Various - Tranceport: Paul Oakenfold

Kinetic Records: 1998

This is such a redundant CD in my collection, the very epitome of having all the same tracks in a different order. And not a terribly good order at that, so many tunes better served on other mixes and compilations. I wouldn’t even have Tranceport, had it not came bundled with a former owner’s collection looking to offload their discs (one guess who’s!). And yes, I must qualify this review with a haughty proclamation of being ‘too good to buy Tranceport’, or something to that affect. I definitely knew of Oakenfold’s mix, hearing it circulated on dub-tapes during my Canadian Hinterlands exile. Between this and his Live At Oslo contribution to the Global Underground series, Oakenfoldmania was running wild among my circle of peers. And yeah, I fell sway too, but thanks to other mixes of his that stood out from the pack. Tranceport though? Sorry, but by the time I might have considered buying this CD, these anthems were well played out for yours truly.

Obviously, I was a minority in this, for Tranceport became infamous for not only giving Oakenfold a significant boost in the lucrative American market, but promoting the genre of trance as well. For sure it had its dedicated, underground following, especially among folks fancying the psy side of things, but the progressive sound tearing up the UK club scene? No more so than your regular rave, most media attention focused on other European exports like big beat, French house, and trip-hop. If you wanted trance CDs without paying ridiculous import prices, your options essentially boiled down to old-school German back-catalog and whatever goa compilations drifted this way.

Tranceport, on the other hand, was released domestically (thus cheaply!) by Kinetic Records, a sub-label of American institution Reprise Records (founded by Frank Sinatra; endlessly tagged on this blog via Neil Young). This isn’t much of a surprise, as Kinetic was basically set up as the sole Stateside distributor of Perfecto material, including Oakenfold’s releases. Once club music gained more traction in America, Kinetic would move on from all things Perfecto, but given just how popular ol’ Paul was growing at this time, an exclusive mix to capitalize on his fame made good business sense. Or, considering Tranceport would go on to be a running series for Kinetic, having the popular Oakenfold kick it off made good business sense. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if the latter was the case, considering how slapdash this CD comes off. “Yeah, mates,” ol’ Paul would say, “here’s some anthems for ya’ to get started. Is my contract with you now finished? Good, off to tour with U2 then!”

The CD itself? Yeah, Tranceport’s got some anthems. I’ve talked about most of them already though, and don’t feel like typing what you’ve already read in a different order. Of the tunes I haven’t discussed before, El Niño’s overlong breakdown’s annoying, Time reminds me of old-school trance, and Gamemaster is such a rip-off of Quench’s Dreams, I can’t even dignify a finish.

Various - Trancemission To Andromeda

Hypnotic: 1996

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

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

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

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

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

Various - Tranced Out And Dreaming

Planet Dog/Mammoth: 1997

Where could Planet Dog have gone had they survived through the new millennium? The tie-in for Club Dog and Megadog parties weren’t exactly gunning for dance music dominance, content in letting other labels claim the big acts and dominate the scene. Yet those half-dozen names they signed, they made an undeniable mark on the psychedelic side of ‘90s electronic jams, gaining plenty of critical plaudits in the process. Planet Dog came across as a label that nurtured the talent they gathered, even if most of them weren’t long for this world (come back to us, Children of The Bong!). Would another unique, unheralded name have graced our ears thanks to Planet Dog’s finger the scene’s pulse? Could they continue forging their own path when homogeny became the commercially viable option? Might they have compromised their identity to stay afloat, jumping on trends and bandwagons before collapsing regardless? Ugh, that’s bleak. Let’s try Alternate Earth #2,622,673 instead, where Planet Earth became literal Planet Dog. Snoop Dogg is Canine Overlord.

But wait, maybe we have a tantalizing little look-see into one of those more practical possibilities, this here CD called Tranced Out And Dreaming. First though, that cover art. I don’t know what the Doggie folk were thinking with it, looking all sorts of cartoony and crummy. If you didn’t know the pedigree behind the compilation, you’d swear this was some chintzy world beat or New Age bollocks. Hey, maybe that’s why the label folded the year after: bad marketing! No, no, it was the demise of parent label Ultimate, ‘tis all.

