ACE TRACKS: February 2013

And I’m finally done getting through albums starting with some form of “sound” at the start of its title. Who’d have thought so many musicians would associated their music with sounds, eh? And yet, even after going through a dozen of them, that’s still but a blip in the behemoth that is all of ‘S’ – we’re a long ways before getting out of this letter, my friends.

Speaking of lengthy runs of letters, anyone remember ‘E’? Man, that was a beast too, eating up nearly two month’s worth of reviews way back when. I also feel February 2013 was something of a turning point for this blog. It marked the half-year point, plus the 100th review too (what am I at now, 750?), convincing myself I could keep going at the clip I was without serious fatigue or disinterest creeping in. More importantly though, it got a lot of big albums from Very Important Artists into the archives, including BT, Prodigy, Underworld, Moby, and Madonna. Also, remarkably, this month was the first point of entry for two names that would come to fill many a month with their releases: Neil Young and Wu-Tang Clan. Wouldn’t surprise me if folks thought I got all my rock and hip-hop fixes from Pink Floyd and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony prior to that.


Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Various - Evolution Of New Sounds
Various - Euro Dance Pool, Volume 1
Various - Euro Dance Pool, Volume 2
BT - ECSM
Erol Alkan - One Louder

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 33%
Percentage Of Rock: 5%
Most “WTF?” Track: Busta Rhymes featuring Mystikal - Iz They Wildin Wit Us & Getting Rowdy Wit Us (because like Hell you’ll keep up with the words they spittin’)

BT’s ECSM is not on Spotify. How is BT’s ECSM not on Spotify? Every other BT album is on Spotify. Okay, neither is that drone ambient neo-classical album Nuovo Morceau Subrosa, but that always struck me as a pure pet project, not intended for major commercial release. Then again, neither is This Binary Universe, another arty album but far better regarded than nearly anything Mr. Transeau’s done in fifteen years. So his super-serious music doesn’t get on Spotify, is that it? Still doesn’t explain ECSM’s absence though. Get with the program, Perfecto!

Not much else to say about this Playlist. As the opening number of tracks indicate, it’s a very ‘90s assortment of tunes, but then the ‘90s has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to electronic music. Yes, including the overplayed tunes that you just can’t get out of your head, even while transcending to outta’ space. (can you find another place?)

Peter Benisch - Soundtrack Saga (2015 Update)

Turbo Recordings: 2001

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

Oh yeah, this little CD. I've mentioned it a few three hundred times or so over the years now. It wouldn't surprise me if I've spent more words in other reviews talking about Peter Benisch than I'll allow myself within self-imposed word count here. Probably has something to do with preconceived failure in giving Soundtrack Saga adequate props. It was by no means my only praise-filled piece of early writing for TranceCritic, high scores also dropping for the likes of Sasha’s Xpander, Paul van Dyk’s The Politics Of Dancing, Drexciya’s Harnessed The Storm, and Delerium’s Karma. Those are all popular names though, established DJs and producers with strong track records, with me covering releases that had long been recognized as strong entries within their respective scenes. It didn’t matter that my writing was still finding its form, I could sloppily praise Xpander and readers would agree with me, because it’s practically common knowledge Xpander is awesome.

Soundtrack Saga though, that was a challenge. Peter Benisch was, and sadly remains, almost entirely unknown, in no small part due to his relative reclusiveness. It didn’t have to be that way, pals with several of Sweden’s top taste-makers of the late ‘90s (Adam Beyer, Joel Mull, the Dahlbäcks), often pairing with them for singles here and there. He even got an album out on Fax +49-69/450464 prior to this one, although Namlook’s print had fallen in stock for all but the die-hards by that time. Still, good ol’ Tiga must have liked the cut of Benisch’s ambient and chill jib, getting another album out of him in Soundtrack Saga (plus the charming Traxxdata as FPU, but that’s another review for later). And as I’ve gushed many times before, it was excellent, a gleaming jewel in an incredible bounty of gold from Turbo Recordings. This should have propelled Benisch to the forefront of ambient, downtempo, and chill music. It should...

Seems fate conspired to dictate otherwise. As great a release Soundtrack Saga was for Turbo Recordings, it remained an oddity within the label’s general discography. Obviously I enjoyed it, but for those counting on Turbo for classy house and trendy electro, this album probably passed them by. Then around the mid-‘00s, Turbo ceased CD production, had a blow-out sale on their back catalogue, and focused on grimey, trashy techno forever after. A guy like Benisch, already slightly out of place with the old Turbo, definitely had no future with this new direction. His name faded from discourse, along with his material.

