John O'Callaghan - Never Fade Away (Original TC Review)

Armada Digital: 2009

(2014 Update:
John O'Callaghan's kept himself busy in the euro-trance scene, a name often dropped among those who feel he's among a few DJs and producers still keeping the old-school vibe alive, resistant to jumping on the latest electro, anthem house, or hardstyle-in-hiding bandwagon. To this, I have to ask, "Da'fuq!? The Big Sky guy, really? One of the most blatant crossover vocal anthems to emerge in the last half-decade, and you're championing him as one of your saviors of the underground? Have you really grown so desperate?" Chaps like J00F, Lolo, and John Askew, I can see, but not O'Cally, not after this album. Unless he was initially pressured by Armada after signing with them to make such music, which I could totally see happening given the label's ridiculous homogeny at the time.

I guess I shouldn't be too hard on him - after all, I gave him the benefit of the doubt going into this album, having enjoyed Something To Live For. I probably go on a bit too much about that aspect in this review (to say nothing of yet another overlong explanation of a now-pointless rating). And if I'm honest, I've lightened up a little on Big Sky, at least on the lyrical front. The other vocal tunes are still pants though.)


IN BRIEF: After a bigger piece of the vocal trance pie.

It’s not that a writer won’t get hate-mail for negative reviews of popular-but-poor releases – that’s common. Yet, the content of such ‘letters’ oftentimes has an acceptant tone to it, as though the hate-mailer knows the music is of lesser quality but doesn’t care one way or the other. The matter is then quietly dismissed and everyone moves on. Nay, the really controversial reviews are those that are generally accepted as poor, but the reviewer actually likes.

Without getting into the numerous examples of such here at TranceCritic, I’ll just touch upon the one that pertains to this review: John O’Callaghan’s first album, Something To Live For. I liked it. Sure, it was far from a brilliant album, but as a collection of simple, energetic epic trance and bangin’ tech-trance, it was enjoyable. In fact, I found it downright nostalgic, as O’Cally recaptured some of the spirit of the genre’s raise in prominence near the end of the ‘90s. For whatever reason though, a great many folks out there hated it, as poor ol’ John became an unofficial whipping boy of all that’s gone wrong with trance in recent years.

The reason I bring this up is, if anyone here could give O’Callaghan’s latest album - Never Fade Away - a fair shake, it’d probably be me, as I have no previous anti-bias against his work going in. However, what we have on this CD is much different than what was offered on Something To Live For, as O’Cally has promptly abandoned much of his previous sound in favor of something far more financially lucrative.

It’s quite pointless to accuse him of selling out because John knows full well it’s what he’s done. And who can blame him? When the sales of the post-Something… single Big Sky (included here in a ballad version) were far exceeding material like Space & Time, the writing was clearly on the wall: if you want to make it in this industry, produce tracks with vocals. And boy has he ever.

Eight of the twelve tracks on this album feature vocalists, all female. Although a few are fairly known in the scene (Audrey Gallagher, Sarah Howells, Lo-Fi Sugar), they’re all pretty interchangeable, with lyrics consisting of your usual simple couplets regarding love and such. Inoffensive material for the most part, although if the thought of over-emoting choruses sends cold shivers down your spine, you’d best stay well away. Truthfully, there isn’t anything particularly wrong with these choruses – they’re catchy enough that they’ll lodge inside your head as they play, but will promptly fade away shortly after (which makes the title of this album hilariously ironic). There’s very little about these vocal tunes that lift them above the usual euro-trance glut.

And unfortunately, that’s the biggest problem to be had with this album: O’Cally’s complete lack of personality as a producer. Were you to lodge any of these vocal tracks into a Trance Divas compilation, they’d promptly be lost amongst the Mike Shivers, Ronski Speeds, Langes, Above & Beyonds, and any other notable vocal-fluff femme-trance producer. There is absolutely nothing here that makes you say, “This is the John O’Callaghan sound!” Rather, it’s the sound of simple and safe production so a licensing company can come along and pick any one of these tracks for their Euro Vocal Trance Ibiza Voice compilation. This may work to O’Cally’s favor if he ends up sharing compilation duty with the likes of Cascada or Lasgo, but not with his newfound roster-mates at Armada.