Anyhow, Tranced Out And Dreaming is Planet Dog’s stab at a trance CD, as was a popular trend in 1997-o-dickety. The label had ties with the genre, Eat Static already a mainstay on the psy trance circuit, but generally skewed towards the downbeat, world beat, trippy beat, and dub beat. Uptempo goa and progressive trance were not on their radar, and even with this compilation on the market, that argument still holds true. Only Tony Hunt, who has three tracks on this nine-tracker (Katouka, Spectral, and Ionosphere), offers the most traditional of trance tropes, what with high-octane beats, soaring synths, and ethnic chants. While these cuts instantly won me over back in my trancecracker youth, I find them rather obvious and rote these days, especially compared to the other tunes here.

The opening few tracks are decent enough stabs at trippy, acid techno, but the back-half of this CD offers some absolutely mint dub action. Blissy Psilodub from Transequence will give your bassbins a proper workout, while slow groover Drift (Fruit Mix) from O.V.N.I. will have you floating through the cosmos as expertly as any psy-dub offering of the era. Astronomix’ La Danseuse Obsédante is a perfect example of the ‘technorganic’ style Planet Dog made famous, while Feel’s Nyango gets back to some chugging progressive house action on that ethnic tip. Methinks a label forgot what a ‘trance’ compilation was supposed to sound like by the end. Or not. *wink*

Various - Trance 2001: A Trance Odyssey

Hypnotic: 1995

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

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

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

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

Various - Trance V.oice 2

Beat Buzz Records: 2003

I wanted some trance damn it, but my God was the selection in this particular store ever dismal. I could find my Turbo CDs and maybe a nifty techno album or two, but where was the trance, man? Where was the trance? On compilations with a Balearic beach, or a sunrise, or a sunrise on a Balearic beach, promising the latest and bestest in Ibizan superclub anthems, all tracks that, if I hadn’t already gotten, sure didn’t want, even in a different order.

It was then I realized whatever I’d enjoyed of the genre was truly, definitely gone, with no hope of return or salvation. The only thing left was to accept it full-stop, taking it as good as the cheese could give it. I scanned the shelves for the most overblown, chintzy, gaudy, ridiculous, nonsensical piece of cover art I could find, and hoo boy did I find a doozy! Just… what the Hell is going on here? Happy hardcore would be embarrassed by how cartoony this looks, and don’t get me started on the abomination that’s a double-gendered, two-headed plesiosaur. Too cruel to exist, yet too bizarre to erase from my memory.

And the trance. Oh dear God, the trance. Already you’re thinking we’re in for some rough vocal tripe, but maybe Trance V.oice 2 would present itself like those Trance Divas discs, a mix of the poppy euro fluff with more ‘credible’ examples of the sub-genre. Aw HELL n’aw! If I wanted something like that, I’d have gone with any dozen of generic trance CDs. I wanted the worst of the worst with this sucker, and Trance V.oice 2 fucking delivers!

The first track is DJ Sammy’s Heaven; welp, no sense pussy-footing this excrement. The next two have M.I.K.E.’s stamp on them, a Push remix of Zippora’s See The Sun, plus the collaboration Please Save Me with Sunscreen. If you like the Push sound, you’ll probably enjoy these, but as we’re dealing with radio edits, both tracks are utterly useless as examples of well-crafted trance (no time for subtlety). Fourth track is a lame hard dance cover of Supertramp’s The Logical Song from Solid Solution. Dear lord, just end this already.

No dice, Trance V.oice 2 carrying on with awful supersaws, flaccid pop, and wretched radio edits. As always, the closer vocal trance gets to euro dance, as with Futurz’ Let Your Night Shine Through and Sylver’s The Smile Has Left Your Eyes, the better it gets, but we’re at a pathetically low baseline here, my friends. All hope is gone once Trance V.oice 2 basically gives up on being a trance compilation after dropping a cover of BKS’ I’m In Love With You near the end. And the next track, Velvet Girl’s Promise U Heaven, why that doesn’t even have vocals at all! Zero out of Ten Jan Johnston Heads.