Only that’s not entirely true, is it? His tracks make an occasional appearance on mixes from prominent jocks (James Zabiela, Jimmy Van M, Adam X), and very recently Benisch has emerged with the odd track and remix. Maybe Soundtrack Saga doesn’t have to be his lasting legacy, that he can be coaxed out of studio seclusion for another turn on the LP format. Carpe Sonum? Psychonavigation? I’m looking in your directions, dudes. I know you guys have the power!

The Beach Boys - Sounds Of Summer: The Very Best Of

Capitol Records: 2003

First, it was The Police and Boney M. Then, it was Raffi and Disney singalongs. After that... not a whole lot. Music, which had been such a vital part of my early childhood, ceased having much influence. It was those darn Transformers, you see, taking my attention away for a few years, soon replaced by all sorts of marketable cartoons and media. Who has time for bands and songs when there's more The Real Ghostbuster toys to get, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bubblegum cards to buy, or Star Wars movies to obsess over? I still played the odd CD from my folks' collection, but seldom gave it much more thought than a passive distraction. One day though, after listening to a cheery compilation called Sun Jammin', the final track caught my attention like few songs had for a very, very long time. I had to hear more from this group, those sweet vocal harmonies, those starry-eyed lyrics of fun in the Caribbean sun and holiday bliss. The song was Kokomo.

Look, it was the '80s, and The Beach Boys’ most recent hit, so it was about the only way I'd have 'stumbled' upon them back then. Man though, after hearing that song, I scoured for more, the first time in my life I started digging for a specific group. It probably didn't hurt I was heavy into Archie Comics at the time (shad'up, we've all been there!), and saw kinship between the two representatives of clean-cut, all-American youth culture as envisioned by the late '50s and early '60s. I even compiled my findings onto my very first mixtape. True, all I had to work with was whatever was in my father's CDs, but as an initiation into the glorious world of music hunting obsession, The Beach Boys wasn't such a bad place to start.

Of course, had Tween Sykonee been around when Sounds Of Summer came about, I wouldn’t have needed to bother. There were numerous ‘Best Of’ and ‘Greatest Hits’ and ‘Essential Sounds’ on the market up through the ‘80s, but it didn’t seem The Beach Boys were quite done scoring the occasional charter even long after most figured their music way dated. Then the ‘90s hit and, well, yeah. With no new hits for a decade, the new millennium seemed as good a time as any for an authentic, definitive gathering of all their memorable, classic, vintage, glorious tunes. And Getcha Back, for some stupid reason (ugh... those ‘80s drums, so bad).

Sounds Of Summer is about as perfect a collection of Beach Boys music you could want without splurging on a zillion LPs for three or four great tunes surrounded by filler. It’s got all the surf rock hits, the hot-rodding car odes, the rowdy party tunes (Barbara Ann, so drunk), their introspective aging songs, and an assortment of odds and sods in the ensuing years. The only thing missing is selections from their wonderful Christmas album, but that’d defeat the ‘summer’ theme, wouldn’t it.

Thievery Corporation - Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi

Eighteenth Street Lounge Music/4AD: 1997/1998

This album was such a revelation when I first heard it, even if it was treading familiar ground to music that came before. Some genres though, I seldom grow tired of, and when they fall out of popular favour, the heart grows fonder for another fix. These days, such down periods are almost impossible, every damn thing available at any damn time for almost no damn price (gosh darn it!). The '90s though, that was a different era, one where cool genres could completely disappear from local scenes for years, yet cultivating a vibe in the unlikeliest places.

For yours truly, I had nary a hope of finding much ambient dub, loungy trip-hop, or spaced-out downtempo even on the best of days (re: lucking out on a trip to Big Van' City, son), so having Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi stumble into my Canadian hinterlands storefront was a godsend. If you happened to hang out in Washington, D.C. though, where Misters Garza and Hilton were plying their trade in the back-half of the ‘90s, you’d be inundated with their sweet, sweet dubby vibe. Also, Kruder & Dorfmeister, somewhere in Eastern Europe.

So Thievery Corporation proved they were keeping the spliff-heady downtempo dub alive, even if the similarities to the early works of Beyond Records were entirely coincidental. They joined forces, after all, upon meeting each other in a lounge while waxing nostalgic about old timey bossa nova music. That sound would go on to define most of their work, but at this early stage they’re still feeding off the trip-hop and reggae dub brand most downtempo was comfortable indulging in during the ‘90s.

