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Yard Hippie

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Posts posted by Yard Hippie

  1. F*** Buttons - Tarot Sport This is some pretty cool noise stuff from last year (according to Discogs. Thought it was a 2010 release myself). At first I wasn't so sure as it's quite abrasive and very exhausting to the ear but after a few listens I'm digging what they've done here. The first track on the album, 'Surf Solar', has an awesome repeating sample right the way through and when they eventually drop the thing it feels like your anchorpoint has been dissintegrated and you just float higher and higher. Cool and unlike anything else I own.

     

    Lusine - A Certain Distance Again I thought this was a 2010 but discogs says not :) Very nice, warm, techno beats underlaying nice pop stylised vocals. Two Dots is the most pop-ish of the tracks on show here (gotta love her voice), the rest are more abstract with less of an obvious chorus structure (excluding 'Twilight' which is extremely vocal driven but perhaps personally weaker than 'Two Dots'). My favourite on here has to be 'Gravity' in which the beat is generated through majorly chopping up spoken word segments. Lusine's previous work 'Language Barrier' is absolutely outstanding also but is in a very different style, so much so that it's difficult to compare the two. I'd say that as a whole I enjoy 'Language Barrier' a lot more, but that's because I'm an ambient head at heart :)

     

    Pillowdiver - Sleeping Pills Does exactly what it says on the digipack; this provokes an extremely pleasent feeling of warmth and sluggishness that can only be nice after a long days graft... Messes with my brain so much but I don't really know what to say about it. It's experimental, guitar driven and gloopy slow. Awesome release even if I can't express how nice a piece this is.

  2. Keep repeating these but as Kathmandu mentioned, Ultimae pulled out all the stops with Imaginary Friends but even more up my street was the amazing Hope on Fluid audio. I'm sure there is at least one more as well I've listened to and really enjoyed but can't remember for the life of me right now. Slightly tipsy ;)

     

    If you do get Hope consider going through Fluid's own website and picking up the very limited edition Dials by the Moving Dawn Orchestra. It arrived for me this morning and it's a fantastic EP. Maybe it's on Saiko too.

  3. Funny, I was listening to this only last week and found it extremely warm. Only the ambient cd though, maybe that was it. Great release but for some reason I hardly ever put it on

  4. Well you're comparing two entirely different forms of acid; if you want chaotic acid just dip into a bit of goa/psy like koxbox's dragon tales. With that sort of music you're dropped into a vast swirling psychedelic whilwind but with Hawtin it's much more about a deep, very complex analysis of each individual sound stripped down to the barest of essentials. It's more clinical and obviously not up your street but to me it can feel a lot more like 'real acid'. I guess the two styles focus on two very distinct aspects of the psychedelic experience.

  5. Heh, that's funny, just listening to 'Sheet One' now and I come on here to find you've ressurected my long dead topic on the absolute master of minimal acid. It's a shame you don't enjoy his work but it's not exactly for everyone; specially if you're used to layers upon layers strung together with a doof-a-doof :)

     

    If only you could feel what I feel when I hear those acid lines...

  6. Absolutely love this comp. It didn't hit me immediately but now that I've listened to it a good few times it just grasps me by the throat and pulls me under it's spell. Very nice mood music :)

     

    In some ways it's a shame this album sends proceeds to charity as it seems to be getting overlooked as some sort of cheap charity trick; don't fall into this mental trap, it's truly one of the best releases I've heard all year.

  7. Have really enjoyed:

    Scanner - Rockets unto the edges of edges (very powerful experimental stuff. In a league of it's own)

    Brock Van Whey - White clouds drift on and on (drone music to really get lost in plus a 2nd more dubby mix of the whole thing by Intrusion which may as well be a totally different release)

    Lissom - Nest of iterations (more lovely drone. Extremely atmospheric)

  8. Not listened to enough uptempo to really commment but for chill my favs for this year in no particular order are:

     

    Aes Dana - Leylines

    Solar Fields - Movements

    (Val)Liam - Daydreamer

    Rena Jones - Indra's Web

    Kilowatts - Undercurrent

     

    Possibles (only very recently recieved)

    V/A - Vampire Sunrise

    V/A - Hope

     

    Other cool downtempo discoveries that I find incredibly psychedelic are 'Lissom - Nest of Iterations' and 'Scanner - Rockets, unto the edges of edges'. That Scanner album especially has just totally blown me away. Not sure whether they should be included in these lists though.