Seriously though, it’s the only decent track on here; once again Lolo provides some class on an awful CD. Respect.

Various - Trance Trippin'

DMC Records: 1997

Far be it for Hypnotic to have a monopoly on wacky trance art that screams ‘90s, here’s Trance Trippin’ from DMC Records! No, not the prestigious DMC that holds annual DJ competitions - this DMC was a short-lived print out of Los Angeles that apparently peddled a fair bit of deep house before taking a chance on trance (it was growing popular by ’97). Also, don’t go confusing this with that early-‘90s Trance Trippin’ from ZYX Records, for cover notwithstanding this one is surprisingly decent. There’s a solid gathering of names on here, with everything mixed by that smoothest of jocks, DJ ProTools.

I also can’t tell whether Trance Trippin’ is bold or daft in its attempt at linking fluffy vocal trance with smashing goa and acid. Consider: DJ Dado’s Revenge and Qattara’s Come With Me are a couple of the opening tracks, while the set’s final volley features the ‘buttrock’ of S.U.N. Project’s At The Edge Of Time and deep tweakin’ 303 action of The Pump Panel’s Ego Acid. I don’t think even Oakenfold would have tried bridging the two wildly disparate sub-genres of trance, always keeping his goa indulgences well separated from any club friendly material. This CD done does it though, using a varied assortment of trance to get there, twenty-two tracks in total.

You get an early Ferry Corsten acid production with Pulp Victim’s I’m Losing Control, something that sounds like Brooklyn Bounce from Acidphase’s We Are Back, a little chemical breaks business with Solarstone’s The Calling (Inner Peace Mix), plus unabashed Sash! anthemage with 2 Lips’ Je T’Aime. A little further along, and DJ Scot Project’s Y (How Deep Is Your Love) offers the man’s cheeky ultra-build action, then the goa hits in with a Digital Blonde’s rub of Sandman’s Coimbra followed by Electric Universe’s Stardiver. Once the pummeling acid build of X-Cabs’ Neuro hits, you’ve likely long forgotten that Trance Trippin’ opened with Anomaly (Calling Your Name)!

Eh? These tracks all sound too disparate for a smooth flowing set? Well sure – it is a CD from 1997 after all, and ProTools can only do so much for you without some outside-the-box ingenuity. Trance Trippin’ doesn’t have that though, most tracks cutting in and out after three minutes of showtime, some transitions horribly clashing in key before quickly move on. Still, admirable effort for an obscure label jumping on a bandwagon. How did I get this anyway?

Funny story that! Forced to leave Vancouver and move back to the hinterlands, I knew once there I’d be without cool underground electronic music for a long time – my final purchase from the Lower Mainland had to count. Clearly Trance Trippin's cover art caught my attention, and seeing Atlantic Ocean’s The Cycle Of Life intrigued me, but I wasn’t sure about the rest. Then my sister, hardly a fan of this stuff, took a listen, enjoyed the first few tracks, and insisted I get this. T’was the only time she influenced a purchase of mine.

Various - Trance Traxx 2

Ouragan: 1995

The first trance compilation I owned, this one. Yeah, those Music Research showcases converted me, but for a year prior my allegiance to the trance camps wavered between the euro-dance armies. I definitely knew there was this neat genre out there, having also recently purchased albums from Dance 2 Trance and Jam & Spoon. Come to think of it, seeing a J&S cut on this CD was also an initial lure, the name ‘Jam El Mar’ quickly burning into my brain as someone to keep tabs on for dance tunes that tickled my earholes (B.G. Prince Of Rap hits helped bridge that gap). Super ‘90s CGI art didn’t hurt either.

