Taboo - I Dream Of You Tonight (Bab Ba Ba Bab)

Dance Pool: 1995

On the surface, this seems like any other run of the mill eurodance minor hit churned out by Sony's Dance Pool offshoot. And honestly, that's mostly what it is. Despite getting a video roll-out, ample compilation duty, and even a little market penetration on my side of the globe, this was the only thing Taboo released. Or at least, the only thing this 'group' released. Dig deeper though, and there's some surprising music associated with the players involved, but let's hear what we got first.

It's mid-'90s eurodance alright. The chorus is instantly earwormy, has a little scat-singing thrown in, and the synths punchy and buzzy as all good euro is. Then the dancehall rapper comes in to tell you how we're gonna' have fun dancing and all that. He even gets a little meta about it: “Now that me voice gwon deep in'a yo brain; The lady will sing you the chorus again.” And she does too!

Him though, he sounds familiar. Since Taboo was just a one-off project, did he do anything else? *goes Discoggin'* Wait... Barrington Levy? The Barrington Levy? Under Mi Sensi Barrington Levy? Ragga jungle mainstay Barrington Levy? What's he doing here? I mean, sure, may as well make some quick scratch for the German disco clubs, but man, never would have expected that when I grabbed this on a whim. Didn't even appear in the video, letting whoever it is in the video lipsync. In fact, I'm pretty sure everyone in the video is lipsyncing, which wouldn't be unheard of in eurodance, even this late in its age.

If you think that's a crazy 'Six Degrees Of...” factoid, how about the fact producers such as The Timewriter and Oliver Lieb have tangential ties to Taboo as well? One Piero Brunetti, or DJ Piero, and the main man behind this project, had quite the varied career throughout the '90s, flitting about many genres with many partners. His own Another World, an incredibly cheese-ball slice of operatic Italo-dance with sex-jazz saxophone, got an entirely undeserved deep house jam from Timewriter. And, when Daft Punk was taking off, he teamed up with Luis Rodriguez for the one-off Funky Musique as Sunday Afternoon. Which had a release on Silvereye Production Frankfurt, and who else lived in Frankfurt as a remixer-for-hire? It sure wasn't Frank Stallone, I'll tell you that much.

Okay, one more. The remixes on this aren't much to get fussed about (an extended version, a 'pan-flutes' version, a happy 'hardcore' version), except the final one, subtitled X-Rated House-Dreams. While it features some stock Visnadi euro-house tropes like farty basslines and deep organ licks (think Robin S' Show Me Love), that shuffle rhythm is straight garage. In fact, with the included ragga rap and sirens, the whole remix is basically proto speed garage. Mr. Brunetti must have realized it too, as he'd go on to make a few proper speed garage tunes during that genre's heyday. Ahead of the curve, for once!

It's Thinking - Hyperion

Prime/Frame Of Mind: 1994/2018

Whoa, did I just fly through a whole bunch of “I” albums? And who is this Hyperion? No, no, It's Thinking is the name of the group – yes, I know it looks weird, to say nothing of naming the EP something that would make more sense as an alias. Then again, Lord Discogs lists at least thirty-six (36) Hyperions within its tomes, whereas there's only one (1) It's Thinkings. Right, I doubt there were a pile of Hyperions already floating about when this was released, thirty years removed and all – plenty of time for dozens more to crop up. What would one (1) more matter? So props to this Dutch team for thinking this far outside the box in coming up with a grammatically confounding handle when applied to a typical English sentence reviewing it.

This is another Gerd project, and up to the point of me covering his collaborations with Speedy J, the only one I was even remotely familiar with. Not that I was aware of it in that time, and truthfully, there still may be some other alias of his that never realized was him floating about my music collection. Fairly sure I covered all those bases though, so It's Thinking remains it.

