ACE TRACKS: September 2013

Oh dear. Hockey Playoffs are about to start, and unlike these past two years, this one actually looks to be more fun for yours truly (so many teams I'm routing for!). It shouldn't impact my writing output that much, but if Vancouver, Winnipeg, Washington, Ottawa or Montreal make lengthy runs, I suspect many a drunken revelry shall be had upon victorious nights. But I'm sure you folks from across the seas and regions devoid of hockey rinks care not for this, so here's an ACE TRACKS playlist for the month of September 2013. *whew* Only one more year's worth of this backtracking to go...


Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
Faithless - If Lovin’ You Is Wrong
Carbon Based Lifeforms - Hydroponic Garden
Miguel Migs - Get Salted, Volume 1

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 27%
Percentage Of Rock: 2%
Most “WTF?” Track: Nothing in particular, but ICE MC’s definitely way out of place in this Playlist.

So much hip-hop in this month, yet only one instance of Wu-Tang Clan. Guess they felt naming an album with some variant of ‘ill’ was a played out cliché in rap slang – or allowed Nas ownage of the term forever after. Also, hope you’re a fan of ‘90s Juno Reactor. If not, I back-loaded most of the tunes anyway, so they wouldn’t dominate too much of the early sections of the runtime?

Overall, this one turned out pretty well, which I’d never thought possible with early BT, angry Ice Cube, spacey Petar Dundov, and bouncy Banco de Gaia all making appearances. Remarkable how well some tunes can flow together with just a couple suitable linkers between them. Or maybe my taste in music skews in specific ways no matter what genre or scene I pluck my tracks from.

ACE TRACKS: January 2015

What a bizarre month. There’s been a few in the past where one or two styles of music dominated a playlist, but never in the way this one turned out. Hope you like a lot of hip-hop. Wait, you do? Well, cool, but I hope you enjoy a bunch of psy-trance mixed in with that. Wait, you do? Who are you, some kind of weirdo? Oh, wait, that’s just my reflection in the monitor. Looks like a bit of yolk dripping off my nose at that. Well, here’s the ACE TRACKS of January 2015 in any event:



Full Track List Here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
John ‘00’ Fleming - Psy-Trance Euphoria 2
Various - Psychedelic Goa Trance
Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia - Psychick Rhythms Vol. 1
Various - Psychotrance 2001: D:Fuse
Various - Cosmic Funk
Various - Dub Selector
Amon Tobin - Piranha Breaks

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 25%
Percentage Of Rock : 10%
Most “WTF?” Track: The Statler Brothers - Flowers On The Wall (for its glorious ‘movie moment’, though it’s certainly an odd one here too)

You know who makes for surprisingly good bed fellows? Early Burial and early Nine Inch Nails! Or maybe in a playlist fighting for space in the crowds of Wu-Tang Clan and French psychedelia, they found common ground, comfort in their outsider status. But yeah, with a few extra inclusions of lengthy Neil Young rock and borderline EBM, this is a weird assortment of tunes. Whatever happened to the regular ol’ house and techno, eh? This playlist should be a hoot if you’re daring to wander outside those comfort zones.

Electro Sun - Pure Blue (2015 Update)

Trancelucent Productions: 2005

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

Before digging into updates regarding Electro Sun, I need to get this off my chest...

Dear God, has it ever taken forever getting through these last two letters! Right, officially the count's four months, and at least one week was eaten up by a technicality of Western languages. I look at the hard numbers though, and it doesn’t seem like I should only now be wrapping up the ‘P’s, yet here we are, eighty-four albums successfully navigated through and reviewed (sans the alphabetical back-track releases). You know what’s scary though? Eighty-four is still nowhere near the amount of albums I have starting with ‘S’ – that letter may eat up four months of this project alone. I guess I should be thankful that ‘P’ took some of the hit with all those ‘psy-whatever’ CDs. Ooh, can’t pass up a genre segueway like that now!

Yeah, I know, Electro Sun’s debut LP Pure Blue is only psy trance in the most liberal sense of the word. I even pointed that out in my original TranceCritic review, and I was just getting my feet wet with the nascent Israeli full-on movement. With plenty of time checking out more full-on since, I think his tunes fall under the micro-sub genre of Morning Trance, though only 7am will suffice for the track Sundance. Which one was that again? You know, the track with wibbly rhythm, the wubbly melodies, and the bouncy hook that sounds like acid filtered through a tin can. No, the other one that sounds like that. No, the- ah geez, not this snarky shit again.

Make no mistake, that “bland Stretch of Vanilla” doesn’t hold up in the slightest. Mr. Elkayam’s production comes off as plastic and cheap as any generic Israeli trance as you can stereotype, and sounds woefully dated a decade on. And yet, those few good tracks I liked before (I’ve Got The Power, In My Dream ...Super Nova, maybe) are simply irresistible to the cheddar centres sparking the lumps of grey matter inside my skull. There’s something just so cheerfully earnest about these tunes, I can’t hate on them no matter how much critical logic dictates I should. Damn these feels I have for silly, slap-happy psy.

As for ol’ Nadav, he’s kept a steady career since this album, releasing two more full-lengths, the latest of which coming out in 2011. Even more recently he’s gotten his fingers into the digital EP business, though Lord Discogs only lists two such offerings at this point. Whether he’s released more music than that, I haven’t a clue, nor do I care. Pure Blue was average at best, and while Electro Sun may have grown as a producer, he toed the divide between shameless fun and eye-rolling rubbish too closely for my liking. It wouldn’t take much for him to dive fully and completely into either side, but judging by the awful cover of his third album, Higher Than Ever, I can safely guess which way he went.

Various - Psychedelic Goa Trance

Omnisonus: 1996

Debates raged throughout the ‘90s over what differentiated goa trance from psychedelic trance. Was it identifiable melodies that defined goa? Out-and-out twisted acid noises that marked psy? I suppose so, though I suspect the terms that were finally settled upon came about for convenience’s sake. Something had to eventually be made sense of it all, and with new sub-genres like full-on and prog-psy emerging at the turn of the millennium, it was easier to go back to the older tunes and start categorizing them by their unique attributes. I mean, what were we supposed to do at the time, rely on label marketers? They only made things worse!

Take, for instance, this CD that I just so totally by chance am reviewing right now, Psychedelic Goa Trance, brought to us by yet another French label, Omnisonus. This print was broader in its electronic music promotion, releasing everything from Basic Techno to Hypno Techno, plus the future sound of Paris (whatever that was) and hardcore music that'd give you a fever, apparently. I jest, of course, but mark my words there were plenty of doe-eyed ravers believing these were actual genre names. And here we have psychedelic goa trance. Not just simple ol' goa, nor cutting edge psy, but a mesh of the two, offered to us when terms and classifications were an increasing clusterfuck. And here was I, only just venturing into the world of trance, picking this CD up because it looked weird and had a whole bunch of names on the back I was unfamiliar with. Ah, those exciting days when every compilation was a mystery.

Yeah, this was my first introduction to goa, or psy (whichever). I can’t say it immediately won me over, so radically different from the hard German stuff I enjoyed, it was. I probably couldn’t have lucked on a better primer though, as it has a solid assortment of names and tunes to its credit. There’s the lengthy psychedelic stuff with Etnica’s Party Droid and Witchcraft’s Whale, trippy fun cuts care of Total Eclipse’s Free Lemonade and Kox Box’ Fuel On, high octane acid trance like Indoor’s Dubull Click and Karmic Energies’ Bonobo, serious shit like Prana’s The Earth and Karmic Energies’ Born To Be Wild, awesome noisy acid bedlam like Trans-Lucid’s Flying Reindeer and Karmic Energies’ Equal & Surpass, and total tribal nonsense like Karmatic 767’s Kalashakra. So overall a nice mix of recognizable and obscure tracks, though obviously overkill in jamming in all three tracks off Karmic Energies’ Equal & Surpass EP. Mighty suspicious, that.

Omnisonus would release a second volume of Psychedelic Goa Trance the following year, which included recognizable names like The Delta, Technossomy, Man Made Man, and Tristan – also, two more Karmic Energies cuts (geez, Charles Rapeneau only ever released two singles under the alias). It doesn’t look as remarkable as the first compilation though, and even this one likely won’t impress seasoned goa veterans. Whatever, I still get a kick out it!