There’s one stretch on here where O’Callaghan does exhibit a musical persona, with the blissy three-track run of Out Of Nowhere, Never Fade Away, and Tom Colontonio-collaboration Through The Light. This is perfectly pleasant music, touching on the tranquil Ibizan-tinged trance vibes that makes light-weight fluff such as this a guilty pleasure for many (although Never Fade Away is actually more of a ballad). Granted, it’s just as safe and unsurprising as anything else here, but I challenge even the bitterest trance-cynic out there to not enjoy the sequence of these three songs at some level.

So, with this many perfectly average pop-trance tunes on here, this should earn Never Fade Away a perfectly average 5/10 score –yet, the final grade is actually lower than this, and, perhaps surprisingly, is primarily due to the non-vocal cuts. Aside from the aforementioned Through The Light, these tracks are generic in the worst sense of the word. Heck, Broken is bordering on parody, coming off like a desperate attempt on O’Cally’s part to prove ‘he can stills be tough tech-trancer’; despite a killer hook being hinted at in the breakdown, it just meanders about with dull bangin’ beats. Meanwhile, Liquid Fire and Megalith sound like left-over ideas collaborators Giuseppe Ottaviani and Aly & Fila had for other tracks, while Don’t Look Back is a rehash of the much better Through The Light. Bottom line is if you’ve been listening to trance for even a year, these will sound utterly over-familiar, with O’Cally’s lack of production personality hobbling their appeal more than ever.

Then again, I kind of doubt this album is intended for the veteran trancer. Nay, it’s primarily for the new kids on the scene whom have ‘graduated’ from the likes of Milk Inc., Scooter, and ‘donk’ music. And that’s absolutely fine, especially so since O’Callaghan has specifically targeted this audience anyway. The trouble with his album, however, is in a field with so many others catering to this crowd, plus dozens of similarly-themed compilations readily available any given month, ol’ John hasn’t done anything here to make Never Fade Away stand out – in fact, he’s gone out of his way to sound exactly like every other euro-trance producer out there. If you’re in the market for this particular genre, you’d be better off picking up a random Armada compilation, since O’Callaghan’s simply copying the label’s biggest producers anyway.

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

The Irresistible Force - Nepalese Bliss

Ninja Tune: 1998

Won't front, I was disappointed in this single. Totally my fault, of course, expecting Nepalese Bliss to show as much diversity as the Fish Dances EP, but I failed to realize the two are totally different wee-beasts. Fish Dances was more of a mini remix album, nicking various tunes from It's Tomorrow Already for re-rub duty rather than a sole focus on a single song. Hell, another remix of Nepalese Bliss was added to Fish Dances, as though there just wasn't enough room on its own single! Perhaps so if we're dealing with the vinyl version, plus it's possible a couple more remixing names were drawn in after the fact, missing the initial street date of the album's lead single.

Yeah, far as Lord Discogs can tell me, Nepalese Bliss was intended as an introduction of Mixmaster Morris’ style to the Ninja Tune, just in case a full album was too much to digest all at once. Released a month before It's Tomorrow Already hit the streets, this track’s about the closest thing on it at capturing the jazz-hop sound Coldcut's label grew famous for. Heck, Mr. Irresistible Force probably produced it specifically with their audience in mind, because the regular Ninja followers sure weren't likely to give a psychedelic ambient-techno noodler much care otherwise. Here, just try out some Nepalese Bliss, it’s like that ganja smoke you toke, only more, more, more so. Well, the voice-over claims it’s the street term for hashish with streaks of opium ash in it, definitely a vibe the acid jazz folks could dig on in their dens.

To further sell The Irresistible Force upon their dedicated clientele, Ninja Tune brought in two of their heaviest hitters for the rubs, DJ Food and Amon Tobin. As part of the label since its inception, it’s little surprise the Fooded Ones (Strictly Kev, plus Patrick Carpenter at this point in the project’s life) go deeper into the deep acid jazz vibes: less psychedelic flashes, more smoky haze. Amon being Amon, it’s all about the dip and drop into trip-hop skunk – something a bit heavy in that cut of Nepalese bliss, methinks. Fila Brazillia were also brought in from Pork Records for an upbeat funky nu-jazz remix, because it’s Fila Brazillia, and that’s just what they does.