As for the particular track I've heard from him, Dirk-Jan Hanegraaff and Mark Ripmeester, it was Afterglow as heard on that Excursions In Ambience compilation that included such luminaries like FSOL, HIA, PWoG, Banco, The Orb (sorta') and a few others. Man, and to think It's Thinking was about the most obscure thing on that CD, perhaps only rivalled by John Selway's Psychedelic Research Lab, and now I have an EP from them. Yay artist discography Bandcamp uploads, and all the legal hurdles they cleared to do so.

Since Afterglow is the only track I have, I naturally picked up the other single in the It's Thinking catalogue, follow-up EP Hyperion. Gotta' explore d'em deep cuts, yo'. The track is a pleasant floaty affair in the vintage Detroit techno vain, though utilizing a standard breakbeat for its backbone. I also love how none of the synth leads are quite aligned to quantized perfection, giving it that real live jam vibe. Imperfections reminding you there's human souls behind the machines. Onto the other tracks, then!

Frame Of Mind is basically Jam & Spoon's Stella, though stripped down to Detroit functionality and less outright Balearic. Love Without Sound gets closer to the seaside resort feels with subtle vocals and effects invoking sunrise in Ibiza. Plus, it's just downright groovy with its rolling rhythms and cascading synths. Funky Finger goes about as deep as you'd expect of a B2 cut on a record with so many shimmering leads, but even it gets in a few bright synth stabs for its back-half.

A charming little gem of a retro EP, Hyperion is. I'd expect nothing less from Gerd's extended discography by this point. Shame it took me thirty years to 'discover' more of it.

Jeannine Schulz - Humble

Polar Seas Recordings: 2022

Now there's a word that's kept me down all my life. Why couldn't I have been born with total narcissistic tendencies, throwing myself out there without a care in the world of how others think of me, deluding myself into believing everyone needs me in their lives? No, I had to be born a humble person, appreciating the positive reinforcement I receive for my creative efforts, but never actively seeking them. Humbleness may sound good for the soul, but is damn near disastrous for marketing. Unless... you can parlay that into its own form of marketing! Certainly worked for a couple famous philosophical folk, but could it in this day and age, where sociopathic influencers rule the world? Heck, I'd accept that challenge, but y'know, humble to a fault and all.

Anyhow, Jeannine Schulz. Can't find much info surrounding this German artist, but she managed herself a fairly steady musical output this past half-decade, a Bandcamp catalogue consisting of some fifty items to date. Granted, many of them are two-to-four track releases of minimalist, abstract ambient music seldom breaching twenty-minute lengths, but there are a few scattered albums about her discography too. Three of those have appeared on Polar Seas Recordings, this here Humble being her second effort for the Toronto label. That's... about all the background I have on this release. Talk about your humbleness.

As said, this is some very minimalist music from Ms. Schulz, though not without its intuitive charms. Opener Home mostly offers what you'll hear from her quite succinctly. Lots of analog churning and fuzz, a gentle tone echoing and flowing through the layers of dubby static. Eventually soft acoustic guitar strums take the lead while resonate pad drone wraps everything together. It'd almost make for the perfect closer on most albums, but we're only seven minutes deep into this forty-five minute long album.

Variety, then. Does Jeannine toy with this formula some? Ichi, The Wind Blows Over The Earth, Resting Place, and the titular track let the more melodic side of this sound carry forward. A Certain Mood And Moment and Presence go more for abstract drone. gm and I toy around with analog effects. Everything's spaced out enough so it doesn't feel like we're spinning wheels with any particular approach to her songcraft. We're still dealing with very subtle sounds though, so differences between pieces will boil down to just how much attention you're paying to it. Which sometimes defeats the purpose of the 'abstract sonic wallpaper' music ambient music of this sort intends to be.

That Home could have closed Humble wasn't just a one-time thing either - every piece was like that. Like, upon my initial playthrough, I kept thinking the album was already wrapping up after each track. Some of that may have to do with how disarming they are, putting you in a sense of ease such that you're content with your listening session. Great for sleepy-time, then.