And while it wouldn’t surprise me if the Thievin’ Corps. doesn’t care for these early efforts anymore, it’s difficult denying just how mint some of these tunes remain. 2001 Spliff Odyssey is perfectly titled, a sublime slice of lengthy cosmic dub that strips rhythms bare, lays just enough reverb on to lose your head in, and wraps it all with floating, filtered pad work – cheeky vocal snippets thrown in don’t hurt either. Other tracks like Shaolin Satellite, The Foundation, Walking Through Babylon, So Vast The Sky, and .38.45 follow a similar mould, each ace examples of this style, though not nearly as long as Odyssey.

Ah right, that ‘Thievery Corporation make too short of tracks” gripe I mentioned in The Mirror Conspiracy. Technically, I could say the same thing here, but as this is early Thievery, their music hasn’t evolved to the rich, dense soup it would later, most tunes sparse and simple. Even their bossa (Vivid, The Glass Bead Game, Incident At Gate 7) and Afro cuts (Universal Highness, The Oscillator) only scratch the surface, more content at remaining dub above all else. In this case then, short track lengths are fine, most getting in and providing their nice jam before moving on. It may be simple song writing, but damn if Garza and Hilton not hit that sweet, downtempo dub spot in the process.

Overdream - Soundprints

Sun Station: 2011

This was quite a contrast coming off Olien's Sounded Paratronic. Both are 'dark psy', though they couldn't be further apart in the psy spectrum. Olien's brand of music is almost anti-music, foregoing traditional song structure for an endless barrage of twisted sounds intent on creating wacked-out imagery within your brainpan – and it's fucking awesome in doing so! Overdream, on the other hand, sticks to psy's typical structures, even brings in a few lobe-grabbing moments, and generally provides music that sounds competent but doesn't spark the same unpredictable energy Olien's works do. Essentially, this is the ‘twilight trance' sound, a darker version of full-on (or morning, or whatever), where things can go weird, but never so much that the mind turns to mush with aggressive beats and ear shredding effects. Yeah, I know, describing the difference between 'dark' and ‘twilight’ makes as much sense as the difference between 'goa' and 'psychedelic', but great wars have been fought in establishing these sonic boundaries within the psy trance contingent, much hippie blood shed and stained with acid tabs flowing through outdoor fields and forests. Very pretty laser blasts from the starships, though.

Anyhow, that ‘typical psy structure’ I mentioned often plays out thus: here’s a section with some cool sounds, now here’s another section with cool sounds, and then a third; maybe a forth if it’s a long track. That’s acceptable if there’s sounds you enjoy hearing, but trouble is there’s often very little melodic or harmonic flow linking these together (no, that steady psy bassline doesn’t count). Psy’s tendency to cram so much randomness into their tracks makes for a frustrating listen in huge quantities, and the opening few cuts of Overdream’s mini-album Soundprints falls prey to this trope too. A shame, since this Russian duo (Maxim & Olga Kurushyna) has sonic similarities to Olien, just not the same way with the deep atmospherics. Like some of the greats of goa’s past (Koxbox, Man With No Name, Etnica), Olien’s music is constantly evolving like an advanced lifeform, whereas most dark psy’s content to just add a new appendage or antler and call it a day.

Sorry for all that, let’s get to some proper reviewing, eh? Overdream emerged during the mid-‘00s boom of dark psy, and have maintained a steady career since, mostly in compilation duty. Ektoplazm also highly rates them, hence why this came downloaded during a trawl of the ever-awesome psy portal. If you like your dark psy, or twilight psy (or whatever), you should dig on the first three tracks – just, y’know, don’t listen to Sounded Paratronic beforehand. Personally though, the throwback goa cut Zurna does the trick for me. While that plastic rhythm can’t be mistaken for anything but current, the spacey multi-tapped pads and squelchy rubber-acid have all my ‘90s nostalgia electrodes tingling. As is wont for most psy albums, even in an EP format, there’s a downtempo dubby cut to finish out, Kaleidoscope Eyes with DubMyDub. It’s, um... well, it’s not Ott.

