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!

L.S.G. - The Best Of L.S.G. (The Singles Reworked)

Superstition: 2004

I can't recall if folks thought it at the time, but it did seem the L.S.G. era of Oliver Lieb's career was over. You usually don't do a 'Best Of' collection if you figure there's still more in the tank for a project. By the year 2004, however, the signs were aplenty that times were a'changein'. Chief among them, L.S.G. was soon to be homeless, the label Superstition unable to adapt with the ever-shifting trends in clubland. They tried getting in on that digital download thing with a run of L.S.G. singles re-issues, but it wasn't enough. Thus a finished album following The Hive went unreleased, and Lieb moved onto other things. Say, that minimal techno thing is catching on, how about that? Ah well, at least Superstition lived long enough to let Lieb do a 'remix album' of all the tunes that helped make the label one of trance's taste-makers of the '90s.

And honestly, I don't think an L.S.G. 'best of' could have worked as anything other than a 'reworking' of all his singles. The easy, lazy thing to do would be to just slap them all on a disc, maybe force a continuous mix out of it, and call it a day, but ol' Oliver had taken the project through many different paths over the decade of its existence. How could one's muse be satisfied with how the original works sounded after gaining so much experience in the studio since? I'm sure ideas and re-imaginings had been sloshing in his brain for a while (especially during the Into Deep sessions, if the final result is any indication), forming sonic links and chains among his various tracks. True, there's always been signature markers that let you know you're dealing with a Lieb production (the gated synths, the impeccable drum programming, those claps), but why not sum it all up in one uber-album retrospective?

Folly for me, I didn't 'get it' when I first threw on The Singles Reworked. Maybe I was more enamoured by the second disc holding all those non-album L.S.G. tunes, in my clutches for the first time and all (Hearts! Transmutation! Blueprint! Fragile (Gravity Fools The Magician Remix By Vapourspace)...?). Or maybe I was just so unfamiliar with all the reworked tunes that I couldn't appreciate the changes. Aside from My Time Is Yours, The Train Of Thought and Netherworld, none had appeared on an L.S.G. album. For a while, I thought it all cool and neat sounding, but cribbing just a bit too much from Into Deep's aesthetic to stand out as its own unique thing. As I said, folly for me.

But yes, time and repeated plays has provided enough perspective such that I hear The Singles Reworked as more than just a 'best of' remix record. It truly is an album unto itself, just with familiar melodies in a different context from their original conception. Think of it like an 'unplugged' session, except still very much plugged in.

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.

L.S.G. - Rendezvous In Outer Space (2015 Update)

Superstition: 1995

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)

A do-over for the L.S.G. debut album? Eh, I don't think that's necessary. Technically, that review I wrote for TranceCritic a decade ago (!!) was my second go at Rendezvous In Outer Space, the first a blurb on Lord Discogs. Yeah, I was carrying a torch for the CD back in the day, hoping to get all the young trance fans hype to some proper, authentic, genuine, indisputable, legitimate, um, authoritative, uh... twenty-four carat...? Are you messing with me, Online Thesaurus?

Point being, I felt like a man on a mission in ye’ olde year of 2004, a strident, determined soul set upon the harsh environment of internet web forums filled with ‘noobs’. They were gonna’ learn some history, gosh darned it, understand that trance did not, in fact, begin with Tiësto’s In Search Of Sunrise or Armin’s A State Of Trance. Oliver Lieb is the don of this scene, sons and daughters, the Godfather, the King Kahuna, the Khan, the Czar, the Duke and Duchess, the potentate, the oligarch, the overlord, the, um, rex, uh... the ‘crowned head’? Dammit, Online Thesaurus, you suck sometimes, you really do.

Obviously, I was a fool in turning the L.S.G. discography into weapons for a trance jihad, even subtly hijacking a young, hopeful trance website for my own nefarious plans. I shouldn’t be forcing my interests and opinions down the ears, eyes, and throats of fresh fans of a genre because I feel their current heroes are pale imitations of the real deal. See, there I go again - believing my taste superior than theirs because I have better albums in my possession (you know it’s true!). I cannot deny it though: Rendezvous In Outer Space should be mandatory listening for anyone who fancies themselves a fan of the genre. Lieb helped lay down so much of the groundwork future producers would emulate, why deny the roots of a form of music one purports to love? I mean, any metal fan worth his rock-salt dutifully digests the works of Black Sabbath – L.S.G. deserves the same respect, yo’.

Okay, enough of that torch. For one thing, there’s nothing else to prove with this argument. Those who’ve stuck with trance in the ten years since eventually came around to ol’ Oliver’s music regardless. It’s kinda’ hard not to look to the past when the present kept turning to such crap, right? More than that though, I no longer see music as tools for crusades, quite content in enjoying it for my own reasons and sharing my thoughts with those who are willing to hear or read. Oh yeah, I’m totally turning into that old guy sitting on the park bench with Sennheiser headphones feeding the raving raccoons. What makes Rendezvous In Outer Space so peerless, they ask, and I tell them, I tell them I says, “Hear how Lieb uses percussion for maximum effect with minimal fuss? By g’ar, that’s some mighty fine trance beat craftsmanship there, the likes you don’t see any more, b’gosh.”

