Various - Tranceculture > Endless Universe

Hypnotic: 1995

This was a fairly popular CD among my raving peers way back in the day. When you're stuck in the hinterlands of Canadaland, in the Before Times of primitive internet, finding anything with a hint of the underground was like mana from heaven to the ears of high-schoolers. This wasn't some poppy eurodance rinsed out by MC Mario, this was European trance music, with sounds emitting from the deepest cosmic corners, conjuring sci-fi concepts like semiconductors, DNA structures, and Apollo moon missions, all throbbing at 160 – 200 bpm. It does all seem a bit silly in hindsight, doesn't it?

There's a lot about Tranceculture that can come off rather dodgy, even by mid-'90s efforts. Despite being presented as a compilation, it's abundantly clear all the tracks are produced by one man, Steffen Schuhrke, who barely gets an 'Operations & Navigations' credit. The alias Reverse Pulse had appeared on a few other scattered Hypnotic collections, so why not just bill it as that? No, this is just Hypnotic (re: Cleopatra) on their chintzy marketing shtick again, right down to a lenticular jewel case with lame- oh, I can't stay snarky at you, lenticular jewel cases. There's even a picture of Saturn, always frickin' awesome!

Besides, it's all about the music, right? Right, and Tranceculture features some of the purest forms of trance you can imagine. Like, ultra-retro pure. We're talking basic, hypnotic loops, performed in incremental waves, melody more of a suggestion of minor chord progression in backing pads. There's acid and bleepy arps, but served as a rhythmic rudder to the blistering pace of these tracks rather than prominent leads. Aside from escalating tension as loops build upon each other, there isn't any sort of typical song structure going on here.

It's an almost improvisational method of constructing each track, Steffen feeling out when and where each loop gets dropped in, whether a key change is warranted, and how much knob twiddling one earns. Nor does he seem encumbered by when and how a track should end, letting things run for however long feels right for the moment, even if that's nine, thirteen, or fifteen minutes. It rather reminds me of the old Spiral Tribe free-tekno tapes but with German trance sounds rather than hardcore techno.

Still, the dated nature of Tranceculture can't be overlooked. Heck, I'm sure some could argue A.I. does this now – it certainly ain't no th'ang for computers to emulate popular EDM, so why not three decade old (!!) trance? Plug in some stock loops, request a couple effects, and let 'er rip, right? I thought so at first, but the more I re-listened to this CD, the more I realized Steffen's still doing things that just can't be mimicked by technology yet. When and where such loops are utilized, just how much a knob gets twisted – a 'human intuition' sort of vibe, however basic or subtle it may be. Damn, didn't expect to get so metaphysical with a shameless nostalgic trip.

Kinder Atom - Super Nice Hippypants

Hypnotic: 1997

As a fairly dedicated consumer of Hypnotic's CDs for a spell, I crossed paths with Kinder Atom a couple times. The music conglomerate had been active in the Toronto techno and industrial scene for awhile, releasing music under other projects as far back as the '80s. The most prominent member of this group, Heiki Sillaste, also worked in such groups as Digital Poodle, Lazer Caps, and A.S.A. (yes, that's a deep cut) Oh, and they've also worked with Rapoon, on the year 2000 album Rapoon vs. Kinder Atom. Can't say that one's super-high on my 'Must Have' list, but should I ever spot a sweet deal for a copy (re: isn't saddled with ludicrous shipping charges), I may indulge.

Such was the case with this particular double-LP: Super Nice Hippypants. I have to admit, it was far from what I was expecting from Kinder Atom. Oh, not so much the music within, though it too surprised me in other ways. It's just, when you know a techno outfit has ties to experimental ambient and industrial dub, the last thing you'd go looking for in their cover art is something more akin to Japanese electro-pop.

Supposedly this is the logo of the label the group helped set up, Nice+Smooth, also plastered all over the inlay - so a bit of sly marketing on their part. Still, when what you're hearing has more in common with '70s synth weirdness, having something so cutesy as your visual representation probably isn't the best selling point. Like, imagine if Super Nice Hippypants had some vintage Fax+ art instead. I bet this album would be hailed a minor classic! Okay, maybe not, but not so easily dismissed either, I wager.

Anyhow, CD1 is the Supernice album, a seven-track excursion into bleepy electronics, swirly sound effects, and ambient dub. It all has a very Berlin-School feel going for it, spaced-out abstract music that appeals to the retro synth dork in me, some passages getting deep into Tangerine Dream minimalism. Again, had this appeared on a label known for the stuff, like Fax+, I could see it getting more positive attention as the years wore on. On Hypnotic though? Oh man, Kinder Atom's experimental ambient opus never stood a chance, did it?

Fortunately, CD2 Hippy Pants brings some electro boogie (Nipple, One Eleven, Juice Bar) spacey techno (Nikral, titular cut), and trip-hop funk (Phat Pants, June Bug) to the party. They even do a D'n'B in Run In Our Light! Yes, it totally clashes with CD1, such that you wouldn't believe it the same outfit were the two CDs not bundled within the same digipak. Such was the group's manifesto though, never beholden to one particular style. A bit rather like The Future Sound Of London in that regard, though clearly without the obsessive studio polish.

Kinder Atom's first album, Atomika, was more of a blend of their disparate sounds, but if you like your genres distinct and separate, then Super Nice Hippypants may be more up or alley.

Loop Guru - Catalogue Of Desires

North South/Hypnotic: 1996/1999

It took me damn near a decade, but I finally got another Loop Guru album! Not that the group is some ultra-obscure, super-underground, impossibly niche act with a music catalogue rarer than cerium, but they haven't much luck in North American distribution either. For whatever reason, Waveform Records only brought over Duniya, while alt rock and industrial print World Domination Recordings handled Amrita. Not exactly the most compatible fusion of genres there, though considering alt rock label Mammoth Records distributed Banco de Gaia's early albums here, maybe that's just how things rolled for world beaters in the States.

By the end of the '90s, however, World Domination had folded, so Loop Guru turned to “release whatever we can get our hands on” print Hypnotic for State-side handling of their album The Fountains Of Paradise. Guess that has them rubbing shoulders with 808 State, System 7, and FSOL in that department. The label also re-issued Catalogue Of Desires Vol 3, an album a few years old by that point, and had seen limited distribution by World Domination prior. Swell beans for those who may have missed it the first time around, which is about the only reason I can see for this one getting a re-issue, as I doubt anyone but fans of Loop Guru would be interested in this record.

Don't get me wrong, it's certainly an interesting outing from the group. Though quite adept at uptempo tunes, Loop Guru truly gained their rep with long-form, meditative, ambient dub jams, so it's only natural they'd take the concept to LP length. The Catalogue Of Desires series was their outlet for exploring such sonic roads, the first two originally only available on tape (they've recently been uploaded to Bandcamp). Vol. 3 was the first to try making some hay from these excursions with CD roll-outs, but since that'd be too confusing for Americans, Hypnotic just called this one Catalogue Of Desires.