20 Years: An EMC Reflection

Yep, it's been two decades since I started doing this, the soft launch of TranceCritic going down in December 2004. Sure, there were a couple fallow periods between then and now, including a sixteen month 'indefinite hiatus' while I got my personal shit together. If you carry on after though, we're forgiving of such discrepancies when it comes time to celebrate any anniversary milestones. If you want to call this such a milestone. I know, I know, humble to a fault. Still, it doesn't hurt to recap how we got here.

Back then, I knew I wanted to do some sort of music writing, especially after seeing so many music journalism websites pop up in the wake of Pitchfork's success. I didn't have the technical expertise or marketing prowess to go at it on my own, thus piggy-backed off another website looking to establish itself. A good start, for sure, though felt rather limited in what I wanted to cover. And I knew this would be the case should I apply to any other prominent website like Resident Advisor and the like. No, I wanted the freedom to write what I wanted to, strictly staying in the 'hobby-zone'. Sure, it would have been nice to get paid for my writing, but I already had a well-paying job, didn't need the extra cash. Ultimately, I believed retaining complete creative control of my content was more important and personally rewarding then applying my talent towards someone else's bottom line.

Once 'plug-and-play' blogging options became more common, it seemed like a good idea to set one up for myself should I decide to strike out on my own. Took me a while to figure out what I should do with it, but eventually did, and here we are now. That, and 1,000,000 views later!

Oh yeah, I passed that particular milestone this past month as well. Right, in this day and age of AI bots running rampant everywhere, that sort of engagement number isn't as impressive anymore. And believe me, I'm not so naive as to believe the ridiculous amount of 'engagement' this blog's been getting these past couple of years has nothing to do with the timing of Google launching is AI scraping programs across all its services, including Blogger. Its fine though, I've never let my efforts be predicated upon how many human eyeballs are here at any given time.

If anything, that whole 'industry' is what's given me the most pause when I reflect upon the past two decades. When I started, the best way to get your work out there was to go on web forums, become part of those communities, perhaps go viral among them. Social media outlets were very new concepts, places like Friendster and MySpace in their infancy. Even when sites like Facebook and Twitter expanded upon what social media could be, it still all felt rather insular, hardly more evolved than what a BBS board could generate in promotion.

Then that all changed in the 2010s, promoting your stuff on social media basically a must if you wanted any traction on your pet projects. Like, look at all these EYES congregated in this ONE spot! Don't you want THAT kind of attention? Dang, dawg, when you put it like that, how can I refuse? I bit the bullet, using them as advertised, and yeah, it got me a little more attention, but not substantially so. For a time, I wondered why, though deep down, I knew.

As became clear to everyone eventually, the way you get real attention on social media was through click-bait, preferably of the rage-inducing kind. And I... just wasn't willing to play that game. Oh, there's been plenty of times I was tempted to troll trancecrackers or techno snobs or dubstep dorks, but every time it came to hit 'Post', I stepped back, concluding it wasn't really worth my time and effort to engage with people online in such a manner. If I had anything contentious to say, I had my blog to say it, and that was enough. Let others find me rather than me impose myself upon their worlds.

I know, I know, what a Web 1.0 way of thinking, which is probably why I've enjoyed Mastodon as a social media site more than anything else now. Far as I'm concerned, Xitter is irrelevant to me, and now that Meta's also blocking outside links, Facebook's functionality is about at an end too - contact with non-local friends as about all that's left (plus random clips of cute animals/classic cartoons/nostalgia bait/rasslin' stories). BlueSky's interesting as a Xitter-Killer, but appears to be nothing more than what Twitter once was, which I never really liked much in the first place. Why would I want to go through that song and dance again? No, I'll stick with the Fediverse for now, where close-knit communities around specific interests form, rather than being lost among an over-crowded mess of humanity chasing influence and clout.

I guess that's it, then. Some of this reminiscence is undoubtedly repeated from previous 'milestone' posts, but I'm sure I've added a few more unique eyeballs since them. Again, it's remarkable I've kept at this for two decades now, a feat I honestly never thought possible. Come to think of it though, I had no idea what my life would look like twenty years hence. *glances about* Not that much different, come to think of it. Though I sure do have a shit-tonne more CDs surrounding me now!

