Dolmot

I still remember when Mr. Scruff, a collector with a taste both broad and deep and all around a great bloke, wrote something along the same lines: I recommend listening to his six hour sets at least once just to observe the huge diversity of music he plays while still keeping it all tied together one way or another. The real point worth understanding is that there are many ways to connect two tracks so that at least one major theme continues smoothly. That's what the audience really needs and a good DJ can do unlike the others. I've known DJs who absolutely insist on beatmatching ("or you're not really mixing") even if it requires 15% pitching, fucking up the whole track and throwing the key who-knows-where. Fortunately that's typically a short phase when they're so fascinated about learning this whole new skill that nothing else matters. Sure, it's a necessary skill for a dance DJ, but only a basic one. That alone won't take you far. I've also known DJs who aim at perfect beatmatching and harmonic mixing with a specific set of carefully pre-selected tracks. It's definitely as smooth as you can get, but they basically end up playing the same track for two hours with no changes or surprises whatsoever. I've known DJs who demand a 3+ hour slot because they "want to build the set gradually". Unfortunately, some of them never checked whether the audience really wants to listen to them for 3+ hours. In many cases there was so much outright filler that people simply left. Have a nice evening, gradually building your master set alone. But hey, those people obviously were oafs who couldn't appreciate the real art of mixing... Some make a big fuss about "reading the audience", yet in practice they still play largely the same set every time. To be honest, a well prepared set can work just fine, even better than spontaneous choices clashing horribly, but it still feels a bit wrong. Then I remember listening to a set of one famous DnB DJ. It began with "OMG OMG! MASSIVE HYPE! HANDS IN THE AIR! YEAH!", continued with "OMG OMG! MASSIVE HYPE! HANDS IN THE AIR! YEAH!", and so on. After half an hour my hands were already tired. After a full hour I started to feel pretty stupid about the whole situation. After two hours it was just ridiculous. Well, maybe not if you're high as a kite but it takes some serious drugs to survive that. If not, you really start to understand the concept of dynamics and why they matter. Then there's David Mancuso of The Loft, who simply played full tracks, from beginning to end, believing that a strong enough track can be played in its entirety without mixing as we know it. His parties were always fully booked. I've certainly made many times the mistake of mixing too much for its own sake. Later I've realised that the result was simply too busy. Often a simple crossfade between beatless two minute outros and intros is exactly what brings the needed dynamics to the set, instead of skipping those to find the old reliable 4/4 kicks to beatmatch like thousand times before and ten times in that set alone. Some genres need more active mixing. For example, in techno it's quite common that each single track is quite flat so that the DJ can mix them heavily, creating new music from its primitive parts. Classic goa is almost the opposite. If a track is already heavily layered, it probably doesn't need or cannot even take five more layers from another. It takes subtlety to introduce a small part of a new track so that it's there, prepared, but doesn't steal the attention yet. Knowing the tracks is crucial. Sometimes you can make a slow, gradual mix. Sometimes you need to switch the main components quickly with no real overlap between them because they don't benefit from each other at all. Still, having that one common theme between the tracks really helps, whatever it is. One thing people don't realise is the sheer amount of utter garbage that gets released. I've received my share of complaints for playing "crap music", but even that selection was a result of browsing through a hundred godawful samples per each track really bought and played. It's the same in every genre. One in a hundred is really fresh. The rest is forgettable or simply atrocious copy-paste me-too junk. Some DJs play it anyway just because they get paid for pushing certain new promos, regardless of their quality, or because they no longer care about anything in general. Meanwhile, I've been listening to a Mr. Scruff set this whole time without consciously noticing that there was a transition, even though he has gone through jazz, lounge, afrobeat and funk with five completely different tempos. And it all has soul. That guy really knows his shit.

Well, true...the word "hate" was never used. (Let's dig up a few thoroughly negative threads, shall we? ) https://www.psynews.org/forums/topic/67117-classic-tracks-that-you-think-are-nothing-special/?do=findComment&comment=1023543 https://www.psynews.org/forums/topic/68678-your-unpopular-opinion/page-3?do=findComment&comment=1037824

BTW, according to Global Sect's e-mails, The Mystery Of Crystal Worlds physical version wasn't fully printed in 2015 either. It was finished and shipped in 2016. I got my tracking number on 13 Jan. However, bonus wav and free mp3 downloads were both available on 25 Dec 2015 so I guess at least one legit and separately available digital version was out in 2015. There's a slight difference to last year's Radical Distortion case, where you could download the bonus files of a CD preorder in 2014 but no standalone version had been released yet. That's why I didn't include it in my 2014 list. Tricky.