Twenty tracks in total make up this album, but calling them all 'tracks' is being generous, several minute-long interludes breaking things up between the groovier centrepieces. Even then, many longer tracks are mostly ambient outings with manipulated orchestral sections or sampled Far East music. Long stretches will pass by where you'll either feel lost in a deep trance, or spinning wheels. I'm naturally more of the former, making Catalogue Of Desires a bit of a challenge to indulge a full listen without completely zoning out. Fortunately, proper world beat tracks like Catalyst, Almost, Susleone, and Out Of The Dark Room do a good job knocking you out of such a doze.

In some ways, Catalogue Of Desires reminds me of FSOL's many Environments albums. There's the loose, free-form music making, multiple tracks of wildly varying length, and psychedelic tongue-in-cheek titles (After Dark With The Reef Tones, Nature Of The Whole, The Pear-Tree Illusion). Obviously, Loop Guru are rougher around the edges on the production department, but still, conceptually kindred spirits with latter-day FSOL just the same.

Neo-Adventures - Big Daddy's Tonight

Hypnotic: 1997

This feels like one of the most needlessly ambitious albums to have ever graced the Hypnotic discography. For one thing, did you know that Neo-Adventures is a super-group? Okay, not really a 'super-group' how you may think of (big names combining forces to do big th'angs), but in terms of Hypnotic, I think the description is apt.

Three chaps are part of this project, most prominent of the bunch being Martin Nielsen. You might remember me mentioning him in that Goa Box: Trance 4 Motion compilation many solar cycles ago, wherein he adopted multiple aliases to fill out a budget trance three-discer. Normally such antics are dodgy as fuck, but his contributions were surprisingly among the best that collection had to offer. He even had a pile of tunes in another dodgy compilation of mine, Rave-Trance 2001, and again were among the better tracks there.

So while I know this won't be some mind-melting hidden gem of exceptional trance (because c'mon!), there's at least a capable hand in the studio. Along for the ride is the late Jan Kjølhede Meedom, whom had done a few productions with various groups here and there throughout the '90s, but was more known for his DJing and label management. Outloud Records (they of Audio Science, Bypass Unit, and a lot of sado-masochist gabber) was his first taste of success, and responsible for numerous Hypnotic releases as a result. This led to him taking over the Danish side of the print, where he carried on doing goa trance mixes for the label before moving on.

Also part of Neo-Adventures is Jakob Andreas Mensch. Lord Discogs has very little information about him, a jazz-dub trip-hop project with Mr. Nielsen called Katharsis his lone prominent work. Neo-Adventures too, I guess.

A pile of dudes in the studio doesn't make a project 'needlessly ambitious' though – just ask Kraftwelt. Nah, I'm talking about the music within, tunes aesthetically on that Danish goa-trance tip, but so very much aiming at progressive house opulence. Second track Good Old Adventure is over eleven minutes long, making it perhaps the longest trance song in all of Hypnotic's history (sans Audio Science's work). And it goes through numerous movements and tonal transitions too, as if its some long lost Blue Amazon work. Just, y'know, not quite as good in the production and songcraft.

There's housier chuggers (Skydiving Baboons, Wake Up Fall), tech-housey shufflers (the titular cut), spacey acid stompers (Hot Pants), proper trance business (Whhhaaauu ...cripes, what awful names), and even a twelve-plus minute live outing of Wake Up Fall (twice as long as the album version already on the CD). A nice amount of variety then, with nifty little hooks, rhythms, and melodies that do a decent job of getting my trance-endorphins flaring up. Again, no where near as good as whatever Sasha and Diggers would rinse out (not even Oakenfold, really), but on the late '90s Hypnotic scale, remarkably superb stuff for a hopelessly obscure release!

Various - Ambient Rituals - Exercise One: Music For Soul Braiding

Hypnotic: 1995

I believe this was Hypnotic's first ambient compilation, though I use the genre lightly regarding the music on here. Dark ambient, yeah, plus weird dronescapes too, though nothing so occult as you might think from “Rituals” in the title. Then again, I had no clue of what to expect from a Hypnotic ambient release. All I'd ever heard from them was German trance, and while I knew some of those acts had downtempo material under their belt (ie: Komakino as Ynos), I'd never seen it appear on Hypnotic CDs before.

Well, none of that mattered, because Hypnotic didn't bother reaching into their Music Research trough for this compilation. Instead, they tapped an obscure Toronto print called DOVentertainment Inc., which briefly housed such famed industrial names like Zoviet France (and by extension, Rapoon), Digital Poodle, Dead Voices On Air, and La Floa Maldita. Okay, 'housed' is stretching it a bit; handled Canadian distribution, more like. Somehow, Cleopatra got the distribution rights to their material, and since they'd established Hypnotic as their one-stop outlet/dumping ground of all things 'raverish', handed it off there as an ambient collection, never mind the music here most definitely unplayable in traditional chill rooms. Technical stuff sometimes makes my head hurt, or maybe it's this inner-ear infection I'm dealing with.

Track one comes care of Kinder Atom, a quartet of producers that includes Heiki Sillaste. Their track of Scanus is a weird, spacey minimalist techno-dub, sounding rather empty yet soothing as subtle blips and beeps sing and breathe along a steady rhythm pulsing along. Ambient techno for sure, but with a striking ominous tone befit of an industrial outlet. Mr. Sillaste returns in track number two, Autorhythm Two from A.S.A., the second time I've come across this alias, meaning I now own half of this ridiculously obscure Canadian project. And what a strange track it is too, layers of bloopy sounds creating a percolating dripping sound as a lone beep echoes every so often. Interesting, if you dig your experimental techno. Heiki appears a third time later, under his most famed handle of Digital Poodle, though Weapon is but a transitional track, showing off angry robot noises before playing a forlorn ode to a post-war industrial wasteland. Surprisingly captivating, for the short time it plays. Rapoon's here too, with a super-long ultra-repetitive track that's also very meditative, in that old-school Rapoony sort of way.

Really, the two big takeaways I got from Ambient Rituals are a pair of tracks that couldn't be further apart if they tried. The first is Hemisphere from Synaesthesia, whom you may know as good ol' Leeb and Fulber merging their EBM and world beat senses into a big, bruising downtempo jam. The other is Vuls from Dead Voices On Air, a desolate composition of distant sounds and drones. Imagine being bound inside an asylum, the hum of ventilation ducts and a security camera your lone companions, words from your overseers intermittently oozing through the cold concrete walls. Delectable paranoia for the mindspace.