Triquetra - Human Control

Suntrip Records: 2020

Can't go through another letter block without also stumbling into another Suntrip CD. And hoo, because this seems to be the lone one among my 'H' albums, it had to make up the lack of representation by dishing out a double-LP! Far as I know, this is the only two-disc album in the label's catalogue. Yeah, there's a couple multi-CD compilations scattered about, but I'm talking original musical material from a singular artist (or duo, in this case).

Come to think of it, double-LPs are generally rare in the psy trance scene, and for good reason: it's just too singular a style of music to warrant it. Whenever they're done, it's usually with a second CD of downtempo or experimental-leaning sounds. Eat Static's Dead Planet or 00.db's Heaven & Hell, as examples within my own collection, though Infected Mushroom's Converting Vegetarians is probably the most well-known one. In more recent years, we've seen a near-glut of multi-disc re-issues of older albums, overstuffed with rarities and b-sides. So which version do we get with Triquetra's Human Control: a chill CD2, or a 'b-side' session?

Kinda' the latter, apparently, disc two a collection of live recordings. They're original tracks, true, but that's not saying much, Misters Elric and Jurian having only released one (1) album and one (1) EP to that point. Besides, as an act that was making their rep on live analog shows, its natural they'd have a stockpile of unreleased material sometimes created in the moment, on the fly, as the party happens. Real free tekno vibes, yo'!

So I was surprised that the 'live' disc is rather... mellow? Like, I don't want to say 'under-produced', but there's no denying it lacks the same amount of beef behind the beats as the studio album. The acid doesn't have quite as much bite, and everything just sounds comparably flat. Not to mention its unmixed, which makes sense since these tracks are from disparate gigs, but doesn't really help sell the notion of this being 'live' and all. On the other hand, there's more didgeridoo, so that's a plus. I dunno', guess it's a nice bonus, but lacking the kinetic energy that comes with live recordings, so that's all it is.

The main disc, then, is that any good? It's more dynamic, that's for sure, though like Triquetra's first album Ecstatic Planet, highly reverential to '90s goa and acid trance. They even go so far as to include that one (1) track (Rotary Reality) with the really goofy drum kick that every psy album had back in the day. The heavier into the acid they dip (Forget About The Earth, Eternal Crusader, Future.exe), the better the track develops, but I'm glad they didn't rely on it as their only crutch. Human Control is just diverse enough for at least one play-through. Whether you'll come back to it often though will boil down to just how much you dig on way-retro goa and psy. The typical Suntrip refrain, amirite?

Res - How I Do

MCA Records: 2001

Another 'out of my element' donation. I've a few of these in the pipeline but that's alright. Some of these artists, I sense they deserve whatever extra shine my little backwater blog can offer. Res wasn't an utter unknown, mind you, something of a staple in the Philly scene since the late '90s, even if she never quite got the same attention as oh-so many others from the region. She actually got her first break providing the chorus on the titular track on GZA's Beneath The Surface, which was enough to at least get the attention of another up-and-comer, producer Martin McKinney.

You've definitely heard his stuff, working with the likes of Drake, John Legend, and The Weeknd, including Starboy, in case you care. Yes, that track, with Daft Punk. Oh, the 'electronic music' connection goes even deeper. Well, maybe not that deep, but I do find it interesting that the lead single for Res' album featured a bunch of clubby remixes from Robbie Rivera, Guiseppe D, Bastone & Burnz, and DJ Encore. Ah, hm, Hed Kandi house and proggy anthems, for a Philly soul singer? Methinks something got twisted in the marketing of this album, which may explain why it did only marginal business for itself.