DJ Orphée - Psychedelic Goa Core 3

Javelin Ltd.: 1997

What's up with all these mid-'90s French psy trance labels? Did France have big enough of a goa scene that it could support dozens of compilations every month? Britain was big, sure, and Israel came to dominate in the new millennium, but I'm hard pressed to recall much press for the trippy side of acid trance as cultivated by Francophone folk. I'd never heard of this Javelin Ltd. print before, yet a quick peruse of its Lord Discogs data reveals nearly one-hundred CDs of various trance musics, much of which on the psychedelic trip, all released in a brief window within ‘95 through '97. Some of it was domestic distributions for larger albums like Juno Reactor’s Beyond The Infinite, Total Eclipse’s Delta Aquarids, and Etnica’s Alien Protein, but for the most part they flooded the market with compilations. And that's just one label out of at least a half-dozen I'm somewhat familiar with, yet nary a soul brings them up anymore. Damn disco and house producers stole all the spotlights, that's what happened I wager.

Psychedelic Goa Core was one of many compilations series Javelin put out, headed by one DJ Orphée, as much a mystery to Lord Discogs as most goa DJs of the ‘90s are. Going by this third volume, the emphasis was on the harder, deeper side of the genre, reflecting a gradual shift from goa’s earlier melodic side to the minimalist ‘psy-tekk’ style that most producers adopted at the turn of the century. Hell, a few names on this track list were almost solely responsible for it: Nervasystem, Tristan and Process, though the latter two with individual tracks rather than their collaborations. Lesser known names on Psychedelic Goa Core 3 that go this route include Noosphere, Doda, Germinating Seeds Of Doda (yes, it’s the same duo, but with additional convoluted nonsense in their name) and Growling Mad Synchro. Hey, I know this one, they were on that Goa Spirit 3 CD I reviewed from way back. Wait, how come I’ve two instances of only have the third volume of two long-forgotten ‘90s psy trance compilations? They both even have yellow as their colour themes. Damn, it can’t be a random coincidence, there must be a connection! Send your theories to sykonee@crackpotpsytranceconnections.goa.

Okay, bitchin’ time. Psychedelic Goa Core 3 is in fact a DJ mix, a format for ‘90s psy trance I’ve seldom heard good examples of, and this is no exception. I’ll grant the music was never the most mix friendly form out there, but that’s all the more reason sticking with traditional track showcase collections was superior. Tunes like Man Made Man’s Drama and Electric Universe’s Technologic are busy enough, we don’t need forced attempts at beat-matching incompatible drum kicks gumming things up further.

As a mix though, Psychedelic Goa Core 3 is fine enough, mostly sticking to the hard, minimalist stuff for the first half before unleashing a few high-energy space acid squawkers for the end. I’ll never tire of that trippy Indian scale!

John '00' Fleming - Psy-Trance Euphoria 2 (Original TC Review)

Ministry Of Sound: 2009

(2015 Update:
Not as good as I remember, and that's before I get into the music itself. There's a lot of 'short-hand' writing in this review, understandable since I wrote this late into TranceCritic's run and most of the website's readers were regulars by that point. It doesn't make for a comprehensive read as is though, even after doing a few edits so it's not quite so clunky. Some of the information regarding John Fleming's previous output isn't terribly accurate either, as his Euphoria mixes did much better than I gave them credit for. Maybe I should have actually listened to the damn things before saying anything about them, eh?

As for Fleming, he's kinda' moved on from this style of trance, unsurprising since there's more options for high-energy club music now than psy. Honestly, I didn't get into this as much as I did when I first listened to it, though I suspect it's all due to context. The regular ol' trance we were reviewing was mostly balls, and Psy-Trance Euphoria 2 was like a breath of fresh air, presented to us from a guy with much of the same sentiments regarding that scene. With much better alternatives of late however, three CDs of the stuff just grows tedious. I still have soft spots for a few tracks on here, but the enthusiasm I had half a decade hence has definitely dwindled.)


IN BRIEF: Are you psy-curious?

…And finally, we get to Fleming. Yes, we know it’s been a long time coming. If anyone deserves recognition here at TranceCritic, it’s good ol’ ‘00’.

His career has seen several hurdles (the most prominent being surviving a battle with lung cancer), but ever so gradually he’s kept on a continuous climb. After DJing in relative obscurity throughout most of the 90s, Fleming got his break at the turn of the century when he was tapped to help put together various Euphoria and Godskitchen compilations. Unfortunately, these releases didn’t do much to stand out from the glut, as many of them recycled the same prog trance hits available everywhere else. Despite this, he still managed to develop a larger audience and fanbase.

Then, in a move that probably seemed like career suicide at the time, Fleming abandoned the mainstream aspects of trance music and started pushing psy instead. Or perhaps it wasn’t such a silly notion to do so after all. He’d gone on record numerous times regarding his growing dissatisfaction the direction trance music was going, feeling it was abandoning the communal free-for-all party ethos the early goa scenes enjoyed in favor of superstar pop concerts dedicated to a guy who played other people’s records. Seeing as how Fleming’s brush with death put him on a path that lead him to always follow his passion, a jump to the psy scene does make sense, even if it lessened his exposure.

Still, with good intentions brought more underground respect and Fleming’s brand of accessible psy garnered a steadily growing fanbase of equally disillusioned trance fans. As the Tiestin van Schulzenyonds of the world continued to disappoint with trite pop efforts, those looking for trance music that’s entrancing found a hero in Fleming. The Worthing native hasn’t disappointed yet.

Which brings us to Psy Trance Euphoria, one of the most unlikely mainstream compilations you’d have ever guessed being made. Seriously, when was the last time psy had this kind of exposure? There was Christopher Lawrence’s Live In Moscow a couple years back, but that was more about cashing in on Lawrence’s popularity than exposing the music he played. It grows increasingly sketchy the further back you go; DJ Brian’s Hardesertrance series had some respectable promotion in the States at the turn of the century, and you might have found the odd track in a Global Underground release; however, we’d have to go as far into the past as Paul Oakenfold’s Perfecto Fluoro to find any real mainstream acceptance of the genre. Even looking at this release, you can’t help but figure Ministry Of Sound is banking on Euphoria brand recognition rather than daring to dive into a fringe scene like psy. Ahh, it doesn’t matter – the music’s too awesome to worry over insidious corporate agendas.

Yes, the music here is awesome. Very awesome. You’ve got all the heavy hitters: Vibrasphere, Astral Projection, Ticon, Astrix, Wizzy Noise, Human Blue… Wait, there’s more. Ovnimoon, Ace Ventura, Perfect Stranger, 00.db (Fleming and Digital Blonde), U-Recken, Chakra, Sub6, Zen Mechanics, Infected Mushroom, Push… (Push…?) If few of these names are familiar to you, then get ready for a crash-course in why many of them have been earning plenty of underground plaudits. Heck, the first CD alone would almost be worth the price of admission, were the whole release not saddled with a (reasonable) 3-disc price tag.

Progressive Psy provides exactly what it advertises, although with more emphasis on the ‘progressive’ than the ‘psy’. Really, it’s picking things up where prog trance left off near the turn of the century – ample amounts of good groove, brilliant touches of melody, and plenty of sonic space so the tracks never drown in over-production. The only dip in quality comes from Chernikov’s Kerudu, which unfortunately sounds underpowered and out of place coming off a string of excellence from Perfect Stranger, Ticon, and Vibrasphere. Once prog psy veteran Human Blue comes along though, the set rebounds and finishes out with class.

The other two discs [one titled Deep ‘N Serious, the other The Fun Stuff!! (Full On)] are quite similar, though one’s more gusto than the other -the titles alone should be a clue which. The momentum of both is mostly go-go-go, with some tracks offering welcome brief lulls during the course of their playing time. Whenever it feels like the energy starts laggging, Fleming drops a track that cranks it right back up; gander at the transition from The Return to Insomnia’s 24/7 for a prime example –‘!!’ indeed. I’ll grant the lack of stylistic variation will be a turn-off for some (all psy, all the time!), but unlike other sets which lay out samey track after samey track, it works here thanks to the busy nature of the music. There’s always something new going on, and fortunately there’s enough differences between each producer that it seldom sounds like you’re hearing the same thing over and over, a common complaint where psy albums are concerned.

