GusSarcoffa

Great music, sucky mastering. I guess there's a story lurking in there about what happened to the original wav files and why we'll never hear this gem polished up and given the treatment it so richly deserves. It's a shame. I'd pay for a remastered CD in a heartbeat. As it is, it's tough to listen to. Kind of like being locked out of an awesome party and pressing your ear to the wall to hear the music inside (OK, not that dreadful but still. Modern production standards are so crystal clear it's jarring to hear something so squashed and muffled). Mr Mindsphere, please don't give up! You have the gift of Goa. A follow-up release would be wonderful.

That is a great description. All aboard! :posford:

Ridiculously good! I listened to the samples once and insta-purchased this one. Can't wait to hear the CD. Jon Cocco's review sums it up perfectly: this release just oozes good vibes. I was a little surprised at the low (4.1) score this has on discogs. Seems *someone* gave it 1 star out of 5! Well, everyone is entitled to his opinion but I can't see how any goa fan could say this is a 1 star release. 5 stars from me! :clapping:

Just superb. So glad I found this one! Spectrogram has plenty of goa flavor but completely modernized and integrated with fresh sounds. Definitely one of the most exciting releases of '08 so far. I love the old goa but often the new goa leaves me cold. It's as if the artists are afraid to deviate from the old formulae, which is ironic because IMO you can't have psychedelicism without novelty. You have to keep pushing forward into the unknown if you want to keep it trippy. Although they don't sound similar it reminds me of Earthshine in the sense that it ties together a range of styles into one coherent musical journey. This makes it ideal for home listening. Props to the artist for recognizing the value of P2P sharing as a marketing channel. Works for me, and it's a big reason I bought this CD. :clapping: Looking forward to more from Tamlin. Great work!!

I'll add a +1 to this one. I'm really picky about my darkpsy plus I generally avoid compilations in favor of artist albums. So for me to like a darkpsy compilation it has to be (if you'll pardon the expression) trippy as fuck. Most of the tracks on here are exactly that. There are a couple of duds (5 and 9) but the rest are top quality. Love that Space Ark sample. Hilarious.

That's a good point. It's why I haven't been able to get myself to click "buy" on this one yet. It's got a lot going for it but I worry that a year from now it may sound trite. EDIT: I did buy it. This is cheese of the very highest order. It is a fine cheese. As long as I don't over-listen to it in the short term I'm sure I will still enjoy it a year hence.

Here's my uber-short review: I bought this one. I've listened to a lot of the full-on that's come out this year and there's quite a bit of nice morning music to choose from. But however pleasant, much of it will be forgotten a year from now IMO. Artelligent (although I don't like the title!) has that something extra that lifts it above the pack. There's real creativity here, not just me-too sounds and breaks. Can't wait to hear the follow-up.

There are a lot of artists I could have named there. I chose Kindzadza because I had just finished listening to Waves From Inner Space, which I like very much. His earlier stuff was too noisy for me. My point was, after hearing The Zap I felt like I needed my aural palette cleansed. Gus

This is just awful. I tried so hard to like it. I'm a fan of Raja Ram and I don't mind admitting it (despite his occasional cheesiness). But this is just a lame, electro cash-in. Not psychedelic at all, irritating plastic 80's synth sounds, appalling samples. Weak sauce all around. Deleted from my HD and may it never pollute my ear holes again. I'm going to have to listen to a whole lot of Kindzadza and Voice Of Cod to restore balance to my psyche. (I will admit that Magic Toys is cool though)

I will add to the chorus of favorable reviews of this release. It's very good! No filler, all good tracks. It's trancey morning-style, which isn't always my favorite. But it works because the lighter, trancey melodies aren't overused and there's great variety to the sounds. There's also continuity among the tracks. The theme of the album is space travel and that's reflected in the samples used throughout. It really is like a story as another reviewer stated. The sci-fi theme might not work for everyone but I've always liked that aspect of psy, going all the way back to the "little green men" obsession of the early goa artists. To me psytrance is "the music of the future" so I always enjoy futuristic samples (and drug references! I'm a sucker for those). This is very high quality morning psytrance. Not for everyone perhaps but it works for me!

Now we're talking! Full-on is alive and well in 2008 and this release proves it. I love the big, long track-by-track reviews but I don't have the time or the nuanced taste to post one of those myself. So here's a teaser review and maybe someone more ambitious will take up the baton after me. I'd call this morning full-on probably, although it's not fluffy/proggy/trancey like a lot of morning material. But it's not super dark and twisted either. It reminds me a bit of the '02-'03 era when artists like Wizzy Noise were at the top of their game (not to say that it sounds *like* Wizzy all that much). It's hard to say specifically what I like so much about Passing Clouds. It has the right mix of ingredients to evoke that trippy dancefloor vibe that I crave. No cheese, no lame vocals, no fricken electro. Just the right mix of beats, melodies, sounds, effects and samples. Absolute quality in every track. If it had just a little more originality and a little more novelty it would be perfect. But as it is I highly recommend it to full-on fans. Very good! EDIT: Sigh. I jumped the gun a bit on this review. After repeated listenings I'd say it's good, but definitely not great. There are a lot of nice elements but it's lacking a bit of melody and definitely needs some more originality to truly break out of the pack. There are no surprises, nothing to really get the adrenaline going. Tracks 1, 2 (with Cosmosis), 5 and 9 are the best.