So the music’s fine on this EP, but as mentioned, rather pedestrian as a package. The remixers offer exactly what you’d expect of the names, and I’ve no idea why a Radio Edit would be included here – Hell, would anything from Mixmaster Morris ever get airplay? No, modern micro-niche internet radio streams don’t count. This was the late ‘90s, yo’, this music’s only ridin’ proper AM or FM waves out there. Still, one curious thing about the CD inlay is how there are seams creating twenty-one equal-sized rectangles, as though intended for separation and used as a make-shift puzzle pieces of the cover. Cool idea if so, but wouldn’t that devalue the single’s resell worth on the used market?

Neil Young - Archives, Vol. 1: Disc 8 - North Country (1971-1972)

Reprise Records: 2009

“Mr. Young, you've achieved fame and fortune before your Thirties, have achieved more in a decade's worth of music than most could hope for in a lifetime, performed with a multitude of talented musicians covering a wide range of rock, country, folk, and even a God damned symphony while in London. What do you plan on doing next?”

“I'm gonna' get me a ranch, and get away from all you spazzes.”

Well, okay, he didn't say exactly that, but he was inching ever closer to diving “for the ditch”, as Young so eloquently put it in a few short years. The final music disc of Archive, Vol. 1 is almost bittersweet in how it caps off the box-set at the absolute peak of ol' Shakey's commercial success, most of his material from Harvest accounted for. That's another album I've already reviewed, so check that one out for the particular details of how his most popular record came into being. The only additions from the Stray Gators sessions that didn't appear on Harvest include Bad Fog Of Loneliness, Journey Through The Past, and an extended take of Words (Between The Lines Of Age). I think this material was featured in Young's movie soundtrack, but I never bought that, despite the allure of having Young and a rare-ish Beach Boys tune on the same record!

Another live recording of Heart Of Gold starts out North Country (1971-1972), included as evidence for his admittance at having little prior experience using a mounted harmonica (I guess). The back end of Disc 8 includes a couple more examples of Neil’s “heavy political material” in Soldier and War Song with Graham Nash (what, no Crosby or Stills?). And that’s it, the end of Archives, Vol. 1. We’re done, over, finished. Boy, that week blew by fast. Thank God though, as I couldn’t take much more Neil in such a single sitting again. I enjoy his music, but not that I must hear it all the time.

Is this where I absolutely, definitely, positively recommend this box set? No, of course not - only a hardcore Rustie should bother with Archives, Vol. 1. If you do intend to take the plunge based on hearing a few songs from this era, I still wouldn’t recommend it much as an exploratory dive-in point – checking out the albums is a safer bet. That said, Archives, Vol. 1 is handy in gathering all his disparate output into one, tidy package, and the sound quality can’t be beat if you spring for the DVD or Blu-Ray bundle. Plus, every track has a different custom ‘video’ crafted for it, a short film of either a record (official release), reel-to-reel (previously unreleased material), or other medium (cassette tape, 8-track (lol)) playing in a unique setting surrounded by pertinent memorabilia – yes, even for minute-long ditties like Cripple Creek Ferry. With one-hundred twenty-eight tracks total, that’s a remarkable amount of affection and care given in presenting Young’s material. Would any self-respecting Rustie expect less?

Neil Young - Archives, Vol. 1: Disc 6 - Topanga 3 (1970)

Reprise Records: 2009

Despite taking a step back from the limelight, Neil Young once again found himself a very important person in the world of American rock. It'd only been half-a-decade since he sought music fortune in Los Angeles, and he'd accomplished more commercially and creatively than most could have ever hoped for in that time, even for the fruitful '60s. What else could he do beyond being part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, one of the country's most popular bands?

“How about scoring a movie?” suggested Young's Topanga neighbour Dean Stockwell. Yes, that Dean Stockwell, who'd been interested in scripting and filming a movie called After The Goldrush. It piqued ol' Shakey's interest enough to start writing a few tunes for it, and though the film never materialized, some of the intended music turned out to be some of the highlights of Young's album of the same name (Tell Me Why, After The Goldrush, Don’t Let It Bring You Down). It also sparked his creativity ever further, vivid lyrics compared to songs past, and unafraid at stretching his limited vocal range into areas yet attempted. You can really hear him crackling the high notes in After The Goldrush for the first time, exposing a naked sincerity to his music.

