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Artist: VA Title: Dimensional Gateway 5 Label: Neogoa Records Date: December 2017 Tracklist:- 01 - Sun Sith - Arrival 02 - BlackStarrFinale - The Scattering 03 - Lectro Spektral Daze - I Ate Seven Of Them 04 - Xamanist - Star Forming Galaxy 05 - Maan - Field Quanta 06 - Third Eye Channel - Katarza 07 - Proxeeus - Nyarlathotep [Short Mix] 08 - Dragon Twins - Shattered Sense 09 - Negan - Wäwära Well wowie, If ever a compilation could fit into the theme of 2017 (Quality over quantity) this is it. Neogoa Records have released their 5th in a series of Dimensional Gateways. Unlike the dark portals of this world, defined by stability and assurance, dimensional gateways are like tunnels bored with unstable magic that can lead to bliss, new worlds or eternal imprisonment. One thing is for sure, the gateways will always be a journey. As a newbie to the genre it would be foolish of me to say something like ‘This has been quite the year for Goa’ But i’m young and foolish so. This has been quite the year for Goa. We’ve seen some pretty remarkable releases that have been top notch in terms of either production, originality, or nostalgia. While the review section for 2017 has been pretty empty most of what is here is gold. Sun Sith: … Holy shit. Sun Sith are Lunar Dawns Kristijan Ilisinovic and Sasa Precanica. Two lifelong friends who have dedicated themselves to absolutely blowing our minds with music. This has gotta be the darkest work of theirs. And i’m going to peg it as the track of the year. Blackstarfinale: Oh no, how is this melody going to work? Am i about to listen to pure aged chedder? Nope, you better not believe it. The scattering is a mix of uplifting twisted chopped and screwed bliss. Pretty freaking awesome how they work this track. Lectrop Spektral Daze: Yea you did LSD, you ate more than seven didn’t you? You ate a whole bag! Whats that? Only seven per bag? Oh well yea, you ate seven then congratulations! Some of us are too busy studying to just go and eat shrooms in Mexico. Great track, if you like drug references in your songs you’ll like this. Also if you like good songs, well this is one for you my friend. Beautiful beautiful track. Xamanist - Star Forming Galaxy: Every now and then i come across a track on a comp that makes me wonder why i passed that artists album up when i came across it. Progressive trance must have been the flavour of the month when i came across 7, but I tell ya, i’m going back to right my wrongs right after this review. A banging track and another one of my favourites. Aaaaah i love rolling basslines. Maan - Field Quanta: A nice driving bit of trance that starts with subtle bits of acid getting tossed around, easy to dance to though not the most unique track floating around with not much to differentiate it from other producers. The builds are all pretty fun though. Instead of leading to explosions of hysteria they end in slightly disappointing returns to the bassline. Katarza - Third Eye Channel: A less exciting track that gets points for being trippy, though without endless amounts of energy pulsing through it. More of a floating track then an arm flail enducing stomper. Instead of keeping your attention with hard melodies Katara mixes the beat up by skipping kicks and messing around with the basslines. Dragon Twins - Shattered Sense: Some spooky throat noises (Singing? chanting?) starts our journey into what is a remarkable track. The melody is insane, but then it disappears? I could have easily had another 6 minutes of that penetrating my cranium. Man i’m bitter about that, the lead was incredible. I guess that’s how some stories go. Proxeeus - Nyarlathotep (Short mix): We are lucky it’s easier to dance to Proxeeus’ tracks than pronounce them. Everytime i try I end up with a deep and very bad Estonian accent... The track is what you would expect from this wizard, awesomeness. Edit: Holy heck Proxeeus! That final 1.5 minutes. Negan - Warawa: Whats that? Fun basslines? Negan (Did Negans lose part of himself) has got us covered. The track is madness from start to finish, the acid lines are all over the place in the best of ways. Hare Krishna would have indeed been a bad boy. And we made it out the other side. Dimensional Gateways aren't so bad are they, 5 down and we are still kicking. I'm starting to think these things are more stable than i've been told. Wizards and their bullshit friends, just like politicians. https://neogoarecords.bandcamp.com/album/dimensional-gateway-5

well, i master stuff like this (goa) - includning this - at -10 dB RMS average... whereas most of todays psytrance goes below -8... to -7, or even louder, so it sounds like a brick wall. -10 also isn't super great for dynamics, but for a loudness compromise, i guess i managed to preserve enough of it

awesome review tsotsi! thanks for keeping this section rolling!...do you use headphones or speakers or both while conducting reviews? also, thanks to Neogoa Records for another gem! i don't know if it's the sweet gentle caress of FLAC sound quality or just the mastering, but I listen to this album at around level 60 volume on my mp3 player, whereas most other psy is at around 40. this is totally a positive, as it feels like there is much more dynamic range in the music, compared to a lot of psytrance which gets squashed and can overwhelm. then again, i may just be listening at a higher volume to get the full blast of this fusion reaction of goa vibes. without naming specifics, i felt like 2 tracks didn't meet the standards of the other 7. they are probably good when isolated, but when surrounded by such mastery, they are lagging behind a bit. some standouts are the Proxeeus track which sounds like i am standing in the eye of a storm, calm and centred while there is mayhem going on all around me. definitely a trademark of Proxeeus, not many artists have the skill to craft such high energy tracks that don't get overly aggressive. the Lectro Spektral Daze track is incredible too... i love the trap style bassline that drops in... don't hear that too much in goa but it works really well here. looking forward to more from Neogoa in 2018!

Didn't have the time to dig into this release yet but it's very high on my "to do" list. I'm glad it's getting very positive response!

But structures don't mean dogma. It's impossible to escape structures, our world is a network of highly complex structures. And highly complex structures allow "freedom" (whatever that means). Samples are words. Words constructed by the very societal construct we try to deconstruct. The difference between a sentence and a movement is immensely vast. Every form of ritual, meditation and all, are beyond language - or are body/eternal language. Getting into "that" structure, is the most freeing that can happen - in my experience. And you know, loud music with repetitive beats and patterns is an ideology in and of itself. But music is abstract, evocative. A good structure is like that. It lets you project yourself onto it and find things that you can relate to on a deep level, things you may no have known of. That is basically wisdom, it is guiding you. And this is present to an extent in psytrance event, maybe not enough. What I sort of mean is, we need a diversity of structures, but that means more structures. When a structure is organic however, it does not feel limiting but the very opposite. Limitations are expending. Some things are not bound by time ...