Though minor, the only quibble with discs two and three is the manner which they are wrapped up – considering how energetic the music’s been, it’s disappointing they finish rather limply. Actually, it isn’t so much that Deep ‘N Serious ends poorly, you’d just expect a track titled Strange World (Astral Projection Remix) wouldn’t be so ho-hum. And yes, I realize Infected Mushroom are huge stars, but Becoming Insane seems to only highlight just how awful their metal leanings sound. Why even tag such a corny track at the end, as a silly joke to end CD3? Hmm… if Fleming did intend it as a piss-take, then it worked brilliantly!

I’m sure there are a number of psy trance veterans who feel I’m being far too positive with this release. After all, there’s little innovation to be had and the producers in his track list are rather safe – he hasn’t dug terribly deep into the scene to unearth some truly unique and twisted offerings from the genre. Well, that’s because Psy Trance Euphoria 2 isn’t exactly for the vets, now is it. This is a Ministry Of Sound compilation and, in case those TV advertisements weren’t a dead giveaway, it has a broader audience in mind.

Yet, this isn’t simply a cash-grab to milk the psy-curious either (!!). Fleming also made this just as much a showcase of what the genre has to offer, and compiled three strong convincing sets of psy to reassure the disgruntled trance fan that, yes, there is more out there than what Black-Armada-Beats provides, and it kicks a whole lot more ass in the process. I’d call that success any day.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2009. © All rights reserved.

Psycoholic - Parallel Universe

Psy Spy Records: 2010

Why is it that every time I kick off a new letter now, it’s with something ridiculously obscure? ‘O’ had Wyatt Keusch’s Object-Relations, ‘N’ featured Dub Trees’ Nature Never Did Betray The Heart That Loved Her; ‘M’ was a little better with Macro Dub Infection, Volume 1 (can anything released by Virgin be rare?), but who’d have ever heard of Cheb I Sabbah’s La Kahena? You’d have to go all the way back to the ‘I’s for something everyone should have heard about (it’s an Aphex Twin album).

However, let me turn your attention back to the album that began my run through ‘G’, Aquila’s Gain Control. It was a free full-on psy trance album downloaded from Ektoplazm, and not a terribly remarkable one at that. I only bring it up because, coincidentally, our journey through ‘P’ begins with another free full-on psy trance album that I downloaded from Ektoplazm, Psycoholic’s Parallel Universe. And… if you look at some alphabet charts, ‘G’ is above ‘P’. Additionally, if you were to replace the letters by their sequenced number, ‘G’ is ‘7’, ‘P’ is ‘16’, which can be divided by ‘2’, giving us ‘8’. ‘8’ follows ‘7’, which means ‘G’ precedes half of ‘P’, and Boards Of Canada’s album Geogaddi starts with the letter ‘G’, which means… which means…

Which means I’ve wasted enough word count on this nonsense. Yeah, sorry about that, but sometimes my brain gets caught in feedback loops of silliness, wondering where it might take me once I’ve stepped onto that path. I could go on and on if I didn’t have a psy trance album I should be reviewing instead. So what information can I dig up on this Psycoholic chap… Uh huh, uh huh, is Russian, real name Mikhail Fedosov, released another album prior to this one called (*shudder*) Trance World Over, hasn’t released much since this one, though carries on a psy trance compilation series titled Psytrance Open Air. That’s about all Lord Discogs provides me on this front.

As should be abundantly clear by now, I’ve little to discuss regarding Parallel Universe. It’s certainly a fine collection of full-on psy, Mr. Fedosov’s production beefier than most acts I’ve come across in this genre. He’s also unafraid of getting his melodic trance on, some tracks sounding like psy coverings of classics of that scene, though more subtle about it than Alien Project’s blatant rip-offs were. Sevgilim could have been a proper Dutch anthem, Light Years Ahead has a charming melodic line to go with its ‘buttrock’ goa guitars, Alfaville has to have found inspiration from the Balearic trance branch, Kuzlaring features ethereal vocals (!), and We Will Make You Happy… ooh, I’m getting a bit of that vintage German trance vibe on this one. Minor key melodies and evil dialog samples for the win!

Parallel Universe has just enough cleverness going for it to check it if you need a little more full-on psy in your life, but won’t win you over otherwise.

Various - Massive Passive (Original TC Review)

Tactic Records: 2007

(2014 Update:
I can't believe this CD's from the year 2007. For some reason, I had it in the back of my head it was at least a couple years younger, maybe late-'08 at best. Then again, I was still willing to give full-on psy some chances that year, so perhaps this was the final nail in the coffin for yours truly, where I simply gave up on Israeli psy save for the occasional recommendation from Ektoplazm. That reminds me, I should check that website out sometime soon. Maybe the music's gotten a bit better now that we don't have as many overnight start-up labels clogging the works. ...we don't anymore, do we?

Speaking of, Tactic Records did hold on for a couple years, folding after about a half-dozen releases (so sayeth Lord Discogs). Yep, about how it went for most Israeli psy start-ups last decade. Oh well, at least I wrote an unique review out of this mess. Can you tell I'd gone back to college at the time?)


IN BRIEF: Israeli Trance Compilation #3187...

One of the largest complaints surrounding Israeli psy trance is a lot of it tends to be samey sounding from artist to artist. You’d think a scene that annually offers dozens of new names, albums, and labels would create plenty of diversity over the years, yet enduring highlights remain few. The generally homogeneous execution of it all has to be the reason of something thus far hidden from the public eye; they can’t ALL be this creatively lacking by accident, can they? Although I have no proof of its existence, my suspicions are centered around what must be the Israeli Psy Trance School (IPTS).

There aren’t many courses at IPTS, but they will teach you everything you need to know about breaking into the Israeli scene. They include:

Israeli Trance 101: Learn how to produce your standard psy trance track. Your instructor will guide you in a step-by-step process of how to arrange your track, from the rambly intro sections to the trippy middle sections, and finally with the full-on synthy finish. Stock psy sounds are provided in your music making computer program, including chunky acid, spacey pads, rubbery basslines, and faux-thrashy guitars.

Israeli Trance 201: For advanced students, this course will teach you where to find contemporary movie samples, how to inject a little funk into your music, implant hidden trippy messages for stoners to discover, and maintain your interest in the scene after your sophomore slump. Innovative hooks are required for a Major.

Label Management 101: It’s not enough to be a producer, but you also need a label to distribute your tunes too. But what if no one accepts them? Then perhaps you should enter the exciting realm of DIY management! After completion, you’ll be able to do the following with ease:
-Snag a roster of new graduates from the Israeli Trance 101 course
-Entice a couple graduates from Israeli Trance 201 to give your label some potential class
-Use your label’s compilations as promotion for your artists’ new albums
-Steal away new computer art students to give your releases that extra psychedelic edge

Label Management 105 (Compilations): You have a label, but you need compilations to help promote your artists. This two-month course offers tricks of the trade to make your compiling methods easier. How to get a scene veteran to offer a new track to attract the old school, inclusion of at least one exclusive killer cut that makes your compilation a must-have for trainspotters, borrowing of other label artists, ample advertising of your roster through collaborations or remixes, and much more!

If such a school does exist, then Leon Gossler (aka: Tactic Mind) appears to be yet another graduate from it. Massive Passive is the debut compilation from his new label Tactic Records, and checks off everything you need to get a start-up in Israeli psy. Familiar faces Bizarre Contact and Ultravoice are present but mostly we find fresh faces here. The scene veteran could very well be Ultravoice as well, as he’s had releases since 2003. And sure enough Toxical’s debut album was Tactic's follow-up a mere month later.

Musically, it’s pretty much Israeli psy by-the-numbers. There are a couple better-than-average moments to be had - the peaks of Be Yourself and Flaming are solid, and Hot Leads is suitably trancey throughout - but innovation is severely lacking. In fact, some of the hooks are downright embarrassing to hear - the peaks in Ultrabizzy and Insomnia’s Computer Land are especially hilariously bad. And could Toxical have sampled something a little less obvious from The Fifth Element on Cosmic Radio? Guess not everyone managed to pass Israeli Trance 201 on this roster.