Honestly though, it could just be the dumb luck of timing, How I Do released when the urban scene was stacked for options. Hell, she was basically going against Destiny's Child's Survivor, Missy Elliot's Miss E... and Alicia Keys' Songs In A Minor. Good luck with that, yo'. No, this album was practically per-ordained to be a slow burner, one rediscovered after the fact, unearthed by connoisseurs of neo-soul a decade or two down the line. Maybe even get enough ground support for a vinyl reissue within our current year. Again, dumb luck of timing.

To my ears, Ms. Ballard has a similar street-soul swagger to her sound reminiscent of Lauren Hill, though as usual, I'm more interested in the musical side of these releases than the actual singing. Opener Golden Boys features grand string sections with a brisk breaks rhythm, while They Say Vision (the original!) goes more loopy with its backing instrumentation, which I guess makes sense why it got all those house remixes. 700 Mile Situation, The Hustler, and I've Known The Garden get real deep in the funky vibes. Ice King gets forlorn. Sittin' Back wouldn't sound out of place cranked from the subs of a lowrider. Let Love almost treads near trip-hop's domain with out-of-tune backing synths – must be that Cure influence. And secret song Say It Anyway (yes, it has one of those) 'rawks' out.

A decent amount of variety, then, though never really pushing any boundaries either. If anything, How I Do sounds like an offshoot of that really famous conglomerate out of Philly, The Roots. Mostly traditionalist, but has enough spunk to stick out for the time it plays. Jeez, Roots and Hill as my obligatory namedrops? What more do you need?

Natural Life Essence - Hidrogenesis / Hidrogenesis 2020

CYAN/Liquid Frog Records: 2014/2018

Took a little longer than usual to find an N:L:E release in the 'H' block, eh? Or not, the Headspace box-set from Urban Meditation artificially inflating how many actual albums I have this go-around. There's just not that many 'H' titled records in my music collection compared to some other letters. Heck, on my initial run eleven years ago (holy cow!), I had just twenty-eight items. That number hasn't even doubled since, and believe me when I say that's hardly the case for other letter blocks ('X' has tripled!).

So Hidrogenesis is the first Natural Life Essence record. The first on his Bandcamp, the first entry on his Discogs page, the first of all-everything. A decade old now too, which means a ten year anniversary version is nigh? Wouldn't surprise me – he did do a '2020' variant, after all – but doesn't look like he's put one out yet. There's a couple [Color] Dots, an Uncharted Land 3, a Random Environments II, a Dune II, and a... Glowing Forest 3? Dang, I didn't even get a Glowing Forest one or two when I bulk-bought his entire catalogue. Relentless, that work rate of his.

Anyway, Hidrogeneis first came out on CYAN, the label Juan Pablo had made his home before they shuttered doors in 2020. It's kind of funny going this far back into his musical development, half expecting his style to not be as fully formed as later works. For sure it's not quite as developed or daring as Bioluminescent Forest or Ecovillage (two totally random examples!), much less the albums that got him that Neotantra bump (Organic Adventures and Dune, for the record). Having so thoroughly digested at least half his catalogue now though, I'm impressed at how solid for a debut this album is.

Right from the jump, Mr. Giacovino shows his hand in fascination for all things micro-organism, titling his opener Moss and all. It's a fairly meditative piece with harmonic bell tones and field recordings, a gentle melody soon sliding in while soft dub rhythms burble in support. Like, if that isn't the N:L:E stylee in a nutshell, then what have I been listening to this past year?

Things also play out in similar fashion as most of his albums, slowly building upon earlier elements such that it feels like you're listening to one long, transitional compostition. Well, if it weren't for all the fades between tracks. Seriously, m'man, just make a 'single mix' version available too!

Maybe he realized this was an issue as well, releasing a twenty-minute, twenty-second long version of Hidrogenesis, in 2018. Well, mostly just the first four tracks in a condensed, restructured form, and sans the low, rumbly bass dubs as heard in Underwater Caravan. A nifty addition if you wanted to hear Moss, Acid Fog and Swamp uninterrupted. As for the back-half of Hidrogenesis, it's even more ambient than the first, harmonies even subtler. Ooh, this could use that 10th Anniversary rejiggering treatment, I wager.