Olien - Sounded Paratronic (Original TC Review)

Trishula Records: 2007

(2015 Update:
I think Olien ruined psy trance for me. I'll get into more details with these thoughts in my next review - how practical! - but the short version is my expectations for what the dark side of the genre could sound like never again matched what Oliver Bach produced here. I'll grant it was a rather small sample size I took in in the years following, so perhaps I've missed out on a few choice producers lurking the deep underground of the psy scene. Somehow though, I suspect not, the whole sub-genre of dark psy growing rather stale as the '00s went on, then taking a bizarre turn into extreme BPMs as 'high-tek' (or whatever). I'm sure it retains a following as most psy sub-genres do, but yeah, my mid-'00s flirtation was enough for my fix thus far.

Unless, of coarse, Olien makes a comeback! Like so many - too many! - producers, he seemed finished after Sounded Paratronic. As per the traditional story, he's released an odd track on compilations every so often, but has remained relatively quiet these past few years. Such a shame, his brand of sounds and effects still unlike any other I've heard. Like, I'm speeding through some alien metropolitan landscape where cyberpunk anime and pulp splattercore high fantasy dominate the scenery, all while tripping on LSD or some such. How could you not want to hear more music like this!)


IN BRIEF: Quite twisted.

For most folks, there are two kinds of music they look to get: tunes with a catchy hook, or tunes with an infectious beat. They simply have little time for technicalities like musicianship, creativity, and so on. Sure, every so often a song with all these traits will sneak into the public ear, but it’s quite the rarity when it does. So it isn’t surprising when music with other ideas in mind is dismissed as nonsense by Average Jane and Joe. After all, how good can it be if it doesn’t make you hum or tap your foot? Actually, at times it can be quite good indeed.

While only the basics of rhythm and melody continue to appeal to the masses, there’s a wealth of music designed for more specific tastes. Psychedelic music often has the listener’s imagination in mind, using soundscapes to trigger quirky images in the brains of the audience. When producers began making use of synths and sequencers in this vein, even the sky was no longer the limit. Psy trance was born, and has enjoyed its status as fringe music in spite of the ridicule it gets as just a bunch of wibbly noise. Still, ‘a bunch of wibbly noise’ isn’t the fairest description. There are plenty of catchy hooks and nice melodies scattered about this scene. However, there are also many producers out there who like to dig deep into psychedelia, leaving all but the fearless behind. This is Olien’s aim.

Oliver Bach describes his music as ‘layered psy’, and I do find this apt. On the surface, playing his album Sounded Paratronic in the background while I attended to other tasks, very little of his work caught my ear. The odd sonic trick here, a quirky sound there, but I couldn’t describe much afterwards. But when I sat down with the good ol’ Sennheisers... Good God, but does this music ever reveal itself to you! Or rather, I discovered there’s far more of interest going on than first impressions will show.

Make no mistake: there still isn’t much in the way of a catchy hook. And the rhythms, although definitely using different patterns between tracks, are seriously lacking in the funk. What Olien does remarkably well though, is create incredibly warped soundscapes that suck you in and tickles your imagination with twisted imagery. It’s like some sort of synthesis of organic, cybernetic, and alien textures.

Probably the closest comparison that springs to mind would be Oliver Lieb’s The Black Album under his L.S.G. alias. In fact, it would seem Bach gives a small tribute to his fellow Oliver in the opening track Amanit, as a few samples of various Lieb tracks can be heard in it. But whereas The Black Album focused mostly on the darkest of tech-trance ideas, Sounded Paratronic holds back from descending quite that far into madness.

The most intriguing thing I found with this album is just how it keeps your attention. I’ll admit my thoughts can wander when sitting back to music, often due to predictability. But with production geared for twisted imagery rather than typical song structure, Olien keeps you guessing what’s coming next. Granted, a great number of psy does this and I’ve often found myself subconsciously tuning it out anyways because what is offered just isn’t interesting. Not in Olien’s case though. Every stuttered synth, every rubbery bassline, every floating pad, every disembodied vocal sample keeps me hooked; such creative stuff to listen to it is. Hardly ever did I hear any of psy trance’s more annoying clichés crop up, and if they ever did, they were given a clever spin.

And probably the most important factor in making Sounded Paratronic an engaging listen is how it’s never overcooked. Psy often has a problem in trying to be too clever, too psychedelic. Sure, there are a couple times where it sounds like Olien is overdoing it (probably most notably in Cybersphere) but for the most part Bach keeps things focused on the imagery his music creates rather than indulging for indulgent’s sake.