Oh, and that “one exclusive killer cut”? Look no further than Unique’s Hug & Roll, a surprisingly funky slice of psy with faux-guitar licks that aren’t corny and bouncy energy to spare. I was almost ready to start singing “Everything, everything...” along to it. Fun stuffs.

As for the rest of Massive Passive, you can throw it on and be reasonably entertained for portions of its playing time, but there’s very little to distinguish it from the hundreds of other Israeli trance compilations out there. While it’s still too early to tell whether Tactic Records will just be yet another victim of this scene’s super-high turnover ratio, a lackluster debut doesn’t do much to help make an impression in a sea of wibbly glut.

Infected Mushroom - Legend Of The Black Shawarma (Original TC Review)

Perfecto: 2009

(2014 Update:
For a late-period Infected Mushroom album, this has held up surprisingly well. Too much of their work instantly dates, whether it be doing crap nu-metal years after that scene died, or jumping on the brostep bandwagon like everyone else. Since they went for more an industrial sound here, though, it doesn't come off so tired. Something about industrial has allowed the genre to endure far longer than anyone would have believed, and while Infected Mushroom's offerings wouldn't have Trent Reznor quivering anytime soon, it's at least respectable enough takes on the sound. Or maybe I'm just showing '90s bias.

This definitely was an odd time for the group, getting picked up by Oakenfold's Perfecto print while suddenly finding themselves rubbing shoulders with trance-cracker jocks at the top of popularity polls. They've since plummeted and are no longer on Perfecto, so who knows what the future holds for Infected Mushroom. Maybe full-on garage rock?)


IN BRIEF: Back in the right direction.

Someone must have sent Infected Mushroom a memo informing them that nu-metal and that entire ilk was a dead genre, something that grew out of favor when all the teenagers that listened to it earlier this decade came of age. Sure, it’s a shame the group didn’t actually read the damn thing until after Vicious Delicious was released, but at least they have read it now. Their latest album, Legend Of The Black Shawarma, thankfully sees a lack of rap-metal leanings, power ballads, and, most thankfully, Amit Duvdevani hilariously awful attempts at gravel-throated earnest singing (even the mock singing in those Creed Shreds vids on YouTube are better). Oh, there are still problems to be had with this album, but IM have at least abandoned the worst bits of their last one. In the process, they’ve also managed to refine some of the things that did work, and the group comes off far more musically taught than they have in while. In a nutshell, they seem to mostly be done exploring, and are now solely focused on execution.

Cause for celebration, right? Perhaps. If you’ve stuck with them through their last couple albums, it certainly is, and definitely so if you’ve only just recently discovered Infected Mushroom. Of course, you’ll still find an army of IM old-schoolers who’ve written this album off as a continued degradation of the psy trance scene, but Infected Mushroom are quite removed from it at this point. Sure, they still retain a few instances of the music, but this album aims for a different audience than crusty hippies and cyber-trippers. And by ditching much of the teenager angst that permeated Vicious Delicious, it seems they’re after a more mature audience as well.

Or maybe not. The CD opens with a guest acoustic strum by Everlast, suggesting the duo ha

The CD opens with a bit of acoustic strumming that reminds me of Everlast, but quickly turns to chugging metal guitars, faux-funk breaks, a bit of psy wibble, a few wordly trappings, and, um… not much else. Poquito Mas is hardly much of a song, sounding more like a mish-mash of ideas IM are preparing you to hear once the album properly gets underway. Rather pointless, to be honest, even if it’s meant to be an intro.

From there, the album unfolds quite entertainingly. You have catchy EBM tunes like Sa’eed and Smashing The Opponent, blinding buttrock goa with Can’t Stop and Herbert The Pervert (now there’s some effective use of their guitars!), and even a credible ballad with Killing Time (having long-time alt-rock favorite Perry Farrell on vocal duties here certainly helps). Elsewhere, ‘Duvdev’ does carry on with the vocal duties, but his voice is fed through so many effects, it actually helps enhance the tracks.

The only real duff track in the opening half is End Of The Road, which seems to be a woeful attempt on IM’s part to do a ‘minimal’ track - that is, a whole bunch of aimless, tuneless dull beats and sounds, with a couple instances of false-climaxes (here’s the build, but forget about a payoff); it does come correct with a typical psy ending, but the lead up is pure toss.

That’s the first half done. The second half of Legend Of The Black Sha-Na-Na sees IM get their concept on; in other words, having satisfied the masses with catchy tunes, Erez and Amit are now ready to get prog rock/metal on our asses. In terms of ambition, the triple-dose of Project 100, Franks, and Slowly can’t be faulted, as there’s quite a bit going on between these three tracks; however, as a listening experience, it wanders aimlessly too much.

Changes in tone, abrupt shifts in time signature, overcooked effects, and just plain dull stretches dilute the great moments to be had. For instance, there’s an excellent burst of strong harmonizing between the psy effects and chugging guitars at the climax of Project 100, but the song needlessly carries on afterwards with dull faux-funk. Meanwhile, Franks and Slowly wander all over the place more so than Israeli psy often does, never seeming to come together as a solid musical outing. If you skip through a track by a few minutes at any given point, it sounds like you’re listening to an entirely different song, and trust me there isn’t much to bridge these disparate sections in a convincing fashion. Any island of quality is thusly lost in a sea of mediocre wibble. For every winning wailing guitar peak, there’s a pointless dinky bloop-bloop bit elsewhere (I’m looking at you, Slowly).

The trouble is then multiplied by just how plastic it all sounds. Granted, Infected Mushroom have long had that aesthetic about them, but it served them well when they were dishing out typical full-on psy (or, in the case of Legend Of The Black Shamwow ’s first half, EBM). In attempting complex prog structures, however, they’re shooting for bold musical statements that can’t be done justice with the hollow sonics they use.

After all that, it makes the titular track a welcome, fun return to the material that worked in the first half of Legend Of The Black Shangri-La. As much as it may infuriate long-time IM fans, the duo seems to have found a comfortable niche in being more of an EBM group than a psy-trance one - they definitely show more aptitude for writing such music than they do in overly-ambitious prog. (by the way, the remix of Riders On The Storm is a love-it/leave-it affair; it’s serviceable, though hardly surprising if you’re at all familiar with IM’s sound)

Legend Of The Black Shawarma is not without its faults, but it is a step in the right direction again. Even if the album is split between catchy cuts and overcooked ambition, the gulf between the two isn’t nearly as pronounced as the split between full-on psy and rap-metal was on Vicious Delicious. You may want to give this a few listens over before making a firm purchasing decision, but it remains one of Infected Mushroom’s better albums in some time.

Juno Reactor - Labyrinth

Metropolis: 2004

Labyrinth feels like the culmination of years of experimentation coming together, talent finally reaching the vision Juno Reactor saw possible (holy shit, what a pretentious way to open a review...). There were early glimmers of Ben Watkins breaking his project out from bog-standard psy trappings, but it wasn't until Shango where he took his first proper risky steps. It was regarded as... well, I'll get to that eventually. It must have given Watkins a strong shot of confidence though, as Labyrinth goes full bore outside the psy comfort zone as anyone could get.

Right, so part of that was likely getting more soundtrack opportunities, and the success of The Matrix franchise didn’t hurt in giving Juno Reactor more exposure (not to mention greenbacks). It got Watkins thinking bigger and bolder while putting together Labyrinth, as there’s quite a cinematic tone to the whole album. The opening salvo of Conquistador I & II may as well be your first act – the former dark, quiet and moody as the atmosphere of some desolate Spanish landscapes reveals itself, the latter erupting into a big action set piece with those galloping beats, tribal drums, and snarling lyrics (Danny Trejo stars). It’s basically what the opening two cuts off Shango would sound like if they sexed it up and downed LSD-soaked tequila afterwards. Awesome!