The other two standouts from these sessions are Southern Man and When You Dance, I Can Really Love, capturing Young and his Crazy Horse band in full-on swagger musically. Added to the mix is seventeen year old Nils Lofgren, a budding guitarist that’d been something of an understudy to Young. In what had to been either crazy brilliant or brilliantly crazy, Neil suggested Nils play piano for these songs, an instrument lil’ Lofgren had no prior experience with. The kid fuckin’ smashed it! That’s Mr. Young for you though, so often bringing the best out of those around him.

Also, something must have lit a bug up his ass, because Young got incredibly political at this point in his career – post hippie activism, I guess. Southern Man was already an incendiary condemnation of, well, southern redneck ‘justice’ and treatment of African-Americans. Then the Kent State shooting occurred, and within days, Young was calling upon his super-group brothers-in-arms Crosby, Stills, and Nash, ready to unleash an incendiary attack on Nixon for the travesty (Ohio). After all, if you’re being billed a very important rock band, might as well use that platform to get a very important message out there too. It’s a trick the group would do again while touring together as Young was promoting his Living With War album during Bush Jr.’s administration.

Some live stuff from CSNY round out the rest of Topanga 3 (1970), including a bit of silly stage banter while struggling with a bass guitar set-up. After fuffing about, Neil says, “We’d like to do a serious song now.” “Some of our heavy political material,” Stills deadpans. “This song of Neil’s got us thrown right out of Kuwait.” Ohio? Nope, Tell Me Why. Oh, those jokers.

Neil Young - Archives, Vol. 1: Disc 4 - Topanga 2 (1969-1970)

Reprise Records: 2009

Having gotten the solo stylee out of his system, Neil Young finished off his modest first tour and high-tailed it back to Topanga. He had unfinished business with that Crazy Horse trio of Danny Whitten, Ralph Molina, and Billy Talbot he stole from The Rockets, an album with them to complete after enjoying such an invigorating first session that saw Down By The River and Cowgirl In The Sand emerge. Having spent some time properly preparing for new recordings, the songs written were far shorter, less about extended rock jams and such. The big tune off this outing was Cinnamon Girl, and if you’ve still yet to hear it after I explicitly told you to in the Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere review… Well, now you have no excuse. Ignore my recommendation once, shame on you, ignore my recommendation twice, double-shame on you!

This second recording session included a few more songs that ended up on the group’s first album, plus a handful more that would fill out Young’s second solo outing After The Goldrush. Crazy Horse were also working on their own album, which would have the fun country-stomp romp of Dance Dance Dance as a highlight even though Young often played it solo too. On Disc 4 is a ridiculously charming drunken hoe-down version – what’s even going on with those hi-hats? Love it!

While back in Topanga, his old musical comrade/nemesis Stephen Stills from the Springfield got in touch with Neil about joining his current band, Crosby, Stills & Nash, the idea they’d become an American super-rock group that could creatively rival anyone from the UK. Okay, maybe it’s just my being of a totally younger generation, but really? Neil Young’s awesome, no doubt, and Stills plus David Crosby were undeniably at the height of their musical potential in the late ‘60s, but I’ve a difficult time believing this group was anything close to The Beatles or The Who. Then again, Stills and Young did have the same creative synergy going for them that Lennon and McCartney had, so who knows, maybe they were onto something after all.

The other half of Topanga 2 (1969-1970) mostly features tunes recorded in anticipation for the first CSNY tour, including their performance of Sea Of Madness at Woodstock. Oh yeah, Young was at Woodstock, because of course he would be, though he mostly kept out of sight even when on stage. Guess he hadn’t gotten over that ‘too big an audience’ hang-up he had that led him to playing coffee houses in the first place. Dammit, he wouldn’t have this problem if he would just stop making great music, but Young never lets his creativity sit fallow for long.

Anyhow, the CSNY tunes on Topanga 2 are nice, vastly more studio polished compared to the Crazy Horse stuff. Can’t say I’m much of a fan of this super-group, at least with the songs Young initially contributed. Shortly though, he’d kick out one of their all-time classics.