As a proper foray to the world of trance, this was a decent introduction. The Jam & Spoon track on here is their twelve-minute classic anthem Follow Me, almost a microcosm of the various attributes the genre offered in its early years. It’s got the spacey, hypnotic start, the clap-along building middle, the big PLUR-gooey breakdown, and the blistering hard, acid race to the finish. Jam’s vintage sawwave synth pitch-bends are undoubtedly dated, but surely have achieved retro charm by now. Other ‘back-in-the-day’ highlights include Vernon’s chord-heavy Wonderer, Emmanual Top’s “black polished chrome” acid trip Turkish Bazar, and Atlantic Ocean’s spritely, bouncy Waterfall.

Wait, that last one’s house, isn’t it? You bet. In fact, the early portions of Trance Traxx 2 features a Crossover Part, highlighting tunes that kinda’-sorta’ fit the trance ethos, if not being the genre itself. This includes The Ethics’ La Luna (“beat of the drum, bang; beat of the drum, bang-bang!”), Nox Alba’s Mambo White (so Balearic!), and The O.T. Quartet’s Hold That Sucker Down (Builds Like A Skyscraper Mix). Yeah, this glorious slice of early Rollo at his Rolloiest could be considered trance, but folks were still calling this sound ‘anthem house’, or ‘progressive house’. Hey, whichever floats your boat.

The reason for such a section on this CD is Trance Traxx 2 offers itself as something of a minor-concept mix, with distinct parts fitting for a traditional journey set. There’s an Overture intro, which includes Suburban Knight’s The Art Of Stalking - yes, a Detroit techno guy opens a trance compilation! The middle path, titled The Awakening Part, goes through the various trance tunes Atoll Music was looking to peddle, while the final sprint christens itself as The Speed Part (it’s definitely that). Finally, a brief Ambient Outro featuring Moby’s Myopia, and a call-back to the intro to end off. Holy cow, even modern trance CDs don’t go that far with their concepts. Trance Traxx 2 must be mint, right?

Yeah, no. I’ve spotlighted all the good tunes, but the other half of this CD’s filled with generic toss-off and unremarkable no-namers (Klima? Speed Limit? Shape Shifter? DJ Eric?? Mobydic!?). And that ‘mix’ I mentioned? Barely existent, some tracks completely ending before the next begins. Trance Traxx 2 had so much potential, but is instead relegated to the bin of forgotten ‘90s CDs.

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

Hypnotic: 1996

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

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

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

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

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

Various - Trance Sessions

Shadow Records: 2002

This CD doesn’t make sense. Not one small bit of sense. Barely a smidge of sanity is associated with it. How does Shadow Records, a label that built its reputation on trip-hop, jazzdance, and leftfield techno, throw its hat into the big ol’ trance-tastic PLUR-poodle? Trance Sessions isn’t some coy, smirking title, where trance is but a concept for exploring the hypnotic potential of deep spliff jams. Nay, this is full-blown, hands-in-the-air, gurn-off-your-face trance, with the gated pads and the acid lines and the supersaws and the off-beat basslines and the trite vo- no, wait, there are no vocals here. Okay, point to you, Shadow Records.

That still doesn’t explain why a label that broke DJ Krush and Ninja Tune to an American audience palled about with the trance scene. Heck, wasn’t their parent label, Instinct, still in operation anyway? They’d released some trancey material back in the early ‘90s, so why not again if they’re so intent on putting out a little trance? No, wait, Instinct was dabbling in indie rock at the time – that’d be an utterly bizarre clash of scenes right there. And while big-time trance money was being made by the British superclubs and globetrotting DJs, it wasn’t that popular in the States; plus the scene was in the midst of a recession as 2001 drew to a close. Ultimately, my best conjecture is, in accordance with Shadow’s other [Style] Sessions series of compilations, the label felt it only appropriate in giving the popular clubbing music a chance. They even went all-in with the concept, getting a continuous mix from Shawn Francis, and even inserting a tiny glowstick into the spine of the clear jewel case. Because if you’re gonna’ cheese out, you may as well own it full-stop, right?