The rest of Labyrinth plays out in similar fashion, tracks jamming various genres into a blender, and everything coming out tasty. Want a little more thrash in your Juno? Try Giant, but stay for the operatic vocals too. Still hanker for the old psy? Mona Lisa Overdrive’s got you covered, but with more tribal fusion than you got on Bible Of Dreams. One of the few folks that found Watkins’ best ever single was Pistolero? Here’s War Dogs for your fix, now with backing orchestra! Prefer the mellow moments on prior albums? The one-two soft-punch of Mutant Message and Angels And Men should serve you fine, though the former uses its calm as a prelude to a musical eruption mid-song.

All this is fine and dandy, but everyone knows you save your best for the climax at the end, and Navaras serves as a perfect capper to Labyrinth. Apocalyptic choir, piercing industrial synths and beats, orchestral swells, tribal chants, and a meditative breather in the middle before erupting with the bedlam at the end again. Wait, how am I fighting the final boss of a Final Fantasy game all of a sudden here?

I can see why Mr. Watkins felt compelled to explore ever further deviations from the psy sound he grew popular with on Gods & Monsters - how could he top Labyrinth? Whether it’s the best Juno Reactor album remains open to discussion, as many still prefer the older sound to the genre exploration found in the post-Shango albums, which admittedly continues to be hit or miss. Labyrinth finds the mark about as close to flawless as he’s gotten though, and is definitely worth your time and pennies.

Juno Reactor - Bible Of Dreams

Blue Room Released/Metropolis: 1997/2008

First, some well-deserved props to Metropolis for reissuing all the Juno Reactor albums released prior to the band joining their label. It couldn’t have been easy gathering up the rights to them, as Ben Watkins’ group saw distribution across several labels in several countries throughout the ‘90s. That said, I cannot deny some disappointment with the reissue of Bible Of Dreams. I never had an original copy myself, but a couple friends did, and the combination of a slick digipak (back when they weren’t as common) with modified Renaissance artwork in the booklet gave the album a degree of class few psy-leaning CDs of the day could compete with. Well, the booklet remains for the reissue, but comes within a boring old jewel case now. Poor form, Metropolis. This is a classic, treat it as such, eh?

Actually, Bible Of Dreams isn’t quite the classic many make it out to be. For sure it's another strong album in the Juno Reactor legacy, arguably even their best from front to back. A critical release within electronic music as a whole, however, is debatable. My impression's long been it was an LP that happened to drop at the right time, and got noticed by a wider audience thanks in large part to their signing with TVT Records for Stateside distribution. TVT also had a lucrative deal with Hollywood, licensing out music for all sorts of action movies (hence why so many of them featured industrial acts from their roster). This greater exposure rescued Juno Reactor from psy trance obscurity, and with tracks like Conga Fury and God Is God leading the way, drew in a ton of new fans who'd never have given them a second thought. “Holy shit, dude, there's music like this being made out there!?” Yeah, you silly metalhead, it's been around for years.

Wait, scratch that. Bible Of Dreams did have fresh sounds on it when the album first dropped in '97. For sure there's some regular ol' psy in the latter half of the CD, but Juno Reactor almost sounds bored with these tunes, like they're going through the motions or were left-overs from previous work. No, Bible Of Dreams made its impact within the psy scene with its opening salvo, showcasing a radical change of musicianship for Ben Watkins' band that none foresaw coming (orchestral swells, in goa trance!?).

Opener Jardin de Cecile is blissy but brisk, almost progressive trance; God Is God is practically world beat with an evil, industrial bent; Komit finds something of a meeting ground between Watkins’ forward outlook and goa of old; and Swamp Thing predicts prog psy’s techier moments a decade early (gotta have those triplets!). Oh, and tribal beats. Especially tribal beats. Lots of tribal beats. This is Watkins tapping into the primitive parts of your brain, giving all who ventured into this album – hippie and metalhead alike – something unexpected and unforgettable. He definitely succeeded in that regard, as Juno Reactor’s star flew ever higher after this one.

Juno Reactor - Beyond The Infinite

Blue Room Released/Metropolis: 1995/2008

Fortunately for me, I didn't have to spend much time getting re-caught up on Juno Reactor's discography before hitting Beyond The Infinite, as the group had released only one standard LP prior, Transmissions (does Luciana count as a proper album?). Then it’s off to Bible Of Dreams right after this, and my ‘90s Juno resuscitation will be complete. Ironically, Beyond and Bible come one after the other in my collection’s alphabetical order, so it’s almost like I’ve gone back to the ‘B’s again!

Beyond The Infinite finds the band Ben Watkins built further refining the psy trance sound they helped popularize on their debut. What had once been a quirky trance offshoot music journalists struggled to identify (“goa techno”, really?) had now turned into a full-blooded scene with major names, labels, and parties blowing the doors of possibility open. Blue Room was among the early UK adopters specializing in the sound, and their manifesto lured in all the hot acts: Kox Box, Etnica, Total Eclipse, and, of course, Juno Reactor. There was something different going on with Watkins' group though, their industrial roots lending less of an India-on-acid tone to their tunes in favour of straight-ahead thrashing, spacey numbers.

It'd still be a few years before the group truly started exploring the potential of genre experimentation though, but we find hints of it in Beyond The Infinite. Cut Samurai throws in woodwinds and bit of Japanese dialogue, Rotorblade is practically a precursor to all the 'buttrock goa' the likes of S.U.N. Project would fully indulge in (to say nothing of the proper rock elements Juno Reactor would eventually do themselves), and Magnetic started their short-term trend of heavy tribal beats on the second album track (Conga Fury and Hule Lam on following albums; or was that just a coincidence?).

The rest of the album falls more in line with psy trance’s style, though still retains that Juno Reactor aesthetic. You know the one: somewhat flat, as though, no matter how hard they try, the band just can’t shake those EBM sonics. Hey, it gave them an identity, but it's honestly a sound quality not for everyone, especially if you prefer your psy filled with chunky acid galore. If it’s not a problem though, there’s a decent amount of stylistic variety on Beyond The Infinite: blistering cuts like Guardian Angel, Feel The Universe, and Mars (ooh, voice pads, like German trance – no wonder Hypnotic initially picked up Stateside distribution!), or slower number like Ice Cube and Silver.

Long time Juno Reactor followers tend to remain divided over which is the group’s ultimate best album, but for those who prefer and continue to long for their straight-forward psy sound (holy cow, guys, let it go, Watkins ain’t going back to it), Beyond The Infinite is about as good as it gets. It hits hard when it needs to, takes time to ease off the reigns for a breather, and not a duff cut in the lot.

Earthling - Hypernature (Original TC Review)

Neurobiotic Records: 2008

(2013 Update:
Another CD that sounds better than I recall, at least on a superficial level. There wasn't anything on here that I actively disliked this time around (though some of the drug references remain childish), making me wonder why I gave Hypernature such a snarky, middling score in the first place. Maybe I was just cranky? It was the middle of the winter when I wrote it, and Lord knows that's affected impressions on more than one occasion. Oh yeah, I'd totally suck as a 'professional' music journalist, what with letting emotions and subjectivity getting in the way and all.

However, once the album ended, I remembered why Earthling's sophomore effort left me underwhelmed: nothing stuck in my head, the same frustrating problem I had with it before. Maybe that's why liked this a little more now - I'd totally forgotten anything about it.)


IN BRIEF: Cool cover.

I have a confession to make: I’m easily drawn towards psy trance covers. Sure, they can be ridiculously overcooked and busy at times, but there’s something about the combination of computer artwork, fucked-up concepts, and pure psychedelia I find difficult to resist. Maybe it’s my fruitful imagination that’s to blame, intrigued by the out-wordly bizarreness of these covers. Whatever the reason, it was one of the things that got me into trance when many compilations from the 90s had similar themes, and it’s a bit sad that generally only the field of psy continues to over-indulge in fractals and such.

More than that, though, I often figure imaginative, creative covers will provide imaginative, creative music from the CD inside. You would think after being burned on numerous occasions over the years I’d have learnt my lesson by now. But nay, I still peruse psy trance albums, find something with a really funky cover, and come away underwhelmed time and time again. *sigh*

Italian Celli Firmi has been DJing psy trance around the Mediterranean (mostly Ibiza) for over a decade, but earlier in this decade he released an album as Earthling called Patterns to minor fanfare; some enjoyed it, some found it boring, but, having read this far, most have only just now discovered he even had an album called Patterns (and probably also that there’s a guy named Celli Firmi who produces as Earthling). Firmi’s mostly appeared in collaborations since, but this past year he decided to release a follow-up titled Hypernature. After listening to this, I figure more effort was put into the cover than the music.