Neil Young - Archives, Vol. 1: Disc 3 - Live At The Riverboat 1969

Reprise Records: 2009

There's quite the romanticism associated with Neil Young's first year of solo gigs - the 'purity' of audience connectivity in small, intimate venues, places where a musician with any sort of star-ascent is unable to perform in. 1968 and ‘69 were about the only years Young could have done such shows once he broke away from his Buffalo Springfield fame, still a relatively unknown entity beyond being the kooky guy with a ridiculously long leather tassel jacket. Even with a debut album to tour with, he could get away with the small-time vibe of coffee houses, the lack of big singles beyond his Springfield output keeping him on the fringes of folk-rock interests. Thus CDs like Sugar Mountain - Live At Canterbury House 1968 and Live At Cellar Door (recorded 1970) are wonderful bits of Shakey artefacts, the last performances where you can picture Neil sitting but a dozen feet from you, casually chit-chatting with a genteel audience playing from a very small selection of songs he'd written to that point.

Live At The Riverboat 1969 is a significant performance from Young, in that it marked his first return to Toronto after his westward exodus. In but two years later, he’d be playing Massey Hall, but at this point in his career, the tiny Riverboat coffee house was more than enough to draw in locals who remembered him from his Squires days ...haha, no, as with everyone else, they likely knew of his music through Buffalo Springfield. Half his set list features songs written those years (I Am A Child, Expecting To Fly, Broken Arrow, etc.), and most of the rest is from his self-titled debut. Its nice hearing acoustic versions of some of the over-produced tunes like Broken Arrow and The Old Laughing Lady, though not essential pieces of music for casual Rusties.

And honestly, there’s not much difference between Live At The Riverboat and Live At Canterbury House. Not that Young had a huge discography at this point for eclectic acoustic playlists, but there’s little incentive to have this recording beyond being a charming addition to Archives, Vol. 1. Okay, the audience rapport’s funny too, tales of the odd necessity for musicians to make ‘dope songs’, bizarre medical practices, a shout-out to Bruce Palmer in the audience, and a bit of fun playing five-second children’s jingles like 1956 Bubblegum Disaster (“It took me three years to write that one.”).

Ooh, spare word count - let’s talk about the DVD presentation! Live At The Riverboat’s an odd one, practically a study in minimalist film making. It features a solitary reel-to-reel atop a stool running under a low spotlight, an acoustic guitar resting beside it, a couple microphones nearby, tables with candle-lights glowing in the surrounding darkness, and scattered playlist notes on the ground. The camera angles and focus change up between songs, so it’s not one long take either. I cannot deny the setting imparts a remarkably nostalgic twinge of times past (re: reel-to-reels fascinated Toddler Sykonee).

Neil Young - Archives, Vol. 1: Disc 2 - Topanga 1 (1968-1969)

Reprise Records: 2009

Being a part of Buffalo Springfield greatly benefited Neil Young’s development as a musician, even if he quickly turned sour to the whole experience. It gave him the chance to bounce ideas off equally creative musicians, gaining confidence in his writing and performing as large Los Angeles crowds cheered at the Springfield’s shows. That Canadian-bred humbleness hadn’t prepared him for such intense success and adulation so quickly though, and Young frequently no-showed band gigs at the height of their popularity (health problems didn’t help either). So the break-up was inevitable, but whereas his former band mates formed or joined other bands, Young retreated to the solo circuit, including a move to a super-hippie enclave outside Los Angeles called Topanga.

We’re also entering the years of ol’ Shakey’s proper album output now, which Archives borrows liberally from. The good news here is, if you’ve only been a casual collector of Young’s music and skipped out on some of his less-regarded LPs (*cough*), this’ll fill out those musical gaps nicely. If you’ve been thorough in your Young collecting though (*double-cough*), Archives at least provides a proper, spiffy-fresh re-master of his material, much of which hadn’t seen much care since their original recordings (much less a decent digital transfer).

Though Young had retreated to the casual clime of Topanga and folksy gigs, he kept busy by putting together his self-titled debut. Neil Young sounds very little like anything else in his discography, in that it’s surprisingly overproduced; or “over-dubbed”, as Young put it. The Old Laughing Lady and I’ve Loved Her So Long, for instance, features string sections and backing gospel girls along with your standard folk-band arrangements. Okay, not a drastic difference compared to some of his other works, but something’s lost in piecing together his music like that: the spontaneity and soul that defines so much of Young’s appeal. Of the tunes included on Topanga 1 (1968-1969) that were culled from Neil Young, only The Last Trip To Tulsa captures the stripped-back folk-narrative style you’d expect.

