting dust on a spindle of forgotten burns. Then along comes a better computer into my life, with actual storage capacity. And I thinks to myself all those forgotten burns on a dusty spindle, I may as well shove ‘em on this newer-fangled technology, despite odds of a replay being a shade above zero. Is there a cure for OCD yet?

Strangely, my CD1 burn of Tunnel Trance Force 30 disappeared on me, and I have no idea of how that happened. It’s not like I ever brought these out for a casual play …at least, not to any sober recollection of mine. Shame, because I might have even enjoyed disc one a bit, what with a few of the better hard trance names included on there (Cosmic Gate, DuMonde, Kindervater, Marc Et Claude). Wait a minute… *re-reads original TranceCritic review* Nope, I was wrong – I’d definitely still dislike it.

That still leaves us with CD2 though, titled 30.2 Mix. Cannot deny there’s some initial fun having all these hard trance and pseudo-hardstyle bosh tracks assaulting my ears, but yeah, the gimmick wears old fast, and I’ve checked out after that lone decent cut in Power To The People. Breakbeats, man, is there no genre they can’t make better?

When I first discovered Tunnel Trance Force had hit its thirtieth volume, I couldn’t help but marvel at its durability. 2005 Sykonee, you hadn’t seen anything yet, the series lasting all the way to a seventy-first edition before it folded in 2014. Holy cow, I had no clue hard trance of this sort was even being made for that long with any consistency! Yeah, it actually wasn’t, Tunnel Trance Force succumbing to the ‘big room’ anthem house schlock so many trance companies tried adapting into their repertoire to stay relevant. Seems such bandwagon hopping was met with incredible ‘resistance’ though, dedicated followers none too pleased, effectively ending Tunnel Trance Force with indignant shame. I LOL’d.

Jam & Spoon - Tripomatic Fairytales 2002 (2016 Update)

Epic: 1993

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)

This CD, too. Truly, one of the earliest examples of artist hubris in dance music culture. Either that, or this was the true musical style of Jam & Spoon, and Tripomatic Fairytales 2001 was the commercial sell-out to earn those sweet chart-topping dolla’ bills so they had artistic freedom from there on out. Considering the sort of music Misters Ellmer and Löffel continued making after this, however, I’m kinda’ going with the former. More pop pieces on future albums Kaleidoscope and Tripomatic Fairytales 3003. Happy hardcore as Tokyo Ghetto Pussy. And let’s not forget Jam’s various commercial projects prior and concurrent with his work alongside Markus. Nay, these chaps definitely had their ears trained for the pop end of the dance music spectrum, making Tripomatic Fairytales 2002 all the more an anomaly within their mutual discographies.

That they always had these ideas floating in their heads but never the commercial clout to see them blossom until this album is the most likely scenario. Another possibility is they were specifically commissioned to make a record of experimental ambient and dub, an utterly daft theory until you realize they initially had a record deal with seminal Belgium techno print R & S Records. Obviously they had greater success with German print Dance Pool, but the first Jam & Spoon EPs - Tales From A Danceographic Ocean and The Complete Stella - were with R & S. Fast forward to Album Time, and that deal is still in effect, Tripomatic Fairytales 2001 released by R & S within Belgium while Dance Pool dealt with the rest of Europe; Epic handled N. American distribution. You may recall R & S also had a spiffy new sub-label called Apollo, dealing with that new-fangled ‘ambient techno’ genre one Aphex Twin practically invented. Lo and behold, here’s Tripomatic Fairytales 2002 coming out on said sub-label within Belgium. The theory fits! Meanwhile, Dance Pool handled the rest of Europe’s copies, and N. America never got one, because who on this continent would ever be interested in druggy ambient from a pair of German euro-dance and trance producers (me, me!).

Given the more leftfield pieces on 2001 and the way out of field pieces on 2002, one question does keep nagging my mind: who was the overriding muse between these two? I’ve no doubt Jam & Spoon had a fair bit of creative synergy between the two of them, but a lot of the psychedelia involved here strikes me as a singular source of inspiration. While I can see both collaborating on the lengthy tracks like N.A.S.A. Nocturnal Audio Sensory Awakening and I Saw The Future, a totally experimental piece like LSD Nikon or meditative ambience of Salinas Afternoon had to have been the work of one or the other. But who, I wonder, and where they’d even get their ideas from in the first place. Can’t deny I’d love to meet Mr. El Mar just to ask that. Also, what the deal is with that omelet track.

Jam & Spoon - Tripomatic Fairytales 2001 (2016 Update)

Dance Pool/Epic: 1993/1994

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)

And this CD. One of the earliest attempts at bridging the trance-pop gap. Also a bizarre blend of hypnotic German techno and sun-kissed beatnik Balearic vibes. Not to mention among the first trance albums I purchased for myself, though Dance 2 Trance’s Moon Spirits beat it to my primeval collection by at least a year. Still, I thought I was buying a euro-dance CD with the DJ Dag project, whereas I’d just started my trance indoctrination with Tripomatic Fairytales 2001, willing to take a risk on an LP full of unfamiliar tunes - Follow Me and their Age Of Love remix was about all I knew from them. And hoo, was it an ear-opener, going in weird, unexpected places that even folks already familiar with big singles Right In The Night and Stella were wondering just what the duo were smokin’ in their studio.

Clearly I was too young to know much about the European club scene Jam & Spoon were a part of, and there’s scant reports of initial impression from punters purchasing Tripomatic Fairytales 2001 hot off the shelves. I can guess they were expecting more of the recognizable hits, so how did folks react to the electro-tribal thump of Heart Of Africa as an opener? It took me by surprise only because I wasn’t well versed in much of anything these guys had done yet. Was this track a crazy double-take for those familiar with even their early, charmingly titled techno B-side My First Fantastic F.F.?

Interludes. Skits. How many dance albums did this way back when? Some brief instrumental pieces or drum loops, sure, but spoken word peices like Muffled Drums and Who Opened The Door To Nowhere were a rarity, especially for a supposed trance (or pop) record. Nor did Misters Mar and Spoon skimp on throwing whatever struck their muses into the pot. Ultra long builders like Odyssey To Anyoona and Path Of Harmony, standard (for the time) trance numbers in Nuerotrance Adventure and Paradise Garage, or indulging some ethnic sounds with Zen Flash Zen Bones and Earth Spirit.

Hey, I mentioned way back when that there were many different version of Tripomatic Fairytales 2001 - let’s delve into those! The original-original version had an additional interlude called Operation Spaceship Earth, mostly of orbiting sounds and giggling children. Yeah, I can hear why this was jettisoned for Find Me in the re-issues. A couple years after though, they jettisoned Zen Flash Zen Bones to add another new single with Plavka, euro-cheeseball Ibizan tune Angel (Ladadi O-Heyo). This was not such a good move, and was removed for the 2010 re-issue, along with Find Me. Operation Spaceship Earth was reinstated though, and brought along a bunch of vintage bonus remixes and the epic Follow Me. Huh, you could have gotten that track on a 1993 limited edition version vinyl release, along with The Tribe and all the Tripomatic tracks arranged in a different order. Bet that one fetches a handsome fee on the open market.