  9. Surprised that the only 'proper' comments to this have been so overly negative. I can't say I actually own the album but from listening to it through other means I didn't find it bad at all... In fact it's been on my 'to buy' list for some time now. I guess I'm really just posting this to balance out the bad and would probably elaborate more if it were not for the fact that I rarely listen to still buyable albums I havn't yet purchased more than just enough to get some sort of grasp on whether I actually like them. In fact I rarely use other means at all but Abasio's review got me interested and I liked the concept. It doesn't sound like it'll be competing for 'best of 09'' but still it doesn't seem to warrent such negativity. I thought it was a solid and fairly cool release.

  10. Lissom's 'Nest of Iterations'

    Boards of Canada 'Music has the right to children'

    Slackbaba - 'And the beat goes om...'

     

    All work well for me for some reason. Not sure if they classify as 'ingenious' but they're my personal favourites in my collection :)

     

    edit: Oh and they're not psytrance of course... Obviously I didn't think this one through...

     

    Psy/goa cool names:

    Pigs in Space - pigs in space

    Total Eclipse - violent relaxation

    X-Dream - trip to trancesylvania

    Astral Projection - trust in trance

    Hallucinogen - The lone deranger

    Voice of Cod - gone fission

     

    can't think of any other great ones right now but I know there are many

  11. ...

    Yard Hippie: What was your dissertation about?

     

    My dissertation was an excuse to 'interview' a few friends over their views on psytrance parties, drugs and some sort of airy fairy connections with spirituality. I found nothing scientifically sound, invented a lot of the final phrases I quoted and found absolutely nothing of interest :)

     

    I can't even remember what my hypothesis was...

     

    As for it being 'just another subculture', well that's true sure but if you're going to study subcultures then you need to pick one first and I found the psy scene to be particularly interesting. I mean it's a group of generally young people that on the surface travel to old mills/secluded fields/converted churches etc to dance all night taking various mind altering substances under the watchful eyes of Ganesh, Shiva and whoever else the organisers choose to pin up. To me that was absolutely fascinating, especially in a country where religion and spirituality are receeding further and further into the background every day. It's just that as soon as you start to look properly it becomes very hard to decide anything substantial because for the most part it is all totally superficial *shrugs*.

     

    I had a lot of fun though and for some reason the lecturers loved it B)

  12. Best I ever found was a set of articles put together by Graham St John in my Uni library. Very much doubt it's available properly as pdf etc online...

     

    clicky

     

    I used it in my university dissertation quite extensively but it took some time to break down what they were saying. There's a chapter if I remember by Erik Davis on Goa trance (going back some time now, could be very far from the mark).

     

    Other than that there's stuff on Maffesoli's neo-tribalism

     

    like this one <-- just an abstract, basically just an example of the many, many attempts to stick Maffeseoli's spin on the classic subculture idea.

     

    To find anything interesting academically on psy/goa though you really do have to dig through the crap. Mostly you'll just run into papers on drug abuse minimisation strategies etc.

  13. Sounds like a lot IDMish stuff a la Aphex Twin, Squarepusher or other Warp Rec./Rephelx artists imho (braindance rings a bell?). Nothing special psychedelic about it. Nice track though ;)

     

    What about Orzels Machine - "Torque Is Cheap" ( http://www.myspace.com/trickmusicuk ) ? ;)

     

    :) It felt psychedelic enough for me with the pops and squelches. I've been slowly delving into IDM too recently but I don't really know the rules of the genres yet. I quite enjoy some venetian snares etc from time to time but they do lack pie for me; hence why I was curious about any crossovers. I'm on my phone atm so can't check your link but as I said earlier any suggestions are well received. As for warp I bought 'artificial intelligence' recently and have really enjoyed it so I did intend to delve into their back catalogue anyhow so thanks for the spur. Isn't it interesting how changing tastes in one realm always seem to flow into the changes in another?