Various - Hidden Realms EP

Omni Music: 2019

Sweet, a drum 'n' bass release. Damn, it's been, like, forever since- Eh? Oh, right, Photek's Form & Function, just a couple months ago. Alright, got me there, but since before that one? You'll have to go back a literal year, to Centaspike's Bent Bound Broken, when I last covered the genre. Blame it on all that psy trance making these gaps artificially vast.

Anyhow, Omni Music. This is a label that kicked off at the start of the '10s, a means of producer Eschaton to release tunes that didn't fit on other, established labels. Not sure how accurate that is, but my recollection of the state of d'n'b back then is a bit sketchy now. Probably not so robust for those who were interested in sounds outside the Pendulum or liquid funk oeuvre. Yeah, there will always be Good Looking Records (as well as Looking Good Records), but surely there was demand for more outlets of jungle on the jazzy, intelligent tip, right.

Must be indeed, Omni Music carrying on to this day, with a catalogue of three-hundred plus records. Oh my, where does one even start with this label, then? For our purposes, it's an EP compilation called Hidden Realms. I... have no memory of why I picked this particular item. Oh, there's a specific reason how I came across Omni, but has nothing to do with this. It wasn't a recent item either, so wouldn't have been an impulse buy upon first stumbling in. Heck, it doesn't even have blue cover art! A mystery for sure.

Whatever, I have it now, so let's dig in. Each track is a collab' effort, the first featuring Enjoy and Pariah. Don't know much about the former, but Pariah had been a staple of the aforementioned Bukem prints early on. And if you know anything about that namedrop, then you should know what sort of d'n'b we're in for. Sonic Void is mostly an ultra-deep techy session, though does pick up in the back-half with a little Amen Break action complimenting the minimalist spacey synths leading the melody. Omni honcho Eschaton follows up with Booca (very little Discogs presence) on Behind The Magenta, a far more jazzy, atmospheric outing with broken beats, operatic choirs, heavenly leads, trombones... A real stew of sounds, but darn cool in a blissy sort of way.

Third track State Of Consciousness is another 'veteran meets newbie' session featuring DJ Trax and Infest (3). It, too, follows the vintage LTJ vibe, with busier drum work but no less chill on the melodic side. The final two producers, Parhelia and Dissident, are relative newcomers compared to the '90s folks, but have still been in the game over a decade now. The Day Of 5 Suns is suitably grand in scope for such a title, conjuring sci-fi vistas and all that. Is this the level of quality for the whole damn Omni Music catalogue? Gosh, only one way to find out! ...but I'm not the person to do so.

Urban Meditation - Headspace V

Carpe Sonum Records: 2022

Here's a tiny morsel of information I haven't touched upon yet, in that I only just discovered it. Apparently the whole Headspace collection wasn't released as a one-shot within a big ol' box-set. Initially, it trickled out over the course of a few months as digital items on Urban Meditation's own Bandcamp. Once all five were out, they were consolidated into a single release, finally culminating in the physical medium made available through Carpe Sonum Records.

See, if I'd been following Charles' music from the start, I would have known this, likely subscribed to his Bandcamp or whatever. But no, I follow Carpe Sonum, so didn't learn of Headspace's existence until they put the box-set together, which is where you'll find everything now anyway. So redundant info all around, which is par for the course whenever I get deep into covering Every. Single. CD. of a box-set.

Thus we come to the end of the Headspace saga, and what a journey it's- Wait a minute! It's already over? Feels like I just started! Oh, right, it's that whole 'actually writing a review every single day' thing I did there, speeding up the process. Kinda' forgot how brisk the process could be when I just focus on something rather than let a zillion ADHD distractions dominate my brain matter. Like what's happening right now!