Various - Alien Ambient Galaxy

Hypnotic: 1996

When did I first discover Bill Laswell? This CD right here, which is funny, because it's not indicative of his larger, massive, ginormous body of work. I mean, only one track of the featured eight even has much of his distinct bass playing – it's a super long track, but still, just one. I probably heard him prior, but had no clue he existed, if that makes sense. You can hear some musicians – especially sessions musicians – in a multitude of songs without ever knowing who they are. Sure, one could study liner notes of every booklet and Discogs entry to know every performer ever, but man, who'd want to?

Had little choice with Alien Ambient Galaxy though, the only credits offering nothing but liner notes. Hell, the back cover just lists all the players involved, with no attribution to the list of tracks. For all you'd know, everyone performed together as one big conglomerate. Bill Laswell, Jah Wobble, Jeff Bova, Alex Hass, Pete Namlook, Liu Sola, Buckethead (yes, that Buckethead), Robert Musso, Mick Harris, and Nicky Skopelitis are... Alien Ambient Galaxy!

But no, that's not the case. In fact, only three projects actually make up this compilation, all of which Laswell had some hand in, care of his short-lived Subharmonic print. Most prominently featured is Divination, a world music, ambient drone project that could be considered a proper conglomerate of musicians. There's four tracks of the group here, but they're mostly subtle, droning pieces, serving more as transitional tracks between the other ones. I'll talk about them more at a later date, but again, I must give a flustered name-drop in seeing Buckethead's there.

A few other tracks are from Cypher 7, a duo consisting of Hass and Bova, with Laswell performing “navigation & ground control”. These are more interesting, giving Alien Ambient Galaxy some needed diversity and flair. Conspiracy Of Silence opens the CD with mysterious, ominous tones, feeding into alien paranoia that was so popular in the '90s, while The Suspicious Shamen does an upbeat ambient dub thing with piano flourishes. Nothing Lasts, meanwhile, features a bouncy beat while French actress Jeanne Moreau drunkenly laments about lost passion. Not sure how it ties into an alien ambient concept, but it's a cool sounding tune nonetheless.

And finally, clocking in at over thirty-eight minutes, is one of Bill and Pete's Psychonavigation outings – the lengthy track with the lengthy title of Psychic And UFO Revelations In The Last Days. It features Laswell's bass, Namlook's space pads, a simple dubby rhythm, a lot of dithering passages of music interspersed with sci-fi effects, and strangely hypnotic throughout its runtime. Plus, it contains dialog from the DS9 episode Emissary, so instant awesome right there.

Strange presentation aside, Alien Ambient Galaxy is a nifty little collection of tunes if you like your ambient on the mysterious side of things. Even with the amount of Laswellian music I've since heard, this still remains a remarkably unique offering of what he's made within his vast discography.

The Future Sound Of London - Accelerator

Jumpin' & Pumpin'/Hypnotic: 1991/2002

The only Future Sound Of London album you need, if you listen to certain sorts of people. Let's call them 'stuck in The Haçienda' kind of people, UK ravers who never grew beyond that era's acid house scene, will only accept electronic music as it sounded then, and not a month later. Never mind that Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain ventured forth into new, fascinating realms of pure headtrip, mind-fuck album works – it's just not danceable, mate. I sense, though, such folks are forlorn at the coulda'-been, the shoulda'-been of FSOL's potential as studio hounds producing clubbing fodder. They made so many classic, genre-defining tunes at the time, the possibilities of what they might have done after had they scaled back the arty, pretentious aspirations boggles the mind. But nay, the lads from Manchester had grander visions in mind.

And I get it – oh man, do I ever get it. For as much as I've continued enjoying FSOL's work, there's an undeniable addictive simplicity about the tunes on Accelerator that remain effective to this day. Papua New Guinea, obviously, but I've no doubt tracks like the future-shock breaks of Expander, acid-bleep dopeness of Calcium, and blissed-out trancey acid house of Pulse State would be just as effective in any contemporary setting. Hell, I heard 1 In 8 at a music festival this past summer. 1 In 8, one of the 'filler' tracks on this album! Who plays 1 In 8 in this age? A DJ at Basscoast, apparently.

Still, one cannot deny there's some rather dated material on Accelerator too. Despite the smashing opening of Expander (oh, you just know Sasha cribbed that title), Stolen Documents is little more than a peppy transitional track of bleepy sounds and chirpy acid funk. While Others Cry has a little more personality going for it with its Balearic-Jamaican vibe (yes, really), nice for a sway in a hammock or beach lounge. On the other hand though, It's Not My Problem and Moscow have the unenviable task of bookmarking the album centrepiece of Papua New Guinea, and in being such abrasive, boshing tunes, neither are capable of it – you're just waiting for Papua while Problem is playing, and Moscow always feels like a comedown from New Guinea. As for hints at where FSOL would take their music, Central Industrial slows things down and plays up the future-shock scenery full-tilt. Psygnosis Studios were definitely paying attention.

When Accelerator was rolled out for a tenth anniversary re-issue, it included a bonus disc of Papua New Guinea remixes. Most of them take the tune's basic structure and re-purposes them into a particular genre (Satoshi Tomiie does the prog thing, Hybrid do the prog-breaks thing, Oil do the funk-dub thing). The most interesting of the lot are the Simian Mix, where the rock band turns Papua into a bizarre, stoned, jazz-stomp indie hoe-down (I'm sure Gary loved it), and Andrew Weatherall's eleven-minute rub – progressive house of epic proportions, that one!

Various - Trancespotting IV

Hypnotic: 2001

I’ve mentioned them before, confirmed their existence in passing, but never actually wanted to hear them. The notion of a ‘tribute’ album isn’t a terrible one, and some of Hypnotic’s earliest efforts in the realm were decent enough examples of the concept. Considering the legacy pioneering acts like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream created, or the influence of new wave bands like New Order and Depeche Mode had on future musicians, a respectful homage to them seems appropriate enough for a one or two-off.

Those initial ‘trance tribute to…’ discs must have done well for Cleopatra, for they took things further by having their roster of industrial acts make tribute albums for the heavy-weights of metal (Metallica, AC/DC, Slayer, Guns N’ Roses). Okay, fair enough, but isn’t that stretching the concept a tad thin? Honey, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, for soon Cleopatra was issuing tribute CDs for influential goth and industrial acts (Skinny Puppy, Dead Can Dance, Front 242, The Cure), famed crossover musicians (Bowie, Prince, U2, Madonna, Blondie), punk bands (NOFX, Misfits, Nirvana), and complete outliers that have no reason to ever be involved in such an enterprise (Tori Amos, Brian Eno, Edgar Allan Poe, Bon Jovi, Weezer, Limp Bizkit, Marilyn Manson, Marilyn Monroe). As far as most were concerned, all these tribute CDs became a big ol’ joke of a franchise, yet another example of Cleopatra’s ongoing dodgy business of hitching themselves to brand name recognition with none of the expensive licensing fees that comes with it. And Trancespotting IV came out at the height of these shenanigans.