  14. Curiously enough someone asked me to describe the essence of psytrance earlier today and I took to youtube, brought up a classical mushroom track and sent her the link. They have come up with some truly great psy over the years and I guess that they will never really lose this legacy, but they do a damn good job hiding it these days. Tbh I think it's a common frustration many of us harbour deep down that we know they still have it in them. They must do. They've just changed direction so completely that we understand we will likely never have another album filled to the brim with absolute killer tracks, and that's why they have come to be a bit of an irritation. Plus there's so much negative feeling around concerning them that it's easy to get washed away in it.

     

    Vicious delicious (the track) still destroys me every time I listen to it. I feel my spine shudder as that pure blissful sensation cascades down my spinal column and it is wonderful.

  15. Only have Dragon Tales but I quite like the chaotic nature of the music, it puts me in mind of a thick, bubbling psychedelic mass and I find the whole thing very entrancing. Personally I quite enjoy stepping away from the general goa patterns you describe which can sometimes feel a little tedious to me(only a little).

  16. That Psycrowdelica track is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for, notsomuch the Morphonix (it was cool, just not the style I'm after). I'm just really digging the way the music sends your brain reeling as it attempts to piece together those broken rhythms. The other suggestions will take a lil longer to look into obviously but please keep them coming, this is a whole new world for me :)

     

    I actually own Nagual sound experiment's invisible movements. I remember enjoying it but it's been a loooong time since I dug it out, perhaps I should go root.

  17. Recently I've found that I quite like a lot of the breaks influenced music I come across but I know next to nothing about the genre... The start of this year I remember someone (Supergroover?) mentioning that psybreaks is where it's at for 2009 and I'm curious to check out some of the names but I can't find that thread now for the life of me.

     

    As I said I know nothing about breaks but I'm thinking that the best way to get into it would be to listen to some breaks-psy crossovers. Anyone have any suggestions?

  18. There is stuff like Vibrasphere, Kilowatts or James Murray, etc, which you have to decide for yourself if you like it. Vibrasphere has some GREAT tracks (like Mountain lake) but otherwise by genre it's morning trance, so not for every ocassion. Kilowatts (Ground State) are somewhat IDMish but also a lot ambient, so you should like it.

     

    'Ground State' I'm liking more and more every time I come back to it. There's just something in that glitched out dubby feeling that digs deep into my brain.

     

    I'd love to say I could help you out more with this but I'm not familiar with any of the Sending Orbs releases yet. I do love the only Eno album I've purchased though (music for airports) and if you like that sort of style then I guess things like ethan batholomew's 'secret entries into darkness' may be up your street. Perhaps check out a few of the samples on Somnia's site; with some albums they host the entire album to preview.

  19. If you want to listen some beautifull drak ambient you try to listen LUSTMORD - and I mean all from this man:

    http://www.discogs.com/artist/Lustmord

     

    I've recently happened upon Lustmord and yeah, you're absolutely right, it's some of the darkest stuff I've ever heard. I read someplace that he takes field recordings from cemetaries/caves/slaughterhouses and mixes them in... I don't know how true that is but whatever he does do he does it very well :)

     

    I've been finding Ethan Bartholemew's 'Secret Entries into darkness' particularly dark also recently.

  20. Like Kozmik said it would be useful to know vaguely what acts you like so we can build from there. Without guidance I'd suggest things like

     

    Midnight Soul Dive - V/A - Aleph Zero

    Oxycanta - V/A - Ultimae

    Leaving Home - Solar Fields - Ultimae

    Elementary Particles/Prima Materia - Bluetech

     

    The first three are what I'd personally say were great (and easygoing) ambient albums, but there are lots of others that would lump together all sorts of different downtempo as ambient and this is really just my personal idea. Bluetech is quite cool downtempo IDM stylyised grooves. It could be an idea to check out this site that Murphy is always spamming around (there's a couple of nice mixes on there as well), Abasio's reviews here and maybe checking out some mixes to find what you enjoy. Recently come accross this site which is full of nice, very deep ambient mixes.

  21. Whilst we shouldn't restrict the number of releases per artist, do so many of the Shpongle, Entheogenic, Solar Fields etc. releases really belong in a "Best Of" list? I'm not saying they aren't good, it just seems like some artists have got all of their releases listed without trying to pick the ones that are genuinely the best.

     

    Ah yes but my favourite Shpongle, for instance, is the second one 'Tales of the inexpressible', and whilst I personally believe it just about beats the other two I've read others who believe it to be the weakest. It's already complicated enough as it is...

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