There was a short track topic just a while ago, but thanks for semi-bumping as I forgot to post there. My favourite is (5:21). The whole album's average track length is notably small for this genre. Early TIP like is cool too.

Wouldn't that spoil the whole "nemo" thing? (Good idea, though.)

OK, I'll try it. My expectations are exactly zero so there's no risk of major disappointment, right? Right?

Yeah, nowadays it's basically a...re-issue! (I've only had one beer tonight.)

I just got my CD bundle. It's pretty.

I'd get a fractal tattoo but it would take ages to get the edge just right.

Damn rebels and their nonconformance.

Of all psy releases ever, this does not have any Mandelbrote on its cover. How devious is that?

Based on the preview, it sounds exactly like it should. By the way, if you recognise any of the following sentences: "All modern goa is just piles of cheesy layers." "I want something new that isn't shite." "I'd listen to new stuff if it wasn't just random squeaks over a copy-paste machine gun bassline." "Artists should develop their own, characteristic style." Then maybe you should consider this? I've come to realise that it's one fine answer to my usual gripes. (I was typing this before the message above appeared. Weird. )

Basically boozing, with festive quality booze, though. It has been a complex year, especially the end part being really exhausting. Some very interesting turns ahead. Let's see what happens... It think I'll go outside to enjoy my beer, snow and fireworks without doing anything in particular.

The whole em:t label was a hit. Well, maybe a sleeper hit or something. People found it gradually, in many cases only after it already had folded. Woob has been quite active again in the last five years. Unfortunately, his release formats and limited edition tricks have become so weird that I've given up even trying to figure out how to actually buy the music...

After first full listen... I must say: don't let the 20 pages of poetry and whatnot make you think that this is just a gimmick release. The music is carefully picked too. Recently there have been a bunch of 2CD compilations, which have a certain shovelware feel to them - press anything by anyone with any connection to goa production. Often even single-CD compilations have quite dodgy selection. Here we have 3 CDs, yet I can't recall any tracks which felt like outright filler. Of course, everything in there cannot be strictly my cup of tea, but the cheapest dear-god-skip-this-now attempts of production are largely absent. Well, there's even a complete Artifact303 mini-album hidden in there so the only question is whether the result manages to meet the high expectations. I think it did. Worth the wait, worth the price, thanks to dedication and quality control. I'll let you know if I want to change my opinion after further listening.

Yep, Electra and Dimension 5's Harmonic Convergence are still my definitive tracks of the classic era, which have both the power and certain elegance. Obviously any schmuck can set a track to a ludicrous speed and repeat the same crescendo for eight minutes, but that's generally just silly. There's plenty of room for actual progression. Some artists got it, while still delivering relentlessly. That's what made the genre cool. Although I admit that people have got really close sometimes - maybe even better, but nostalgia glasses distort the comparison. We might consider other tracks strictly better, had they been released in 1997, but that's just speculation.

May be.

Oh.

I throw in Cyborganik - The Centre of the Cyclone. I guess technically speaking it doesn't include that many different patterns, but it's a neat example of a strongly lead-driven track which is not particularly cheesy.

Yeah...I really prefer shops/previews, where one click plays at least long samples of the whole album or even more. Then I go cooking, reading or whatever. Then, if any of the tracks makes me go "Hey hey hey, what's this?!", it has potential. If that never happens, it's probably forgettable. If I have to stop cooking to skip tracks or close the whole damn thing, it's bad. That's my favourite filter to select stuff for purchasing. Pushing dozens of play buttons individually and limiting other activities to tab-switching every minute makes me sad. Especially if there are fifty new albums to browse.

Hallucinogen in Dub (the original album) It's been a while.

Strange...I get loads of "suspicious position" errors on the last tracks of CD1 and CD3 - not just one or two but hundreds of them. However, the output files sounded perfectly fine on a quick listen with no audible skips or other artifacts. Maybe I should compare them against the official FLACs to see if anything really breaks. These aren't even particularly long CDs so that shouldn't be the reason. Does that pressing plant suck or what? I've got assorted errors on MR1, Live in Athens, and now this, all brand new and sealed. It shouldn't be that hard to produce a fully functional CD. It's a bit sad if download versions become a necessity to circumvent pressing errors. I think at least Analog Dreams, MR2, and all singles have been fine, though.

NetHack 3.6.0 is out after a 12 year hiatus in official releases. However, I still have to get some work done this year so I don't dare to run it.