Of the eleven tracks on here (final track is a bizarre block-rockin’ beats megamix of Aqualite material), only four are original tunes, and two of those are by the same guy under a different alias. Hell, maybe even the third one is too, Lord Discogs drawing a complete blank on whoever “DJ 2iax” is beyond this release. But yeah, it’s clear Airborne and Dragonspirit are the same chap, one Martin Nielsen who you might remember under numerous other bog-standard goa trance pseudonyms from that Goa Box: Trance 4 Motion 3CD package I reviewed a few years back. Meanwhile, one of Cleopatra’s minor stars in Razed In Black brings us a futurepop remix for his minor hit Oh My Goth!. Fun tune, if you’re into that sound.

The rest of Trancespotting IV features covers and remixes of covers. Do you like R&B group The Miracles? Disco group The Trammps? Funk icons Prince or James Brown? New wave stars Depeche Mode and Dead Or Alive? The lead singer of Warrant, Jani Lane? Of course you do, and you probably even have their original songs too. Songs like Tears Of A Clown, You Spin Me ‘Round, I Would Die 4 U, and Disco Inferno. Do you also want them as rudimentary rubs of breaks or trance? Then hey, Trancespotting IV will be a hoot-diggity riot for you (though sadly, lacking in Quiet Riot). For the remaining ninety-seven percent of us, forget it.

Various - Trancespotting III

Hypnotic: 2000

A third Trancespotting! How was there enough interesting in this middling series to warrant a trilogy? And if it is so middling, why on Earth do I own this CD? Easy answer on the latter question: it came bundled in a Trancespotting box-set, titled Complete Trancespotting, released a couple years after it was clear Hypnotic had run the well dry on the concept (whatever the Trancespotting concept may be). “But wait,” proclaims thee, “for a box-set to truly be box-set worthy, there must be a minimum of four CDs in the package.” Right you be, o’ Pedantic One, which means there was a Trancespotting IV in this series. That I must review as well.

Look, the box-set was a pretty good deal, four CDs for the price of one, and I hazily knew the first volume was decent enough for a Hypnotic compilation. I figured there had to be at least another disc’s worth of good material between the remaining three to make it worth the asking price. Juno Reactor and System 7 on II, Synaesthesia on III, James Brown and Dead Or Alive on… oh. Oh dear. Trancespotting IV is one of those CDs, isn’t it.

That’s for a Newer Review from this one though. For now, we dive into Trancespotting III, a CD that already gives signs of what’s to come from this series. Yep, that’s Kelly Hansen among the featured artists, and if you don’t know who that is, you probably never bother with your classic rock station. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s the current Foreigner lead singer, but the song being sung (and remixed by Razed In Black into a plucky club anthem) is Dream Police by Cheap Trick. A couple tracks after, and we get a Mark Pistel rub of The Sweet’s Fox On The Run. Huh, that ain’t so bad, but I’ve faith any member of Meat Beat Manifesto providing the goods, even if his big-beaty remix makes zero sense on a compilation called Trancespotting. In fact, nearly a third of this CD’s taken up by big-beat action, including Filter Section’s Action-8 and Bill Leeb side-project Pro>Tech’s Recalcitrant. Surprisingly, Transmutator’s Equal Opportunity Slut doesn’t go the ‘aggrotech’ route!

But we’ve already come to expect these genre dalliances from this series, if not so overt about it. We still get some trance out of our Trancespotting deal, even if it’s an incredibly ragtag selection. We’re a long ways from Hypnotic’s glory days in the year 2000, though funny enough we do get a Talla 2XLC opener, even if it is a track from a few years past. Not so far back as Juno Reactor’s Labyrinth though, a track found on the Samurai EP, but initially lurking as a B-side to The Overlord’s 1994 single God’s Eye (as The 7th Stage (Labyrinth Mix)). The Synaesthesia cut sounds more like early Delerium mashed with Pro>Tech, a couple vintage-cut acid tunes round things out, and we end on breakcore action from Spaceship Eyes. ONE JOB, Hypnotic!

Various - Trancespotting II

Hypnotic: 1998

Hypnotic wasn’t a label known for follow-ups to their compilations, almost always moving onto another collection of tracks with a completely unrelated title. A couple mini-series did emerge in their early years, like Influence x.x and Ambient Auras, plus those Tribute To [‘70s or ‘80s pioneer] were gaining enough traction for additional volumes. They also launched a remix series called In To The Mix around the same time as Trancespotting, which featured some solid acts like Chemical Brothers, L.S.G., Prodigy, and Leftfield. By its fifth volume though, In To The Mix was peddling shit remixes of funk, disco, and R&B acts like James Brown, The Trammps, Ohio Players, and Sister Sledge. You do you, Hypnotic.

So a sequel to one of their numerous compilations wasn’t without precedent, and it was clear Hypnotic was aiming for a change of direction in the year 1997, when that ‘electronica’ buzz was looking mighty lucrative. Still, you go with Trancespotting in this? Did that brand recognition with the movie truly turn out so well? It was an alright CD, but beyond highlighting the label’s scattershot roster of trance-leaning acts, didn’t have much of a selling angle. Maybe riding the jock of a popular movie/soundtrack was all you needed.

Trancespotting II generally picks up where the first one left off, mixing in ample amounts of the goa and psy while breaking things up with tracks wholly unrelated to the genre of trance. Hey, if it worked on the first one…! (did it?) Once again we’re opened with a System 7 cut in Expansion (Conspiracy Mix), and one can never go wrong with a little Juno Reactor action, in this case the techno-heavy Robert Liener’s rub of Magnetic. Bypass Unit offer up Tunnel Floatation for this CD, though it’s a fairly rote slice of goa by their standards. Heck, the main man behind Bypass Unit, Rene Abildgaard Jensen, has a better cut of psy jib on here with his solo project Colorbox (track I.D.: Grey Spook). Another Bypass Unit alum in Allan Robert Hejl shows up in his Shiva Ram guise with the oddly boshy Spanish Girl. Astralasia throw in a bangin’ remix for industrialists Spahn Ranch – damn straight parent label Cleopatra would worm their acts into Hypnotic’s business whenever possible. And couple ultra-obscure one-and-done acid acts like Solar Plexus (3) and Crude Infinity round out the rest of the psy stuff, little of which highlights the genre at its best.

But who cares about that when the real reason to hear a Trancespotting CD is for the ridiculous out-of-genre contributions! And hoo, are there some doozies, Trancespotting II offering no less than two house tracks! Like, I’ve no doubt Hypnotic was all excited in securing a Giorgio Moroder remix, but his rub of famed UK pop act Heaven 17’s Designing Heaven is pure gay club action. There’s also more big-beat action from Transmutator, an inexplicable contribution of minimalist paranoia-techno from Scanner, and as for Voigt Kampff’s Falculator, WTF is this? Hard-house garage??