Anyhow, Headspace V, the finale, the coda, the answer to all your lingering questions. Or, y'know, just a charming collection of ambient techno vibes. Mostly that, not really going anywhere this series hasn't gone before. There's a few more collaborations, a returning Rayspark Industries, and an added Sven Kössler, though it's Michael-Turner Craig who gets the most shine here. No, seriously, at twenty-five minutes long, Space & Time easily takes the crown for longest Headspace piece – only Mr. Urban's solo session of Cranial Atmosphere comes close, lagging a good ten minutes behind. As for the track itself, well, it's definitely got that vintage Fax+ thing going for it, in that it really meanders about in a jam session sort of way. The liner notes claim Si Matthews and Dan Armstrong hopped in as well, but they don't get a Bandcamp credit. Odd.

Oh, the track itself? Yeah, it's spacey, floaty, timey-wimey, spritely, kinda' split into two-halves. Sorry, I know a centrepiece composition like Space & Time should be the main talking point, but I just prefer the gentle ambience of In Dreams or Forever Adrift, the peppier Ocean Of Consciousness (with Sven ...and acid!), and closer Embrace's piano touches and synthy arps. Not to mention their shorter runtimes.

So that's a wrap on Headspace V, and Headspace overall. A cool collection of tunes, if at times overindulgent, though never tastelessly so. Could this have been pruned down to at least a double-LP? Sure, but we live in an age of absolute creative freedom with the outlets to present it. As Pete Namlook would say, “Just release whatever you make, bro'. Someone will like it.” [citation needed]

Urban Meditation - Headspace IV

Carpe Sonum Records: 2022

Ah, here's where I thought things were headed. Honestly though, having the 'peak time' CD be the fourth one out of five does make the most sense. All the build-up leading to the climax, with a nice coda following, its a classic five-act structure, even spread out across five-plus hours of music. I guess you could treat Headspace like a streaming mini-series then, including that one episode in the middle that seems to lose the arc of the meta-plot for a time, the unnecessary bit of padding to reach an episode quota.

So if the radio telescope on the cover art wasn't a clue, technology is the theme of Headspace IV. And to make sure you know that's where we're going, the CD opens with a musique concrete ditty of various digital noises and effects, including that classic internet dial-up noise. Fair enough, but was four minutes of this really necessary? Whatever, Cranial Atmosphere properly kicks things off, and mostly follows upon similar neo-trance vibes as the Si Matthews collab's from Headspace II do. Percolating synth leads, steady techno rhythm, consistent escalation of mood and tone, and dang near sixteen minutes of it too. Again, there's some vintage Jarre songcraft going on, but this feels more modern than those seminal '70s works.

Now for this CD's guest artist, this time being Ambidextrous. Okay, second, Futuregrapher having a credit on that experimental opener, but I'm talking 'real' tracks here. I haven't kept tabs on Nick Zavriev since my mini-splurge on his music a couple years back, finding his sound at times a bit too clinical for repeated plays. He's remained active though, and Simulacrum finds him and Charles working a nice spacey electro vibe, while Thought Network towards the end gets more opulent with the synth work. Dang near overtly happy, come to think of it. Really selling that 'Utopian future' sentiment, eh? Maybe to serve as a contrast to the harsher electro between those two tracks.

Well, 'harsh' is doing some heavy lifting there. Nothing I've heard Urban Meditation would ever suggest negative or pessimistic outlooks, and the only criticism of Data Age is being somewhat aimless as techno. Information Super Highway though, ain't nothing but chipper, happy vibes with a bell melody as a lead and bouncy rhythm like that. Man, the '90s were so optimistic about our technological marvels and possibilities, weren't they.

Or maybe not, closer Searching For Connection a little more sombre and reflective as an ambient piece. That no matter our achievements in the digital realm, we'll always yearn for intimacy in meat-space. Relations not defined by scrolling and follower counts, but those all-too brief moments of soulful meaning. Gosh, when did Headspace IV turn into a Vector Lovers album?

Anyhow, this is probably my favourite of the five, though it's not without its minor issues either. Like, how does it feel shorter than the actual shortest Headspace III? One too many experimental interstitials? Weird how that works.