Okay, that’s unfair. I’m sure Frimi put a good amount of effort into his album – after nearly eight years since the last one, why wouldn’t he? When the results are this dull and generic, however, one can’t help but wonder what even the point was.

Seriously, it took nearly half-a-dozen listens of Hypernature for anything beyond stock psy sounds to sink in, and even then I had to resort to alternative methods. No, not that kind of alternative method – I’m talking about something else entirely different. Instead of playing the album from beginning to end as usual, I hit the Random button on my player, then jot down notes beside a track number should it crop up. Lo and behold, it actually worked! I could finally remember which track had the “TV brain” sample, and which one had the “open eyes” sample; which one had “some moments with a rubber hook”, and which one had the extra amount of “superfluous rips, zips, and zaps”; which one had the “dull twiddle”, and which one had “some acid chunk”; which one had a “slight bass change”, and which one was “slightly groovy”. And so on.

Actually, there were a few things that did catch my attention even on the initial play-throughs. The tracks that bookend Hypernature - Beans Of Light and Lost In Trance-Nation - stand out from the rest because they have actual solid hooks in them; however, they are unfortunately undone by silly ‘taking drugs is cool, kids!’ vocal samples. Also, there was one cut on here that makes use of a mid-track tempo change – which one was it again? (checks notes) Ah, right, number six (Get In The Chopper); not that anything comes of it - this gimmick has been used in psy for ages, and often executed with far more brilliance than here - but after listening to standard full-on rhythms for much of the album, any variation stands out.

That’s the primary problem with Hypernature though: everything on here has been done before, and done far better. The rhythms may have energy, but are generally as generic as psy gets; there’s plenty of synth tweaks and burps scattered about to make the music appear busy and complicated, but for the most part is merely fluff; the standard psy arrangements either wibble about or piddle out with anti-climatic finishes. Some might argue that Firmi wanted to make a ‘deep’ record, so of course things won’t leap out; it’s designed to be head-fuck music, or some-such. Fine if such is the case, but when one Olien track can fuck with my head more than a whole album’s worth of Earthling tracks – and be a memorable experience in the process - I’m going to go with the sure-thing.

Yet Hypernature isn’t an awful album either; there isn’t anything here that made me cringe or bury my head in shame. For all intents, were I to hear a track from here while at a party, I’d probably continue to bounce along to the beat. Granted, I doubt I’d recall what had just played once it was finished, but nor would I have an overwhelming urge to leave the dancefloor. If anything, these could make for fine transitional tracks.

And that right there explains why Firmi’s second is the dull, unremarkable listening experience that it is. It’s an album full of set pieces, of transitional tracks. There are plenty of brief possibilities and almost-hooks, but you always get the sense that it’s leading to something more engaging, more memorable -perhaps in a DJ set this would be so. Alas, it is not the case on the album called Hypernature.

Juno Reactor - Hotaka

Metropolis: 2002

Juno Reactor was already popular within the psy trance community by the turn of the century, but as the new millennium took form, something must have happened in Japan, as Ben Watkins’ music found an even wider audience in the Far East country; at least I assume, given how many live CDs and DVDs they’ve released of concerts there. So big, in fact, that while the Reactor project was between albums, he released this EP titled Hotaka, a major tune for the Hotaka Mountain Festival where Juno Reactor performed the year prior. What else could it be for?

The track itself is quite the mish-mash of musical heritage. Taiko drums and Japanese vocalizations are obviously a bit part of the tune, but as we're still in that 'spaghetti Western' portion of Watkins' career, the thrashy guitar riffage is accounted for as well; and, of course, those pseudo-EBM rhythms that's long been a Juno Reactor trademark. I guess if the first half of the album Shango didn't do much for you, neither will Hotaka, as the tune's firmly moved on from all those early psy trance vibes many were introduced to the Reactor. Heck, it doesn't even have that 'buttrock goa' thing going for it, so finely produced it is.

Juno Reactor had a decade-deep discography by the time Hotaka came out, but very few singles to their name, as their main strength lay in the album format. That trend continued here, with a pointless Radio Edit and two remixes included with the main track. As for the re-rubs, there's some discrepancy. They're credited to Thomas Heckmann and Der Dritte Raum on the CD, but Lord Discogs states otherwise, the “Heckmann” remix done by Kloq, and the “Raum” one by Juno Reactor member Kris Kylven. There's also a note stating the CD credits are mislabeled, but if that's the case, it's one Hell of a mislabel. Were Heckmann and Raum even commissioned to do remixes for this EP? Who knows at this point, but I'm sure some Juno junkie could enlighten you if you're curious enough.

Ignoring all the clerical mishaps, how do these remixes sound? The “Heckmann” remix is far more banging, almost what you'd expect the techno producer to do to the track if given the chance. Meanwhile, the “Raum” remix goes more subdued and minimalistic – it's almost meditative in an ambient sort of way, but without losing any of the high tempo of the original. Overall, they're both interesting variations of Hotaka, in a stripped-down, understated way.

Hotaka’s a tidy little EP, though probably only Juno Reactor completists will likely feel the need to nab a copy; what an odd thing to say, coming from yours truly, as this and Shango are the only Reactor releases I have. Granted, part of that oversight’s because of an early Audio Galaxy raid gathering up their music for burned CDs, but those have long since disintegrated. Looks like I’ve some music hunting to do…

00.db - Heaven & Hell (Original TC Review)

Fektive Records: 2009

(2013 Update:
"harmonizing peaks"? 2009 Sykonee, you doof, those are progressive chord changes. You know, one of the defining characteristics of progressive trance? Not that it's surprising to find them here, considering Mr. Fleming and Mr. Blonde's trance background. Heh, having now heard their very early offerings on that For Your Ears Only DJ mix J00f did, it's remarkable that their music would both end up down psy trance's back alley.

As a duo, they released another album the year after this one, Angels & Demons, which I've yet to hear. Is it any good? Dunno if they've got plans for another one though, as both seemed more focused on solo output as of late. Not to mention all the promotions Fleming's been up to, what with a label to oversee and club nights to play out at. Who's got time to hash out another forty-plus minute 'chill-out' extravaganza?)


IN BRIEF: Solid as a rock

I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a super-group, but the pairing of psy-trance favorites John Fleming and Ricky Smith (‘00’ and The Digital Blonde, respectively) definitely created a huge amount of buzz when they started releasing tracks together. Simply put, the two earned a huge amount of goodwill with folks who grew frustrated with the continued watering-down of trance music at the hands of those that shall remain nameless. They offered an easy entry point into the realm of psy, focusing on catchy hooks and driving rhythms supplanted with the sub-genre’s spacey attributes, yet seldom going off the deep end into psy’s more random wibble. With John the DJ and Smith the producer, it was only a matter of time before these two favored sons finally joined forces. So they did, forming the fan-chosen moniker 00.db. And took their sweet time in coming out with the album everyone was looking forward to.

I suppose the two didn’t want to let their burgeoning fanbase down, hence the some-odd three years it’s taken for a full-length since their first single. While I have no doubt they wouldn’t want to release anything less than their best, high expectations can have a tendency to force musicians into a corner they never wanted to be in the first place. The fans demand - or at least hope for - nothing less than a classic, so you gotta’ deliver on those terms, right? Of course not, but nor do you want to lose all that good favor you’ve earned either, especially so in the fickle field of (slightly) underground trance.

In terms of offered material, if a double-CD album for a debut isn’t enough to be satisfied with, then their fanbase is more fickle than I thought. It certainly could be considered a bold artistic statement, but truthfully that’s not quite right. Rather, Fleming and Smith had more music than could be held on one disc, including a forty-plus minute ambient excursion at the very end. I’m not sure whether Dreamcatcher was added to fill up the second CD or because they were working on something of this nature as a side-project to their typical trance cuts, but whatever the reason it’s part-and-parcel of the Heaven & Hell experience (more on which in a bit).