Ultimately though, if you absolutely need to have your music contain typical rhythms and melody, Sounded Paratronic won’t interest you in the slightest. You won’t be singing Granularis in the shower and Calmar won’t have you break-dancing anytime soon (although I’m sure a few cyber-hippies won’t mind flailing to these), but then that’s beside the point.

Sounded Paratronic has a very specific audience in mind, and Olien has produced a well-crafted album for said audience. If you’re after a psy trance album that’ll play delightful things with your head, give this a go.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2007. © All rights reserved.

Various - The Sound Of Zero And One

Control Music: 1995

Probably the most remarkable thing about this compilation has nothing to do with the music within; rather, in the liner notes, there's mention of Canadian comedian Tom Green. Keep in mind this was released in 1995, well before he blew up big in American media, in fact still slumming it on Ottawa public cable access. Yet among the obligatory thank you notes, Glenn Humplik, who put this CD together, inexplicably but prophetically proclaims Mr. Green “will be a star by the time you read this”. True, Mr. Humplik worked as a co-host on a revamped MTV version of The Tom Green Show, so the two were likely mates, but how he thought this CD was a suitable medium for such a namedrop bump is bizarre. For you see, folks, The Sound Of Zero And One is hopelessly obscure, for once in the truest sense of the hyperbole.

For one thing, this collection of ten tracks offers scant few recognizable names beyond the most hardcore of Toronto techno trainspotters. Even Lord Discogs is flustered by the likes of Ajax (2), Circular (3), Buzz (13) (!!), and Ki (3). Right, Circular and Buzz is in fact Mr. Humplik himself, but the rest don't have much presence beyond this compilation. Fred Exelby pulls double duty here, once as All Broken, and another as part of A.S.A., and little else beyond. Space Ace and Auto Kinetic have more respectable discographies for way underground techno, but I’ll be astounded if you've heard of these names before reading this review (no, Tom Green doesn't count).

And yet, someone out there must be jonesing for The Sound Of Zero And One, for when I popped over to Lord Discogs to get a little background detail, I discovered the Marketplace asking price for this CD is nearly $75! What the Hell? I'll grant the music within is somewhat unique for mid-'90s techno, though not astoundingly so. Most of it is groovy acid, sometimes more minimal (Ki's Fluorescent, Circular's Reaction In Sync, Auto Kinetic's Blue Solutions, Buzz' Turboset), other times treading into trance's territory (All Broken's Set The Controls, Ajax's Evening Chanting), and elsewhere feeling the experimental itch (A.S.A.'s Autorhythm). Oh, and a lovely bit of ambient to close out with Space Ace's Sea Of Japan. A few of these are also exclusive to this CD, which I suppose does increase the value for collectors, though I can't imagine many fans of Ki or Circular existing out there. Or maybe they do, if there are folks willing to shed seventy-five bones for a copy.

It’s weird discovering all this after having The Sound Of Zero And One in my collection for nearly two decades. The only reason I bought the CD was it met two purchasing criteria during my honeymoon raver days: track list should feature mostly unknowns, and has cool looking cover art. I’ve gotten decent enjoyment from it over the years, but it doesn’t get played often. Maybe that price point will now make it sound better?

Sven Väth ‎– In The Mix: The Sound Of The Ninth Season (Original TC Review)

Cocoon Recordings: 2008

(2015 Update:
At the risk of being totally predictable, boy what a difference of six years can make. No longer the scrappy, renegade techno party, Mr. Väth's night had become an Ibizan institution as the '00s wound down, one of the requisite stops for every vacationing punter. As such, the music reflected this change, recognizable anthems replacing underground, fuck-off bangers. It's a small shame that he didn't stay the harder course, but with so much success comes some responsibility in playing to the crowd, and the typical clubber would rather bop and shuffle in place than pound the dancefloor all night long. Ironically, given the bad rep trance had at this time (and still does!) the neo-trance stuff at the tail-end of CD2 comes off more daring and underground than anything from Jonson, Dubfire, or Johnny D.)


IN BRIEF: Something new, something old.

While there are club DJs, rave DJs, and superstar DJs, there seems to be only one Sven Väth, an individual who has seen every walk of European EDM culture since its inception. He’s like that guy who went through a high-school as part of the first graduating class, remained as a member of the faculty, and will probably stick around post-retirement even if it’s as a custodian - he just loves the place so damned much to ever leave. Similarly, Väth isn’t simply a reveler in dance music hedonism - he is hedonism!