Various - Trancespotting

Hypnotic: 1997

This is about where I lost the plot with Hypnotic, though it was through no fault of the music within. Nay, the very idea of capitalizing on the hit ‘raver’ film Trainspotting (despite the movie having nothing to do with rave culture, beyond a kick-ass soundtrack), it rubbed me so wrong. Where had the nods to retro sci-fi gone? For sure CDs with names like Trance To Outer Limits, or Trance-2-Metropolis, or Trance Sexual were all kinds of chintzy, but Hypnotic owned it, wholly and completely embracing a future-pulp aesthetic that screamed vintage underground raves. It gave them an identity unlike few other electronic label of the American ‘90s, where most almost seemed embarrassed by the music’s lineage. All that promptly wiped away in a singular jump on a contemporary reference. I could see the end on nigh from there, my friends, the label that once guided me through my early trance explorations all too eager to fill its catalog with whatever trendy sub-genre happened by the Hypnotic office ears.

Hell, we even get a sampling of that right here in Trancespotting, with third track My Wonderful Friend from Trancemutator. No, wait, Hypnotic made another one of their infamous typos – this is Transmutator, a negligible difference sure, until you hear that the tune in question is about as big of a breakbeat as beats could big-up in the year 1997. This was also a side-project of one Romell Regulacion, more commonly known as way-‘90s industrial act Razed In Black. What any of this has to do with trance is anyone’s guess, and it doesn’t stop there. Kraftwelt’s retro-electro sound is here in Confusion, while Sunset Yellow gives us something far closer to the tech-house camps in Agent Yellow.

Alright, enough nitpicking. I said the music on Trancespotting was good in spite of the dodgy concept, and I stick by that. How can I not when the CD opens with the spritely goa trance System 7’s Hangar 84, the duo fresh off a new stateside distribution deal after their earlier “777” experiment caused too much confusion. Elsewhere, Leeb and Fulber show up under their Synaesthesia guise, giving us the closest thing to a trance track in Andromedia that they’d ever go. Astralasia’s The Seven Pointed Star and Bypass Unit’s Helium rep that old-school goa sound as fine as any act not named Juno Reactor, LCD’s Think Smart hits the acid side of psy hard, while Surface 10 gets chummy with ‘psy-tekk’ on Spotting Shmekno. And in case you inexplicably needed a piano trance fix, here’s another Omniglobe track in C’mon Yo, featuring ragga samples no less. Trancespotting, do you even know what kind of compilation you want to be anymore?

A showcase of material Hypnotic had licensing rights to, is what. And hey, this CD succeeds there, most of the acts on here having albums out on the label within the year. Still don’t know why it presented them as a lame style-bite of Trainspotting though. Hypnotic Sampler Pack wasn’t as marketable?

Various - Trancemission To Andromeda

Hypnotic: 1996

The byline for this CD is completely accurate and total bollocks. How can we know what the sound of the Future will be - educated guesses, perhaps. Ever since egg-headed Europeans started manipulating vacuum tubes and radio transistors into something resembling music, everyone figured we’d be down with that electronic sound in whatever Futurescape we lived in. Once synths and drum machines became readily available to the common man, the notion of our lives dominated by digital decibels only grew, such that you couldn’t imagine a Future without electronic music; to say nothing of what amazing sonic roads we’d explore! Yet, here we are in the Now, and popular tastes in electronic music have generally retreated to the Past rather than continue striving forward. Whatever tunes Trancemission To Andromeda proclaimed as our Future is most definitely not of our current Now, and I wonder whether it ever will be.

In a more literally sense, the byline is advertising this as a collection of NOW! Records records, which were in fact roughly three years old by the time Hypnotic put this out on CD shevles. That label also folded around the same time, leading me to suspect Cleopatra simply snatched up a clutch of cheap licensing for another quick turnaround on the compilation market. There is no Future with Trancemission To Andromeda then, only the sound of old NOW!

Compared to many other German prints, NOW! Records was practically buried among the heavy hitters of the day. Starting out in 1992, they mostly peddled in hardcore rave, acid techno, and piano trance. Lord Discogs shows me that acts like House Pimps, Source T-10, and Omniglobe were their biggest acts. Incidentally, Omniglobe is an earlier alias of Aqualite. No surprise, then, that the two Omniglobe tracks on Trancemission To Andromeda - Mental Fragment and Happy Pill Anthem - are the better cuts on this CD. Not great by any stretch, but as primitive acid trance goes, perfectly adequate.

Know who else got an early start on NOW! Records? German techno mainstay Roman Flügel; aka: one half of Alter Ego, though he and long-time producing partner Jörn Elling Wuttke were more famous for Acid Jesus this far back. They also show up here in Power Of Yoga as Warp 69, and holy cow, is this ever a cheese-ball rave tune. Faring better is Feel Alright as Pure Tribal, a proggy little acid groover that hints at a better Future for these guys.

Most of Trancemission To Andromeda provides decent enough trance tunes if you dig the Phase 1 Era of the genre: simple piano melodies, serviceable acid, floating pad work. Some of these, like Source T-10’s Emotion and especially Lo Budget’s I Wanna Be A Cloud will give you a good ol’ gurning grin even without drugs. Unfortunately, these haven’t aged terribly well compared to the genre’s classics, coming off dated even by the mid-‘90s. Maybe worth a listen to hear Alter Ego’s humble beginnings, but otherwise for genre completists only.

Various - Trance 2001: A Trance Odyssey

Hypnotic: 1995

Possibly the best compilation Hypnotic put out in their early years, and I’m not just saying that because of the pretty nebula on the cover. Okay, that’s part of the reason too, but I do have stronger reasons for this assessment. For one thing, it’s a Music Research tie-in, so aces already. However, Trance 2001: A Trance Odyssey is a tad different from all the other Hypnotic CDs peddling singles from Talla 2XCL’s label that could. This one mostly eschews the obvious tracks and classic German trance anthems of the day, delivering a collection of b-sides from the heavy hitters of Suck Me Plasma, all in service of the spaced-out, ‘eye on the future’ theme presented in the title’s concept. Or, y’know, I’m reading too much into this, the linking theme just a coincidence, and Trance 2001 was Hypnotic simply shoveling more licensed product out into stores as quickly as they could. Either wouldn’t surprise me but I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt in this situation. Hypnotic’s early material did have a sense of someone behind the desk giving a care.

As usual, many familiar names show up for Trance 2001: A Trance Odyssey: Komakino, Sunbeam, Aqualite, D-Lay, Cenobyte, Urban Trance Plant. Even if you know these acts though, odds are these tunes aren’t as recognizable compared to their main singles (refer to previous Music Research reviews). For instance, Komakino isn’t here as Komakino, but as Final Fantasy, though admittedly their most popular track under the alias in Controlling Transmission. And what a hum-dinger she be, by g’ar: blistering acid, vintage German piano riffs, gated choir pads, and tasty tck-tck-tck hi-hats. Aqualite’s moody Wavemaker was another modestly successful track, though not nearly as much as Outback. Same can be said for D-Lay’s peppy bleepy Desire, Sunbeam’s space pulp-adventure tune Energy, Cenobyte’s brisk, minimalist acid builder Tales From The A-Side, and Retroflex’s ultra-chipper happy hardcore Feel The Vibes. Wait, what’s happy hardcore doing in a trance compilation? Accommodating itself rather well, if I’m honest. I can’t believe it either.