Fortunately during this time, Young had started hanging around a band name The Rockets – or as they came to be known, Crazy Horse. I’ve already detailed how that turned out in Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, from which the titular cut, Down By The River, and Cowgirl In The Sand appears on here. Hearing these following the Neil Young material, it’s astounding the difference that ‘ragged live’ energy Crazy Horse provides Young’s music. No longer tentative and deferring to producers, the music’s strident, confident, and kinetic.

Also on Topanga 1 are a couple alternate takes of other Neil Young tunes, and part of the Live At Canterbury House gig that includes Sugar Mountain and Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing. I assume these two songs are here as contrast to the demo recordings of the same songs found on Disc 0, demonstrating how far he’d come as a musician in half a decade. Yeah, he’d developed some skill. Just wait for the next five years though.

Neil Young - Archives, Vol. 1: Disc 1 - Early Years (1966-1968)

Reprise Records: 2009

So westward Neil Young went, piling into an old hearse-mobile with friend Bruce Palmer in search of better musical prospects. Oh yeah, before that, the two were briefly in a Motown band called The Mynah Birds, fronted by Rick F'n James. While nothing ever came of it, folks love pointing it out as one of the 'small world' tidbits of musical trivia. I'm only pointing it out because I'll get heck if I don't. So there it is.

Also a necessary tale-drop is how Young and Palmer found their pal Stephen Stills in Los Angeles. After crossing nearly a full continent, they had no place to stay, no money, no way of getting in touch with their contacts, and no direction. Just as they were ready to give up hope and head northward, they spotted Stills while sitting ‘still’ in a traffic jam (oh ho-ho, such a clever pun *slaps self*). Divine intervention? Not really, since the odds of such an occurrence aren’t that astronomical if hopeful musicians were known to congregate in certain neighbourhoods. Still, it is a remarkable fluke their crossing of paths did happen at all when you consider this was well long before the age of cell-phones, internet, and most other forms of communications easing our means of perpetual contact today.

Anyhow, the band Buffalo Springfield formed. If the name seems familiar, it’s likely from one of two reasons: you’ve heard their music on a classic rock radio station (probably For What It’s Worth, also known as the “everybody look what’s going down” song you always hear in ‘Nam or hippie movies), or you saw Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. For their full story, check out the Buffalo Springfield Box Set, or maybe a Rolling Stone retrospective article. Archives, Vol. 1 only focuses on the music Neil Young had a major part in writing, even if he didn’t always get to sing on his songs. I think that’s why that way-early demo version of Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing was included on the previous disc – proof that, yo, he did writes the original Buffalo single before he even joined the band.

The songs on Disc 1, Early Years (1966-1968) include such Young staples as Mr. Soul and I Am A Child, plus Bison Shelbyville classics like chipper Burned (think early Beatles), oddball experimental Americana song Broken Arrow (think late Beatles), psychedelic surf-folk jam Kahuna Sunset (think instrumental Beach Boys), and the lovely, floating ballad Expecting To Fly (think... pre-crisis Brian Wilson?). There are also a couple more solo demo outings from Young, I guess included to show his ongoing development as a musician even while as part of a band.

Despite all the promise of a brilliant future, the Buffalo experience was short lived, internal conflicts, clashing egos, and dodgy label shenanigans bringing the band to an abrupt end. Clearly, that wasn’t the end of these musicians’ stories though; otherwise I wouldn’t be reviewing a box set of Neil Young archives.

Neil Young - Archives, Vol. 1: Disc 0 - Early Years (1963-1965)

Reprise Records: 2009

It figures. No sooner do I finally start on a new letter than I get hit with a bloody box-set. So long, forward momentum. Tackling this sucker will easily eat up a week's worth of reviews. True, I could give a quick overview and be done with it, but as with The Electro Compendium from last year, it'd leave an obscene gap of content on this blog if I didn't keep some record of my progress. Fortunately, Neil Young: Archives is nicely divided up into manageable chunks, so at least things will move along in a logical fashion. Obviously, if you don't give a flookin' Canook about Neil Young, check back in around seven days – I should be back to regular(ish) electronic music again.