L.S.G. - Into Deep (Original TC Review)

Superstition: 1999

(2013 Update:
Woot! And finally, I now have a review of every single L.S.G. album on this blog. Except Best Of. And Unreleased. Hm, and that Hooj Choons Collected Works too. Okay, every official LP of L.S.G., and no, Unreleased is still sort-of un-official, at least to me. Give us a proper hard-copy version, Mr. Lieb, and then we'll talk.

I'm probably a little gushy in this review, but dammit, Into Deep just doesn't get the love it deserves. What does it take, huh?)

IN BRIEF: His best.

And then Oliver Lieb peaked.

Oh, I’m sure many out there could point to several different singles across several different aliases that are better than anything on here but in terms of full-length albums, the veteran trance producer has never been better than he was on Into Deep. It seemed, having purged any and all instinctive id with The Black Album, Lieb felt free to explore his meditative ego in this follow-up - it’s the logical musical yin to the previous yang. Or he’d been working on this material alongside the Black Series but never found a proper time and place to release it until after the fact. Who’s to say at this late stage?

Point of the matter is despite the release of Into Deep making artistic sense, it was nonetheless unexpected to hear the L.S.G. moniker taken down this road (though perhaps not nearly as shocking as The Black Album was). This is, after all, the alias of such classic trance cuts like Netherworld, Hearts, and Hidden Sun Of Venus (the trance version). Didn’t Lieb already have an alias for his downtempo stuff? (kinda, but who remembers ‘O.Lieb’?)

The thing that truly was astounding about Into Deep was in how, upon hearing it, folks’ perspective of Lieb changed. He’d garnered plenty of praise for years, yet could never quite shake the stigma of being regarded as “that really good trance producer”. Though many figured he was capable of it, no one really thought he’d actually go and make an album that could be held in the same regard as any of the best efforts from such ‘90s luminaries as The Future Sound Of London, The Orb, or Massive Attack. Yet he did.

For starters, this is one of the few instances you’ll find original lyrics of any sort on an Oliver Lieb album, here provided by one Cybéle de Silveria. Whether it’s to digitally-treated spoken dialog - Spanish for No Causalidad and El Tiburon, and English for Give Me Your Hand - or verses (I’m Not Existing), it adds a fresh angle to the L.S.G. moniker, bringing a proper human element to a project that was already well known for strong emotional music.

And it almost goes without saying, but the emotional punch of this album is of the highest quality. You have tender synthy soundscapes in Jillanity, Into Deep, and Give Me Your Hand; deeply meditative atmospherics in Concatenation, Tiburon Citriño, Quick Star, and I’m Not Existing; and riveting climaxes with El Tiburon, Phorus, and Westside. We’ve heard Lieb strike gold in this field several times, yet seldom with the same level of poignancy as he does here. The whole album ebbs and flows with these moving passages as only the greatest chill releases have. Remarkably, Lieb manages to blend the best of both electronic and organic textures together so they wonderfully complement each other, never compete. In almost all cases, producers have a difficult time accomplishing this, often letting either or overtake in prominence. The closest I’ve heard in recent years that hits this delicate balance comes from the Ultimae camps, but even they have a tendency to let the organic nature of their music take over. Into Deep amazingly stands tall and alone in how it sounds.

All this, and I still haven’t even gotten started on the rhythms. My God, the rhythms! Lieb’s always been excellent in this department but, again, he’d generally been constrained to the techno-trance side of things with tantalizing teases into other beats – breaks in Get Out from Volume Two, for instance, or something experimental like Fontana on Rendezvous In Outer Space and A Day On Our Planet as Spicelab. In producing a purposefully downtempo album, Lieb got to indulge himself with fresh patterns, time signatures, and effects, once again with remarkably stunning results. From steady heartbeat throbs that either pulse (Quick Star) or rumble (Phorus) to layered builds (El Tiburon and the dubbier Bengal Rose), Lieb gives us plenty of wonderful patterns that are just as effective in tapping into the primal recesses of your brain as anything else he’s done.

The two real highlights, though, have to be I’m Not Existing and Westside. The former, having been segued beautifully from the spacey tension-builder that is Quick Star, brings us some of Lieb’s grittiest beats ever, executed with trip-hop proficiency and supported by a disconcerting melody that would have Tricky approvingly bobbing his head along. Meanwhile, Westside, in being the album closer, opts for the pure positive vibe of communal chant, inviting you to clap in unison as the song plays out.

Into Deep is one of those rare albums that tends to occur only once in an artist’s career, if at all; where a musician will tap into the best of their inspiration and execute it with all the experience of a cagey veteran. Though Oliver Lieb successfully carried on, it was never to heights of what was offered here. Even the Best Of album, where he reworked a bunch of L.S.G. singles in the vein of Into Deep, wasn’t quite as good, as it lacked this album’s sublime narrative flow.

Despite bestowing this much praise on Lieb’s masterwork, there’s probably still a number of skeptics out there; after all, Into Deep is seldom namedropped when discussions of Best Electronic Chill Releases are brought up. I honestly don’t have an answer for this. Perhaps the trance association really was too much for folks unfamiliar with Lieb’s work to get over. Whatever the reason though, it’s their loss. Don’t let it be yours too.