In fact, there are a few happy hardcore acts here peddling the serious side of their muses. Overdog’s Cloudy has a nearly three-minute long building intro, going from ambient to chugging hard dance while maintaining a flowing trance vibe throughout. J’N’M Trax’ Human Inspirations features a great minor-key melody for such a simple boshing track, and Urban Trance Plant’s Ready To Flow is… um, well, has a pretty dope climax.

Finally, for you obscuritists out there, one-off act Spice & Dune finish Trance 2001 with another mint bit of high-octane space acid on Time Traveler. Only… it’s called Snapshot here. Why? Turns out “Spice”, or Patrick Wintter, worked in tandem with several producers, including one Mario Hammer as Snapshot, which Hypnotic must have erroneously tagged here. Those names seem familiar? They should, both going on to larger success as Hiver & Hammer. Such humble beginnings here for Mr. Hiver, closing out one of Hypnotic’s best CDs.

Various - Trance To Planet X: Influence 3.3 (2016 Update)

Hypnotic: 1996

(Click here to read a bunch of words, words, and oh my God why are there so many words!?)

So this CD. Can I talk in one-fifth the words used compared to my first Trance To Planet X review? Holy cow, I used up two-hundred words just detailing the first track alone. Two-hundred, with two zeroes after the two! I don’t think I could talk up Phasis’ (Norman Feller!) Visitations to such a degree now even if I tried. Okay, if I was forced at gun point by some insane old-school TranceCritic fan, who felt we betrayed our original ethos in abandoning such tediously drawn-out reviews after a while, then I probably could. I wouldn’t enjoy it though, nosiree. Also, does such a person exist in this reality? I know it seems everything has at least some micro-insane fandom attached to it now, but surely not of Early TranceCritic writings. Surely… not…

I mentioned Trance To Planet X was the last of the Hypnotic’s Influence Records showcases, a shame because there was still a few more tracks in that library worth tapping for a fourth CD. Yes, despite the fact Omnicron’s The Bushmen was used twice between this compilation and the previous Influence 2.2. C’mon, Hypnotic, why no love for Komatsu’s Input Transformer? On the other hand, if I’m to judge Hypnotic’s catalog numbers correctly, it seems their partnership with Music Research and all their sub-labels was about at an end following Trance To Planet X. I spot no further cover art fronting the label’s iconic seal, and about the only further significant release of any Music Research material is the 3CD extravaganza/back-catalog dump of Musik Non Stop. A couple ‘albums’ of Komakino and Sunbeam material later, and that’s all she wrote for Hypnotic’s association with Talla 2XLC’s print. That Outloud Records partnership, on the other hand…

For anyone fearful of wading through two-hundred plus words per track in that old review, but would still enjoy a quick summation of what’s on Trance To Planet X, here we go. This is harder trance as only the Germans could do back in the mid-‘90s, with a whole lot of acid throughout. Sometimes an epic, spritely hook comes in, such as in Wave Shaping Age’s bleepy World In Trouble, Cyberjam’s funky Alphaflight and Morten’s spacey Hypnotizing. Other tracks forego anything resembling a hook, simply assaulting you with pummeling pulsing acid (Dermatologist’s Jupiter (Omm To The Stars)), chunky muddy bosh (Analog Communications’ Wave Generator) or ear-blistering noise (Artificial Flavor’s Deep Noizer). Audio Science shows you can have clever programming with your hyper-fast acid action in the eleven-minute long Sunstroke, while Judge S.’ Brainstorm is a fun bit of space-pulp gabber. Such an epic hook in that one!

Hey, that’s so much better to read, so let me end this all on another wonderful anecdote. Okay, more a factoid than anything. I let it known that Trance Europe 2.0 was a ‘trance-formative’ (*such groan*) compilation for yours truly, but I also bought this one alongside it. For some reason though, this one didn’t sink in quite so completely. Needed more Komakino, is what!

Various - Trance On Earth: European Electronic Dreams

Hypnotic: 1995

Cleopatra Records set itself as a purveyor of most things industrial and goth, raiding the lands of Europa in search of distribution deals for American shores. Among these labels was Zoth Ommog, one of the seminal prints of Germany’s EBM scene, which is all kinds of bizarre when you consider trance tastemaker Talla 2XLC founded the print as an early part of his larger Music Research empire. He kept the ravey stuff on different sub-labels though, which Cleopatra must have had equal access to thanks to the Zoth Ommog deal, hence their early stabs at the ‘trance compilation’ market. I assume it worked out reasonably well for them (Hell, I bought two!), enough to establish this spin-off print Hypnotic, where they could distribute all that ecstasy-driven club music without alienating their harder, morose followers of the cybernetic revolution. Or whatever it was the gothic EBM crowds identified themselves as in the early ‘90s.

I’m almost certain this is information I’ve discussed in previous reviews, but I bring it up again to put Trance On Earth: European Electronic Dreams into perspective, this little CD among the first in launching Hypnotic. Most of the earliest Hypnotic releases were album re-issues for the likes of Ynos (Komakino), Synaesthesia (Frontline Assembly/Delerium), and Norman (Terry Lee Brown, Jr.), but with so many acts on Suck Me Plasma only doing the EP deed, the label instead brought them over via a tsunami of trance and ambient compilations. If you think what I have in my collection is a bit much, check out the entire Hypnotic catalog from 1996 alone.

As one of the first Hypnotic trance compilations, Trance On Earth is also either one of the best, or one of the most redundant, depending on how many other Hypnotic CDs you have. The Suck Me Plasma pickings were plumb for these initial discs though, many big hits of German hard trance finding their way here. Sunbeam’s two breakout singles make the cut, and though I’ve got a whole LP of early Sunbeam, I’ve no problem hearing Outside World or High Adventure again. Komakino’s ultra-uplifting Feel The Melodee (Technoclub Mix) is also on here, as is another of those seminal ‘galloping choir pad’ trance anthems in Aqualite’s Outback. Really, Trance On Earth is primarily made up of such tunes, including D-Lay’s The Dreamer, plus one-offers Infusion Impulse’s Paralyser and Lesamis’ No More Worry, though only D-Lay’s tune holds its own against the aforementioned classics.