You’re still with me? Aww, you're awesome, really you are. Gotta know what's up with some more good ol' Shakey, does ya'? Well, if you stick around, you'll find out just about everything there is to know about the first ten years of Mr. Young's musical career. More than you'll likely care to know, if I'm honest – heck, it was more than I cared about, though it is interesting from a fan's perspective. Whether you got the CD, DVD (yo), or Blu-Ray version of Archives, Vol. 1, everything was split into chronological sections. It also includes Live At The Fillmore East and Live At Massey Hall, which I've covered already; plus his oddball movie Journey Through The Past, but I won't cover that since this isn't Musician Movie Critic. Oh, and Live At Canterbury House was apparently a bonus DVD/Blu-Ray, but since it wasn't part of the original Archives, Vol. 1 MP3 download bundle, I won't cover that either. Whoa, a breeze of wind all of a sudden rushed through my apartment, as though dozens of people breathed a sigh of release.

Okay, let’s get this thing started, by starting at the start of Young’s career – back when he was still young-Young! (eh? eh...? No, wait, come back...). Most were first introduced to ol’ Neil when he was part of the Los Angeles band Buffalo Springfield, but before heading out there, he played for an old-timey surf-rock band called The Squires. Since they were still teens, the boys mostly played high-school dances and community halls around Manitoba and Ontario, hardly the sort of exposure one could hope for breaking into the big time. They did manage one official single with a couple instrumentals called Aurora and The Sultan though. It’s, well, surf-rock. Cowabunga?

Everything else on Early Years (1963-1965) is previously unreleased material. This includes leftover Squires material that never saw the light of day, a few blues numbers he recorded with Comrie Smith, and an extended recording of a studio session featuring early takes of Sugar Mountain and Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing. These sound like hastily recorded demos likely intended to spread around Toronto or Motown. Pft, you’ll never make it there with such folksy songs, kid. Go west, my son, go west.

Dub Trees - Nature Never Did Betray The Heart That Loved Her

LSD - Liquid Sound Design: 2000

This is the sort of CD that was destined for an 'impulse buy'. Fifty bones to drop in the music shop, with so many familiar artists floating about; yet rather predictable in what you'll get on a disc. No, I'll hold off on getting another progressive trance DJ mix or deep house label compilation. I want something new and unexpected, but just familiar enough that it won't possibly be a total waste of money. There, that CD with 'Dub Trees' on the cover. I know dub music, and with a hippie-dippy title like Nature Never Did Betray The Heart That Loved Her, I've a good feeling the music will be something like Waveform Records. Hm, Youth's the main producer here. I feel like I should know that name. Oh well, Dragonfly Records usually releases psy-trance, so maybe we'll get some Planet Dog type of psychedelic dub stuff.

Yeah, we got that, and more. For a psy-dub album, Nature Never etc. etc. is remarkably diverse, Youth dipping his dubby toes deep into various forms of the genre. For his dub roots run deep, like a tree, yo' – you could even say *dons dreadlock wig* he's a Dub Tree, yeaaahh, mon! Wait, that wasn’t a pun?

Anyhow, Martin Glover had been floating about various music scenes for a while, most famously playing bass in post-punk band Killing Joke and contributing to early albums from The Orb and System 7. Along the way he got sucked into the world of goa trance, and even found time to set up a label promoting the stuff. He must have gotten right proper inspired by the emerging psy-dub sounds that were carrying on from what Dr. Alex Paterson and he had kicked off with ambient dub, taking his own stab at it with this one-off Dub Trees project. Roping in for music contributions were long-time producing partner Greg Hunter, plus Simon Posford, fresh off his first Shpongle LP. Indian world-dub fusion group Suns Of Arqa also contribute, but no Bill Laswell, because Dub Trees already gots them a bass player, mang.

With so many influences thrown into this dub soup, Nature Never yada yada yada is about as offbeat and eclectic as this music can go without stepping outside its comfort zone. There are straight-up reggae rhythms (Butterfly Trilogy), synthy interludes (Cobalt Waterfall), quirky sampling (Buffalo, La Rosa), dark meditative excursions (Orpheus), opium dens flying through space (Dreamlab), psy-dub grooves (Magnetica), and goof-ball bass drops (Concrete Tourist). All of which, natch, filtered through more dub effects than you can shake a King Tubby at.

If all this sounds like “just another trippy dub album”, you’re right, although Youth’s definitely a better song crafter than most out there, having rubbed shoulders with so many masters of the genre. This album also acts as a sort of bridge between ambient dub of the ‘90s, and psy-dub of the ‘00s, not a bad thing if you’ve endlessly debated the merits of either. Does anyone even do that?