Unsurprisingly then, ‘Pappa Sven’ saw something of a rebirth once he established his Cocoon brand in Ibiza at the turn of the century, gearing it as the grittier underground alternative to the high-end gloss the party island had succumbed to from dance music’s commercial success at the time. The emphasis on take-no-prisoners techno and such certainly was out of the ordinary back then, but that outsider’s thinking seems to have paid off: Väth remains just as popular as ever, all without ever compromising his musical intuition. Success!

The yearly Sound Of The... Season series aims to be a reflection of the sounds Sven was favoring in Ibiza each summer, and as such, nine years after Cocoon was established, we’ve arrived at the Ninth Season. While this may seem redundant if you were actually there, in these unforgiving economic times plane tickets can be pricey, so it’s nice to have a snapshot for those who can’t make it. Besides, it’s not like most of the partiers in Ibiza often actually ‘remember’ what even happened there, much less specifically heard. Anyhow, Ninth Season, like most of the previous Seasons in recent years, follows the two-disc format, with each disc having a tagline that reflects that year’s theme; this time, we have Disco and Invaders. For the sake of repetition, here’s yet another paragraph ending with an exclamation mark!

Disco is typical Väth: willfully erratic, yet compelling all the same. Heck, the opening track from Mathew “Not Dear Or Edwards” Jonson could be construed as typical Väth in itself, as it jumps from mournful woodwinds to thumping techno to wonky experimentalism in the course of its ten-minute running time. Another example: following Sasha’s futuristic groover Mongoose is the Afro tribal-techno Buiya from Ahmet Sisman, taking you right back to pure primal roots after cruising the streets of neo-Tokyo. Okay, so there really isn’t anything that amazing about this transition but in terms of set flow, it’s unexpected and keeps the rhythmic tempo on the climb, which is always a plus.

As per its title, CD1 is mostly geared for the discotheque, so you get a lot of big-room techno thumping about. While I’ll admit I preferred Väth’s techno when he was slamming out the tracks a dozen BPMs higher, the cuts on Ninth are still serious movers. Heck, even if it’s played-out, Dubfire’s remix of Radio Slave’s Grindhouse remains a great peak-time tune, indicating the prolific remixer has merely been working the Law Of Averages this past year - mind, it probably helps that Väth also cuts out some two-and-a-half minutes of useless twiddle. Unfortunately, Disco ends on a rather limp note, as Prydz’ remix of Total Departure is an overlong tension builder that never offers a release, and Väth’s own Trashbindance with Alter Ego man Roman Flügel is too plinky-plonk to do the trick as a follow-up. Still, this disc is a fun romp through familiarity, which is par for the course where Ibizan-themed compilations are concerned.

CD2 is more of an afterhours affair, with deep tech house dominating much of the first half. As usual, the chill groove of this sound is pleasant enough, but tends to be mostly a flatlined listening experience. About the only track that leaps out is, of course, Johnny D’s Orbitalife, if only because it was one of those omnipresent tunes you couldn’t ever escape. Hearing it here again is fair play, but still doesn’t lift the opening chunk of Invaders above anything more exciting than lounge vibes.

Things pick up with the pure acid trance vibes of Waiting For You Again from Sven Tasnadi. Don’t give me that look, you insufferable trendster. If you don’t recognize this as trance, then you clearly don’t know your EDM history; get back to me after you’ve listened to some classic cuts from Väth’s original Harthouse label. For everyone left, Invaders continues down the loopy hypnotic road, perhaps suggesting that classic trance is due for a proper resurgence in the coming year, provided folks call it what it is rather than lumping it with ‘minimal’. With Joris Voorn’s remix of Dark Flower offering a prog-house type of climax - at least in the way Väth uses it - and the quirky world beat vibes of Spirits providing a wonderful coda, CD2 ends far more strongly than CD1.

Ninth Season definitely has more things working in its favor than against; the strength of the music on hand is always beneficial. The unfortunate thing, however, is it doesn’t come across like a necessary pick-up. Unlike, say, Third Season which had the tag-team of Hawtin and an overall ‘night-out’ theme running, or the DVD package of Fifth Season, there isn’t anything unique here to differentiate Ninth from the rest of the Sound Of… series beyond the selection of tracks. And even then, a number of them have been featured on several other compilations since the summer - as such, should you already have a bunch of these tunes, chances are you’ll be more willing to give this one a pass. If not, though, or you have no problem with Väth mixing together a bunch of well-rinsed techno records for your home enjoyment, then Ninth Season should find a comfy home in your collection.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2008. © All rights reserved.