The trance cuts don’t offer much in the way of surprises here, even if you aren’t already familiar with them from the first Psy Trance Euphoria compilation many first appeared on. In fact, much of this reminds me of the sort of material you might find on those old Rave Mission compilations from the mid-90s, where the likes of Astral Projection and Alien Factory could be seen rubbing shoulders with Paragliders and DJ Tomcraft. They pretty much stick to a “not quite epic, not quite psy” style, and execute it with about as much class and consistency as any savvy trance veteran. Some are more melodic (Indigo, Pro 1, Darkness, and the remix of Astrix’ Ice Cream); some are more spacey (Lantra, Run, and, shockingly, Worlds Of Space); some are more techy and driving (Ark, Orga, Entropy; and so on). Most of them make use of the tried and tested ‘harmonizing peak’, breakdowns are seldom gratuitous, vocal samples are fine, and the psychedelic bits are tasteful. All in all, if you aren’t immediately turned off by the first track-proper (as always, the first one’s more of an ambient intro), then you’re going to enjoy the music on here - probably more so, since Indigo, though solid in its own right, is one of the weaker cuts.

As for the forty-minute behemoth that closes out CD2, it’s okay for an extended ambient excursion. Though it says it’s a “chill-out journey”, there’s actually very little chill about it, as many of the soundscapes and synths used are quite grandiose. It’s also not a singular composition, but rather a collection of four segments titled Stratosphere, Atmosphere, Mantle, and Inner Core; indeed, a journey from heaven to hell. In that aim, it thematically succeeds, as the compositions gradually transition from benign to downright creepy (seriously, that… growl towards the end… *shudder*). Musically, however, it at times feels like it overreaches, but it’s tagged at the end of the album, so no big loss if you don’t feel like indulging.

Heaven & Hell certainly is a fine enough debut album, despite not really pushing the trance genre anywhere it hasn’t been before. In that regard, this honestly isn’t more than a 6/10 - at least on paper. This album deserves an extra nudge up a notch for one simple reason: it’s consistent from beginning to end. So long as you enjoy trance music - of any kind, really - you will find no reason to skip any of these tracks, which is remarkable considering there isn’t much of an album theme beyond supplying quality tune after quality tune. That in of itself is a rare enough feat to deserve the 7.

Various - Goa Spirit 3

Cyber Productions: 1998

No doubt, the ‘00s saw a glut of psy trance, far too many start-up labels churning out generic Israeli full-on or dark psy. Why couldn’t things be like it was before, in the ‘90s, where instead of countless one-off compilations from quickly forgotten net labels, we’d get countless compilation series from somewhat remembered labels. Distance To Goa, Goa-Head, Psychedelic Goa Core, Goa Trance (yes, that’s all it was called), Sun Trip, Flight, Fill Your Head With Phantasm, Mushroom Trance, Tantrance…

Yeah, I would run out of self-imposed word space before finishing such a list. Point is the ‘90s were no less guilty of flooding the market with psy, but that era tends to hold more fondness for collectors, if nothing for the fact that scene was still in its infancy. It may not have gained as much press as other ‘on the rise’ genres, but there must have been enough interest if nearly every label in Europe dipped their toes into these psychedelic waters.

In this case, we're dealing with French label Cyber Production, who were more known for several 'acid core' CDs and other assorted hard dance than anything psy orientated. Still, they must have heard a kinship with all that acid goodness coming from the goa camps, this Goa Spirit series being the result. I've never even seen the first two volumes (stupid imports), and number 3 came into my grasp by total chance, sitting neglected in some box of CDs underneath the shop's main display shelves. Well hey, I recognized a few names in that tracklist – Koxbox, The Delta, Green Nuns Of The Revolution – so I plucked it out to buy, even if the store clerks didn't even know whether it was part of their inventory or not. Ooh, good karma points for my honesty!

Goa Spirit 3 turned out better than I expected. While I knew I was in good hands with a classic like the early full-on monster As A Child I Could Walk On The Ceiling, the duo Quirk stunned me with their crunchy freak-out Dark Matter and gloriously bonkers Ping (holy cow, that final build!), where samples of a ping-pong game are actually used for the percussion – so delightfully daft, even the early wibble’s fun. Elsewhere you get other examples of the emergent full-on sound from the one-off acts like Prometheus Process and Twisted Travellers, while Green Nuns and Kox Box keep the proper psy trance vibes alive (not to mention a surprisingly strong remix of Killing Joke’s Intellect from Johan). Overall, there’s not a duff cut found on this tidy nine tracker, a strong blend of fierce beats, fun psy-trips, and memorable acid. Only complaint is the CD’s title is misleading, as there’s barely any proper goa on here (yes, there’s a difference).

That all said, Goa Spirit 3 shares the same fate as so many psy compilations: lost in the goa glut. It’s a fine disc should you happen across it, but unessential if you already have these tunes.

Various - Goa Box: Trance 4 Motion (Original TC Review)

Hypnotic: 1997

(2013 Update:
Neglected to mention this before, but many of these tracks were licensed from Outloud Records. Even though the label's logo is quite prominent on the back, for some reason I never made that connection. In my mind, Outloud was responsible for dull hard acid techno at the time, and part of the reason Hypnotic kept releasing poorer and poorer CDs. Guess it's not entirely Hypnotic's fault though, as they'd pretty much tapped out Music Research once Talla 2XLC got back in the studio and DJing.

I'm also surprised to see this entire collection uploaded to YouTube - yes, the full three discs for a single playthrough! I know that's become something of a trend, but surely all the music on this compilation wasn't worth it.)


IN BRIEF: Very budget.

The cover is hideous, of that there is no doubt. The tasteless streamers, the ugly computer model, the annoying text - even kiddie rave flyers aren’t this bad. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from low-budget bargain-bin box sets (often provided by Beechwood Music). Were this from a no-name quick-buck label, it’d be understandable, but this is from Hypnotic Records. Their cover-art could at least be counted on for being spiffy, at least through the mid-90s. And therein lays the key to the puzzle.

This compilation is from 1997, a time when Hypnotic had all but run out of material to import from Europe (mostly via Talla 2XLC’s Music Research label). Many of their releases in the late 90s were dismal, and it could be argued they’ve never recovered beyond a few contractual big names keeping them afloat. With so many new and old labels able to capitalize on the growing interest in the rave scene at the time, Hypnotic appeared tired, under-produced, and unable to keep pace. This ‘goa box’ is quite indicative of the problem.

First off, there are no big names to be found, from the goa scene or otherwise. Possibly Michael Kjeldgaard - aka: Psygone - had the most recognition, mainly due to him being one of Hypnotic’s few original psy acts and thus featured on nearly every psy compilation they made. Kjeldgaard also contributes other tracks here under alternate aliases such as Nature Bug and Biller. Another name some may know of is Claus Larsen, who made a minor impact on the 90s industrial/EBM scene as Leæther Strip. Seeing him here making rudimentary goa tracks as Sunglory (along with Martin Nielsen, whom I’ll get to in a bit) and Phobia is quite surprising given his musical history. And Fuzzy Logic had seen the rounds on a few other labels, with Rumour Records being the most notable. Aside from that, Trance 4 Motion contains a whole bunch of tracks featuring complete unknowns that you’ll find nowhere else, or the same producers working under several aliases.

Chief among these producers is, yes, Martin Nielsen. The man is on about a third of these tracks, and that’s just what is actually listed in the credits (B.F.B Inc., O Zone, Spirit, Evaporator). It’s entirely possible he’s on even more. Chances are he’s an in-house producer for Hypnotic churning out goa trance at a quick clip to fill out their compilations. It would explain why so many of these tracks sound very similar to each other.

And yes, that’s another huge problem with this compilation. While maybe half of these tracks have some charm, the other half are very weak examples of goa, the kind of crap most kids knock out in their early attempts on Fruity Loops or other freeware studio programs. The hooks are hilariously rudimentary, the acid tweaks useless, and the atmosphere uninspired. Mind, this isn’t quite so apparent in the first disc, where the music tends to maintain a level of competence throughout. Beyond there though, many of the tracks have ‘filler’ written all over them, with the odd gem littered about.