Actually, Trance Sessions gets off on a surprisingly solid start. Things kick off with Afterhours from Alphazone. No, not the supersaw hard trance mongers everyone loved in the mid-‘00s; this one’s a solo project from a Brian Castro. His track’s also rather old-school, with floating Balearic vibes, gated choir pads, and the like. Two more remarkably old-school tracks for the time follow, from a chap by the name of Bluescreen (one Anthony Voitek… more on him at a later date). Explore has a minimalist MFS vibe going for it, while Razor gets all agro with a muted acid hook. Fourth cut Avalanche from Sentinel gets (then) current with a progressive trance tune that would have fit snuggly in an early Global Underground mix. Trance Sessions is shaping up as a nifty under-the-radar collection of trance.

Then it goes completely off the rails. Boshy tracks playing one after the other, hard crossfade slam negating any sense of flow, and tunes that just aren’t that good or memorable. Jan Dexter’s Believe sounds especially cheap compared to the stronger opening salvo. Cannot deny Masters Of Balance’s Long Way Home gets some Sash! charm going for it, but it’s not enough to rescue an abysmal back-end to Trance Sessions. Shame.

Various - Trance Psyberdelic

Moonshine Music: 1997

Early Moonshine wasn’t much known for their trance output. Even their Psychotrance series leaned closer to the domain of techno than anything Germany was pumping out with abandon. That didn’t prevent the label from an occasional dip into the scene though, for when you brand yourself as an outlet that offers any and all genres under the raving sun, you’d best deliver even the most obscure ‘hard-hop’ and ‘trypno’. Right, I’ve no idea whether Moonshine deliberately branded themselves as such, though given the diversity of their early releases, they may as well have. It’s all part and parcel of that carefree California scene, where anything goes so long as the vibes stay alive.

As the Moontribe parties of the ‘90s were undoubtedly filled with raving crusties, you bet they had their share of acid and psy trance indulgences. One of Moonshine’s earliest compilation mini-series, Concept In Dance, dealt with the genre, and they kept dabbling with a CD or two in the following years. By 1997, psy trance was having something of a commercial and critical surge (thanks, Juno Reactor!), such that you’d find all manner of fractal cover art and Goa imagery plastered about the ‘electronica’ section of your major music shop. Naturally Moonshine was there to cash in, with DJ Brian premiering his Hardesertrance series, while also providing a Stateside release of Made On Earth from seminal psy print Blue Room Released. Oh, and this CD I’m supposed to be reviewing right now, that one too.

Trance Psyberdelic stands as an oddity in the Moonshine archives, a collection of psy that goes as deep into the dark DMT hole as any compilation of the time. There is a DMT hole, right? I don’t know, I’ve never done the stuff. Heard it’s one ca-ray-zee trip tho’!

Anyway, the cover art has a charming-tacky mid-‘90s CGI thing that seems more like a Hypnotic release, but there’s nothing cheesy about Trance Psyberdelic, presenting us with the ‘serious’ side of the scene. The music within comes from the likes of Prana, Slinky Wizard, Tristan, and Syb Unity Nettwerk, featuring tons of sci-fi lasers, hard-to-the-floor heady beats, acid-drenched acid, and nary a melody that’ll stay in your noggin after the CD finishes. Except Koxbox’ Stratosfearless, holy cow, for ten minutes they do such amazing, diverse things with an incredibly simple hook! Pete Martin, who also compiled the CD, crops up twice, first as U.X. with one-time Juno Reactor and Killing Joke member Kris Kylven (he’s also that Syb guy). Martin’s other, more familiar project of Slide, also appears. Yes, as in ‘Cass & Slide’. What, you didn’t know one of prog’s biggest darlings started out in the psy camps? Don’t worry, easy mistake, that.

Eh? Oh yeah, I did say Trance Psyberdelic doesn’t stick in the brain much after. It’s a fussy sort of psy, sounding fine as it plays, but lacking the soaring thrills this genre often has. Except that Koxbox cut, that’s fun!