ACE TRACKS: September 2015

Well, what do you know? It’s October 2015, which means I’ve been back at this blog for three whole years now. I honestly never thought it’d come to this. While I was pretty determined to listen through my entire music collection in alphabetical order, I felt writing about my progress would be nothing but a short-termed lark. That I’d hit another burn-out wall, or see this as a futile endeavor if no one was reading, or get distracted with something more important. This format though - the self-imposed word count and sense of absolute writing freedom - has kept burn-out at bay, somehow attracted its fair share of steady readers, and never interfered with real world obligations. Geez though, I hope I don’t get big off this. Last thing I need in my life is becoming Internet Famous. Here, have a play of ACE TRACKS from September 2015 to keep the controversy at bay.


Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
Tom Middleton - The Sound Of The Cosmos
Dieselboy - A Soldier’s Story
DJ Moe Sticky - RnB State Of Mind 32 & 33 Various - Saint-Germain-Des-Pres Café III
Tau Ceti - Somnium

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 0%
Percentage Of Rock: 7%
Most “WTF?” Track: Coldcut - Sound Mirrors (just what is going on with that instrumentation anyway?)

With so much ambient in this playlist, especially from AstroPilot, I’ve gone with a different sort of arrangement. No, not a variation of an alphabetical run-through. Rather, I’ve lumped all the beatless material at the beginning, and worked a gradual increase in tempo through to the end. It goes into some downtempo and deep house stuff, gets a bit more heavy with funk and disco punk, then finishes out with hard trance and acid. So, um, like a traditional set, I guess. Weird that I’ve never done it this way before, but then most of these playlists are quite the mish-mash of genres.

Sven Väth & Richie Hawtin - The Sound Of The Third Season

M_nus: 2002

Standing out in a crowded DJ mix CD market was no mean task a decade ago. You could have a stellar selection of tunes and credible hype getting your name out there, but even the best PR may not sway folks to your offering if it’s still presented as just another rinse out of current tunes. Sven Väth though, he knew he had something special going on with his Cocoon nights at Amnesia. The Monday night slot only helped its allure grow with underground heads, Cocoon becoming a refuge for partiers tired of weekend superclub excess, and Väth had no trouble providing uncompromising techno they would appreciate. Soon he was bringing in premier techno jocks the world over, including one Richie Hawtin for a tag-team residency in the summer of 2001. Their night was so successful, so memorable, so life-changing and affirming (especially for Richie!), that they sought to capture the vibe for home hearing pleasure. Whether as seductive advertising for the club night, or a postcard memento of the experience, The Sound Of The Third Season hoped to take the listener on an immersive dive into the Cocoon experience.

By the by, if you’re a newer participant in this global culture of dance music, you should know we’re dealing with the Pre-Crisis versions of Hawtin and Väth here. The latter is still in his doofy eurotrash phase, so no grizzled Papa Sven beard for you. And Hawtin had yet to grow his hair back, still rockin’ the perfect robot scalp of the ‘90s, though clearly in brighter spirits than those dour times.

This is also before Hawtin decreed all techno could only be serious and ‘mnml’ music, thus instead rinsing out some absolute bangin’ material for his opening portion of this CD. True, it was the preferred sound of techno at the time, but it’s almost startling to hear a Hawtin set encompass things like an actual hook in DJ Shufflemaster’s Play Back, Pt. 3, to say nothing of the slightly tech-trancey chords in Smith & Selway’s rub of Slam’s Step Back. I wonder if Richie’s embarrassed by this phase of his today? As for Sven, he picks right up from Hawtin with the techno pummelage, then goes into noisy electro and punk techno (Vitalic, Hacker, Legowelt, and John Starlight all make appearances), which isn’t surprising for a 2001/2 set of this sort.

What marks Sound Of The Third Season as a unique entity, however, is all the field recordings Sven and Hawtin gathered, interjecting them at various points throughout the mix. Their aim was to recreate the atmosphere of a night out with them, including a t-bone steak dinner prior to the club, plus some afterhours shenanigans too (with Swayzak music!). Some folks complained these bits ruined the set flow of the CD, and Väth never repeated the trick in future installments of this series. I find it a worthy experiment though, plus rather hilarious for the final bit of ‘not-at-all-high’ dialog at the very end.