Still, if you are a fan of older goa, the tracks that aren’t toss-offs are worth a look. When the spacey synth pads, acid builds, and punchy rhythms work, they do so as fine as any old school trance did. Unsurprisingly, the Psygone and Larsen tracks tend to be of the most interest, and Nielsen does manage a few decent cuts as well. Of the no-namers, I-Conez’ Rasta In My House is a fun enough track that bounces along cheerily, and Solar 5 from Raver’s Fantasy is a gosh-darned fun anthem, even if it is a cliché rave tune.

Ultimately though, for three discs worth, there honestly isn’t much cop. Nothing comes remotely close to a classic, and only a few tracks would be consider good by a casual fan of trance. As for the goa squad, they may get more out of this but there is clearly far better material to be found in the psy scene. Mind, for the price of this, you’ll definitely be getting your money’s worth.

Had Trance 4 Motion been a concise fifteen tracker rather than a bloated thirty, it would have been at least a more agreeable listen. Instead, the decent stuff is lost amongst the useless excess, making this a chore to sit through. Proceed with the utmost caution.

Aquila - Gain Control

Dacru Records: 2009

Moan and groan, I thought I was done with this stuff. I had my fill covering it for TranceCritic, occasionally an incredibly solid album still crosses my way, but this? I’m actually surprised it’s still being peddled, at least at this standard of quality. I know some scenes and genres can recycle the same sounds and tropes for years on end, but this? Well, these chaps aren’t from Israel, so I guess there’s at least that.

If I’m doing all this moaning and groaning, then why do I even have Aquila’s debut (and only) album Gain Control? As with many things psy-trance based as of late, it was another recommendation at the always awesome ektoplazm.com, I think brought up during an online discussion over new full-on psy albums that weren’t bunk. What hurt is there in downloading a free album, right? If it’s not all that good, it’ll either get deleted or simply forgotten to the nether-realm of the harddrive. Unless, of course, I engage in a dedicated, sequenced re-listen of everything I have. Such foolishness.

Aquila, a three-piece psy act, are based out of Belgium, but if you were to go by their sound, you’d swear it was just another Israeli full-on project from the mid-‘00s. This was released in 2009, however, which actually shocked me when I went to Lord Discogs to double check. To be blunt as a brick, Gain Control sounds exactly like the generic material released on some of those Trancelucent compilations I reviewed way back eight years ago. I dunno, maybe these were tracks Aquila’d been sitting on for a while, and simply gathered them up a few years after the fact when they finally properly released a full-length, but I’m not finding any info to suggest otherwise.

I suppose what’s troubling me here is it’s not like Aquila’s material is awful - it’s simply more of the same, and full-on can sound incredibly tired even after the smallest amount of it. Listening to Gain Control has actually made me come to appreciate The Misted Muppet’s From The Legend even more now, just for how much different it stands out from typical full-on psy. This one, though? I’m at a loss to remember specifics. There are a few tracks that would sound great while being played out at a forest party underneath the summer stars (heck, even did while taking a midnight stroll to the corner shop for a late night energy drink), but nothing I’m anxious to throw on again anytime soon.

Somehow, I suspect had Gain Control been some of my earliest exposure to full-on psy, I’d be more lenient of it, maybe even give it a thumbs up on par with the mid-‘00s material I still occasionally enjoy. As it stands though, I'm just disappoint, son, moreso with Ektoplazm for rating this than my own folly. You'd think a website so immersed in the psy scene would have fresher sounding full-on to recommend when called upon.

John '00' Fleming - For Your Ears Only

React: 2000

This John Fleming guy, he's done well for himself. Never mind he kicked a bout of lung cancer in the crotch, but he rekindled his music career afterward, taking it to heights he hadn't seen prior. He also snagged a long-term deal with the Euphoria series, staking a claim in the overcrowded trance DJ mix market by being one of the few who'd mix in psy along with the regular stuff. Before then though, Mr. '00' released a couple relatively unknown mixes for various labels, this For Your Ears Only on React perhaps the most prominent of the bunch.

The double-CD looks very much a product of its time, with a cover aping the Designer's Republic aesthetic that was quite popular with EDM releases in the year 2000. And the first disc? Progressive trance for the most part, though very few classics, at least that I'm familiar with. In fact, most of the names on CD1 are new to my eyes, with only the last clutch of producers - Airwave, Paul van Dyk, and BT - being obvious names for a mix such as this. Heck, even their tracks aren't terribly obvious. I can't recall hearing Alone In The Dark or Namistai at any point in the last number of years, much less when they were new. What I'm sayin' here is CD1 is a solid enough mix, but nothing remarkable either. Functional progressive trance, which is perfectly fine for a Year 2000 set.

Check that: it's a remarkably bangin' progressive trance set, the sort of tempo typically reserved for CD2 of releases such as these. How can Mr. '00' build upon it for the next bit? By going total cheddar, it seems. Seriously, that first track, Free, is about as generic vocal trance could get back in the day. Total fluff piece, and such a weak way of opening the second disc. Who even made this- oh. Um...

Well, ol' John was getting his career back in order at this point, so I guess some compromises were required. And like it or not (I fucking hated it), epic-corn trance was popular at the turn of the century. It'd be a number of years before he'd team up with the likes of the Digital Blonde anyway, taking his sound closer to the psy vibe many of his current followers enjoy. In the meanwhile, we have to endure more anthem-schlock, culminating in one of those annoying-cloying Dutch tunes but five tracks in. God, that's stupid. Who even made this Electra- oh. Um...

Okay, I'm just goofing. And J00F does come correct with a little goa shortly afterward, almost as though he used the fluffy stuff early to lure the kids in before unleashing some Astral Projection on their asses (in two tracks, no less!). If you're a recent fan of Mr. '00', For Your Ears Only may not be your cup of chamomile, but it won't hurt your collection if you're gathering all he's released either.

Various - Earth Dance

CyberOctave: 1999

A glance at that cover will undoubtedly have you thinking this is some festival tie-in, and seeing as how many smaller electronic music festivals at the turn of the century often skewed towards the hippie side of the scene, so too will the music contained within. And you'd be right, at least half so. Also featured on Earth Dance are several of the biggest names to grace the commercial side of electronic music: Fatboy Slim, Orbital, Underworld, Überzone, and Meat Beat Manifesto all provide tracks.

It'd be easy, then, to peg this compilation as yet another 'electronica' collection: big stars, a couple token drum 'n' bass tunes, etc. That's far from the case though, some serious digging occurring with these cuts. Okay, Push Upstairs and The Freaks made the rounds, but how many of you are familiar with Next To Nothing from ol' Norman Cook? Unless you happened across that limited 2-CD edition of You've Come A Long Way, Baby (or the American version of Better Living Through Chemistry), I'd wager not many. Most surprising is just how chilled-out it is, considering Cook’s popularity at the time come from big obvious beats, but then given the target audience with Earth Dance, perhaps not. In fact, the chill vibes are aplenty on this CD. Omni Trio and Dune remixing Gus Gus provide us with the jungle, and right there you know it’s gonna be on the LTJ tip. Not to be outdone, Art Of Trance’s meditative Requiem comes near the end.

And exclusives! Nowhere else will you find Meat Beat Manifesto’s Anon or Loop Guru’s Sleeping From The Bag, plus a breaks remix of the already rare Doublecross from Q-Burns Abstract Message. Not to mention Orbital’s charming Mock Tudor and Eat Static’s abrasive Elephant Man aren’t exactly high on the radar of most folks. Elsewhere, tunes from Banco de Gaia and Medicine Drum round out a solid package of music that the more adventurous of global-conscious music users out there won’t soon be disappointed with.

So what is the deal with Earth Dance anyway? Founded by Medicine Drum member Chris Deckker, it’s an annual global event where dancers join up across the Earth at different locations, its primary goal to raise awareness and funds for humanitarian efforts (and still going strong). During the course of the event, at the exact same time at each location, the track Prayer For Peace is simultaneously played, everyone joining in planetary unity for- ugh...

Sorry, I dig the intent, but that’s too corny for me. Sending out positive vibes is all well and good, but I prefer the hands-on approach to incite change and well-being for our fellow man. Donations do far more good in this world than joining hands in prayer. Fortunately, all money earned from Earth Dance goes towards charity, and hey, you get a great compilation out of the deal. It’s an old CD now, but should you happen upon it, there’s far worse ways to spend your money.