Filling out the hind-sighted ‘redundant’ portions of Trance On Earth are Semisphere’s acid-drenched Raveaktiv, Cenobyte’s sinister Destination, and D-Lay’s ultra PLUR-gooey Don’t Stop The Motion, all which appeared in some fashion on the latter 3CD Hypnotic release Musik Non Stop. The remaining stand-alone is closer Tuna from Norman, sounding more stripped back, minimalist, and groovy compared to all the hard trance on here. It’s almost as though Mr. Feller’s coming up with a fresh new genre, combining house and techno, a ‘garage-tek’ thing, if you will. Nah, that’ll never catch on.

Kraftwelt - Electric Dimension

Hypnotic: 1996

Everyone always asked, “What sort of music might Kraftwerk make in the ‘90s?” Music about bikes, most likely, and they did too, once the 2000s made it very hip to sound like Kraftwerk again (especially if you were the real deal). Before that though, the Düsseldorf posse essentially bowed out of the ‘90s with The Mix, seldom heard from in the ensuing decade and leaving a slew of folks inspired by their work to make their own interpretations and reimagining of the Kraftwerk stylee. Okay, it was more a smattering than a slew, retro-electro revivalism still a few years off, but one act broke out of outright obscurity into quirky side-glancing with their efforts: Kraftwelt. What’s that, you’ve already read the Audio Science side-project back-history in my Retroish review? Well then, let’s just get right into the first album, Electric Dimension.

I suspect Misters (*deep breath*) Oldenborg, Christiansen, Schmidt, and Gylsen had ideas for a Kraftwerk type album long gestating before Hypnotic gave them a green light to go forward with it. How else to explain Electric Dimension arriving as a fully realized concept LP a year after their contributions to Trancewerk Express (Cleopatra’s Kraftwerk tribute CD)? Why, there’s even short interludes of mechanical chugging (Clockworked), future-land terraces (Neocafe), and cyber-city vistas (In The Rubbertree Forest), giving a track count of a whopping nineteen in total! Most cuts hover around the four-minute range and work in some aspect of Kraftwerk’s signature sounds: modulating radio pulses, quirky Moog melodies, bare-bones electro rhythms, starry-eyed looks at futurism. Missing, however, are robot voices, catchy pop moments, and a sense of innovative craftsmanship that defined so much of Kraftwerk’s output.

Obviously, no one could replicate the band that Ralf and Florian built, Kraftwerk very much a product of their krautrock time. And nor should anyone replicate them for that matter, the music made in those eras perfectly filling the pop-leaning, experimental testing, rhythmic savvy electronic void folks had yet realized needed filling. Newer genres like electro and techno grew from their works, so it’s just as well Kraftwelt’s sound leans more Detroit and post-Berlin Wall German. They still retain a certain futuristic kitch in some of their tracks (Vox Box, Adventures In Orienta, Sci-Fi Memento, Bon Voyage), but others are simply following the dystopian Detroit approach to electro (1187, Confusion, the titular cut) while using sounds that may have featured in a Kraftwerk cut. Not quite a tribute act, then.

Electric Dimension is still an interesting album though, especially for something released in the mid-‘90s. Ain’t no one was making electro sounding like this, and seldom ever since, most retro-futurists and electro fetishists going for grit and gauche rather than Metropolis allure. There still isn’t enough substance behind Kraftwelt to warrant a second album’s worth of material, much less that overkill of the single Deranged (original track isn’t even that good). As a one-off dabbling in sounds and styles of a bygone era of electronic music though, Electric Dimension is worth the diversion.

Kraftwelt - Retroish

Hypnotic: 1998

I’d be first in line piping up the group that started as Audio Science never got their due, though I can’t say they’ve had an unsuccessful career either. To this day they’ve kept busy, mostly operating as a remix group called Patchworkz, providing rubs to some of dance-pops more notable names (Billy Ray Martin, Camille Jones, Ida Corr). Meanwhile, as Merv, they released a smattering of singles that fit quite snuggly within the early German dub techno domain that Basic Channel outright dominated, and continue using the alias for DJ mixes. Then there’s Kraftwelt, a project that almost certainly started out as nothing more than adding a few additional tracks to Cleopatra’s Tribute To Kraftwerk CD, but got a significant mileage with afterwards. Too much, in fact, as it’s clear by this second album of Kraftwelt material the ideas had worn thin.

The first one, Electric Dimension, was about as solid an ‘electro album by way of Kraftwerk in the ‘90s’ could have been, considering the genre was practically dead mid-decade. The electro revival was still a few years off, and even though a few outlier acts were found making the stuff, fewer gave it much heed. A deliberate throwback though? Sure, why not, there had to be a few folks feeling the early pangs of retro in their soul – an escape from big funky beats and bangin’ rave techno-trance. Bring back the original German robots, yo’.

And they did, but that’s for another review. Instead, I’m talking about the follow-up to Electric Dimension, Retroish. The album kicks off promisingly enough, the titular cut featuring plucky hooks, a bare-bones 808 break, and enveloping bassline as heard in an huge, empty robot factory. There’s even a little warbly solo that sounds like it was performed on an old, unkempt Moog, about as retro as anything could sound in 1998.

Following that, however, Kraftwelt settle into a schizophrenic game of not knowing whether they want to go proper techno or remain retro electro. It’s as though the group is lost in a transitional year between the two, sounding a bit of both but not committed enough to the other for things to work. It’s no surprise the best tunes - Metro, Centershade, Beautybox, The Eighth Approach, Au Revoir - remain firmly in the era Kraftwelt are drawing influence from, though even some of those are kinda’ chintzy. Okay, Beautybox gets away with it, only because it’s got such a silly, happy rhythm going for it.

Compared to Electric Dimension though, these sound like leftovers from those sessions, rounded out by some of the group’s techno tracks given the ‘Kraftwelt aesthetic’. Quite a few of these tunes - Slipstream, Back Seat, Rush - would have sounded brilliant in the year 1988, when Detroit was forging ahead from electro of old and creating its own, unique brand of electronic music. Unfortunately for Kraftwelt’s Retroish, the year is not ’88, but rather ’98, and sounding out of time in the here and now.

Sunbeam - Out Of Reality

Hypnotic: 1997

Even for the cheesier side of hard German trance, Sunbeam were a class of cheese all on their own. That’s not a knock on them though, at least from my perspective, for theirs was a fun cheese, fully in the know and unabashed with their earnestness. Along with Komakino, they helped set the standard for old-school hard trance, especially on singles Outside World and High Adventure. And even though Sunbeam’s early work was way under-produced, it’s a credit to their craft that they found strong hooks and memorable samples such that their tunes remained in discussion while so many better tunes by stronger acts fell by the wayside.

Okay, Sunbeam also features an attribute I’ll totally school-girl squee over: voice pad leads, especially with a multi-tap delay as they do in High Adventure. Obviously if you don’t care for them, we’re done here. No, wait, come back! Let me sell you on them some. I promise this won’t be boring.