This is a corker. Dark, pounding and aggressive with plenty of trippy sounds and samples woven throughout. Largely steers clear of that stupid "robots brushing their teeth" sound that so much dark psy began over-using a couple of years ago (thanks, Russia!). Anyone care to explain to me what is so dark and scary about robots brushing their teeth? Nevermind. Anyway, I do agree that the rising lead is overused a bit but all-in-all this is a very strong release for fans of the dark and pounding style. Not a classic perhaps but a crowd-pleaser for sure. EDIT: This one is not wearing all that well for me. When it comes up in the rotation I'm initially excited but 2/3 of the way through I'm tired of it. Many of the synth sounds are kind of plastic-y, and there's a sameness to the grooves. Not as good for home-listening as for the dancefloor, perhaps. I do look forward to another release from these guys. They definitely know how to build up an energetic track. But I'd like to see them open up their palette a bit and bring in some variety to their sound.

This is a good quality morning full-on release. I just posted a review of U-Reckon's Deeper Into Man and I can't help comparing the two since they were both released around the same time and are stylistically somewhat similar. For me, this is the better release. The songs and sounds are more interesting. However, it falls a little short of great. I can confidently recommend it to real fans of the morning sub-genre but I believe that in the long run it's a bit forgettable.

This is pleasant-sounding morning full-on. The production quality is high. It's clear that a lot of skill and care went into producing it. But. It's not very trippy, which is a big strike against in my book. Psytrance needs some psy in it, after all. And it has some cheesy moments with the vocals. For me it is background noise. Not particularly memorable. I've been listening to it while working and I repeatedly find that 2 or 3 tracks have gone by without anything grabbing my attention. EDIT: I've listened several more times. I want to like it, because I admire the skill that went into it. There are some very nice musical ideas and the whole thing flows together very organically. But it's just too trancey for me. Tracks 3-5 and 9 are very good though. EDIT #2: I did eventually buy this. It's rich & smooth & creamy. Not the trippiest CD in my collection but then, not everything can be.

For me, psytrance music is strongly linked to psychedelic drugs. Even when I am not on psychedelics (which is most of the time these days, and has been for many years) I still get a taste of that feeling when listening to psy. The party scene for me is about taking psychedelics to enter into the music. I've gone to parties alone because I had no one to go with (my only psy-loving friends live in other cities). I always have a good time but it can be a bit alienating. I'm pretty shy in crowds anyway, and tripping it's usually moreso. I can't make small-talk at all so I generally just close my eyes and dance. I do enjoy being around all the other freaks dancing and I definitely try in a small way to contribute my good vibes. It's not like I'm anti-social. I would surely prefer to go with a group of close friends but since that's seldom an option I make the best of it. Dancing to a killer psy track you've never heard before while peaking on acid is one of life's singularly amazing experiences. -- Gus

I have just discovered this one and I quite enjoy it. It's got a good energy and good psychedelic sounds throughout. I try to judge releases by year. Of course the state of full-on has advanced since then but for 2002 this is a quality release. Well worth a listen for anyone who enjoys Israeli full-on.

I still love this. One of the best release of 06 for me (not saying much). In terms of psytrance only O.O.O.D. was better. -- Gus

Recentish full-on releases I like: Tron - Existence (very underrated release. Super-trippy sounds and great tunes) Xerox and Illumination - XI (part of me knows it's cheesy but I can't stop listening to it. Great driving music) Voice of Cod - We Are Free (utterly brilliant and very psychedelic) Maybe someone will say these aren't full-on or something. To be honest I have trouble with the terminology sometimes. But I think of the above as "full-on." -- Gus

Right, so if you got to Entheogenic's site (thanks SkeletonMan for pointing me there) you can follow the link to the shop selling the CD. They take their Right Livelihood very seriously it seems. I'm sure they're lovely people and I'm not going to diss them. I just, you know, would like to buy the Entheogenic CD in a more traditional format. -- Gus

Anyone know if Entheogenic will be releasing Flight of the Urubus on CD through the normal channels (i.e. psyshop)? Currently it only appears to be available in edible packaging from a specialty shop in the UK for 10 Pounds (plus shipping). I'm in the US so that's about a gabillion Dollars. Would be nice to get it in a normal package for a normal price. (yes, I'm a boring, *normal* kind of guy I guess. But I still like physical media) -- Gus

I don't see this on psyshop or saikosounds, and pirate bay doesn't even know about it. Where did you all hear it? -- Gus

I like Skylon. But I'm disappointed by it too, because it doesn't break much new ground. Blumenkraft and Hallucinogen In Dub are two of my all-time favorite electronic releases so naturally I had very high expectations for Skylon. But as others have said, it sounds like Blumenkraft II. I don't see the paradox here, really. It's good music and well worth the money. But based on Ott's prior releases I was hoping for something that pushed the genre forward a bit more. Ott is one of a small handful of producers in the psy/dub genre who appears to have the potential to do something really earth-shattering and new. But not this time. -- Gus

I really dislike 2AM, for the simple reason that it has electro sounds on every track and electro to me is like fingers on a chalkboard. It seems more and more genres are being influenced by this sound, which sucks for me. Anyway, if you like it great but I want to warn anyone who is hoping for more in the vein of Zero Six After that this ain't it. Maybe try the new Human Blue instead, which is refreshingly free of electro sounds. -- Gus