See, there’s a timeless charm to them, like how modern space synth can sound exactly the same as its ‘80s lineage and remain all the better for it. It’s retro-futurism now, crafted with space and sci-fi in mind but coming off dated in our modern times - tell me you don’t feel like hopping into a Flash Gordon ship on High Adventure (even if the sample comes from Conan The Barbarian). Unless as a deliberate throwback, no one makes trance like this anymore, which is fine as there was little more that could be done with the formula. It's now an artifact of a bygone era, ripe for hipster reinvention (dear God, I hope not...).

Wait, there’s an actual review an actual album I’m supposed to do? Not sure what else I can say about Out Of Reality. Hypnotic had the rights to most of Sunbeam's early Suck Me Plasma singles and knocked this collection out around the time the duo gained exposure with an updated, (then) modern take on hard trance. Even for a 1997 CD, the tunes were sounding old, weak when stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the anthems of the day. That wouldn't be so bad if Hypnotic marketed Out Of Reality as a retrospective (or consolidated the tracks for a 'classics' collection of sorts), but I see no indication of that; rather, it was a quick way of capitalizing on Sunbeam's growing popularity.

Naturally, Outside World and High Adventure are here, including marginally different remixes each, plus a third remix of Outside World that sounds like a mash-up of the two. That's five tracks dedicated to two songs on a ten track CD. Yeah, overkill those anthems! The rest are rudimentary early trance tunes, though La Musique (C'est Notre Drogue), one of the B-sides to Outside World, tickles my fancy proper-like. Oddly, Are We Out Of Reality?, from which this album takes its title from, wasn't even originally released as a Sunbeam single, but a short-lived alias of Iron Wobble. Not that it's much different from the rest.

Various - Musik Non Stop

Hypnotic: 1996

Criminey blimey, gov', is this one dodgy collection. You’d think a 3CD set of Music Research material as licensed out by Hypnotic would have me all squee, but even I must raise an eyebrow over how this one was put together. Between Hypnotic and Cleopatra before it, I’ve gathered a decent amount of music from Talla 2XLC’s pioneering label. Some compilations were great, some not as much, yet you could at least count on original material with each release those first few years. That well of German trance had to run dry eventually though (especially with Talla shutting doors), and repeat tracks became increasingly common on Hypnotic compilations. At the same time, there must have been plenty of leftovers, tunes that just couldn’t fit on Trance Europe, Trance On Earth, Trance 2001: A Trance Odyssey, or European Future Soundz (Excursion In Trance). What better way to clear out that Music Research backlog than a 3CD extravaganza!

Normally I’d break this review up into at least two separate ones, as my self-imposed word count often interferes with coverage of so much music. What’s the point, though? CD1 alone has six tracks I’ve either already talked about, or will down the line. The other two discs have more unreleased cuts through Hypnotic, but are easily summed up – it’s small wonder some of these never got a release until this collection.

But hey, three discs for the price of one was still a good deal back in the ‘90s, and at least you were getting something of a primer into Music Research’s catalogue, despite not being the cream of their crop. CD1 mostly handles the trance, including Komakino, Reel X, Cenobyte, Sunbeam, and a pile of Norman Feller, who steals the show with the one-off collaboration with pre-Timewriter Jean Cochois as Lesamis. Eternal Sleep’s a wonderful slice of riffy, floaty early trance, and it’s a shame these two didn’t collaborate more if they were making music like this. Ah well, that whole ‘tech-house’ thing they later spearheaded turned out alright too.

With a skip to CD3, we get treated to names like Aqualite, Audio Science, more Norman, Pascal F.E.O.S., and Beyond Reality’s Semi-Analogue. This is also the techno CD, or rather German trance guys doing Detroit techno. It’s not as interesting as it sounds, though Blitz! from Audio Science is a cool tune, because of course it is.

CD2’s where most of the fun’s found, hardcore beats and acid running rampant. There’s also copious cheese here too, some of the ridiculous cornball kind (Happy Ravers’ Hubert), others of the unabashedly gurning type (D-Lay’s Don’t Stop The Motion (E-Motion Mix)). Rolling pianos, cheeky phrases (“Hi, I hope you’re enjoying your trip.”), multi-tap delay pads, bells, and that’s just Urban Trance Plant. There’s even a chill Balearic cut opening the tracklist. CD2’s definitely worth the price of admission into Musik Non Stop if you’ve an ear for candy-coated acid rave of the mid-‘90s, and hey, there’s a few good tunes on the other discs too.

Various - Hypnotic: Electronic Purity

(~): 2002

Yeah, of course I'd make a burned disc based out of tracks from Hypnotic Records. Except most of the music I liked on their CDs was usually licensed out from Music Research. So really, this should be a collection themed around that. Yet only half of the music I did get was released by Music Research. So there really are Hypnotic exclusives on here? Nope. When I first started exploring sites like AudioGalaxy for music, I naturally punched in a bunch of names I was familiar with from all those mint Hypnotic CDs. Komakino, Sunbeam, Urban Trance Plant, and so on. In those pre-Discogs days (the Dark Times), info on artist catalogues could be rather sketchy, so I pretty much went into AudioGalaxy blind and nabbed whoever I could find, whether they had a Music Research or Hypnotic tie-in or not.

Still with me on this? If not, don't worry. All you need to know is the tracks I put on here were done by artists I felt were part of that 'classic Hypnotic sound', which was really just a bunch of hard German trance. That, in a nutshell, is what we got on Hypnotic: Electronic Purity.

Or not. Okay, it's my own fault for not realizing Sunbeam was only on Music Research for a short while, but how was I to know that they'd lasted through the turn of the century, long enough to release another proper LP called Lightyears. At a glance, it seems to be another round-up of their singles (including the much older Outside World and High Adventure), but you can imagine my surprise, stumbling on all these unknown-to-me Sunbeam tunes, and were mastered at such a higher clarity than their mid-'90s stuff. Oh, and they'd gone down the schlocky epic trance road too. Not that Sunbeam was all that credible even in their German trance days, so I included five tunes in this collection regardless. Yay?

Some good tracks then. One cut I knew I needed on that initial 'Hypnotic download spree' was Beyond Reality's Mind Runner, a true classic of hard German trance from a Danish duo that never made more than the one EP it featured on. But hoo, is it ever a blinder of a cut, hitting everything you could love of that era with perfection: acid, driving beats, one Hell of a spacey earworm hook, and claps - oh man, those claps are delish'. There were also a number of Komakino cuts I was missing, including their work as Final Fantasy like The Sequence Of Love and Sound Of The Atom Splitting. And rounding things out is A Passage To India from Urban Trance Plant, a group that could daftly be described as ‘deep German trance’. They love the slow build, the UTP does.

Yeah, I’m fanboy gushing hard here. Whatever. Hypnotic (or the sound I associated with them before I clued up) was there to lead me into the underground, so nothing but shameless love here, folks.