Dolmot

Alright, the traditional yearmix is up. I've usually tried to upload it by new year, but this December I was neck deep in work (of the pays-the-bills kind) so there was a bit of delay. Anyway...102 minutes of assorted highlights or otherwise interesting tracks from 2011. 01. (00:00) Frost-RAVEN - Solar Wind ["Deep in Blue", Elephant Head 2011] 02. (03:00) Psypheric - No Return ["Life on Earth", Pureuphoria 2011] 03. (05:30) Radical Distortion - Evil Machine ["Art from the Heart Chapter II", Old Is Gold 2011] 04. (12:30) Daimon - Edge of Darkness ["Dimensional Gateway 2", Neogoa 2011] 05. (20:15) Zelur Project - The New Creature ["Dancing Mavka", Lookinglook 2011] 06. (25:30) Artifact303 - Beyond Lightspeed ["Back to Space", Suntrip 2011] 07. (30:30) Etnichaos - The Other Side of Reality ["Mind Rewind", DAT Mafia 2011] 08. (37:30) PortaMento - The Portal ["The Portal", Cronomi 2011] 09. (45:00) M-Run - Goat Man ["Erta Alé", Cronomi 2011] 10. (51:00) Kadasarva - Cybermind ["Steamagination", Sun Station 2011] 11. (59:30) Sulima - Back to Goa ["PsR Reincarnation", PsyRussia 2011] 12. (66:00) Noble Savage - 2012 ["Freaks of Nature", Liquid Tune 2011] 13. (70:00) Overdream - Zuma ["Soundprints", Sun Station 2011] 14. (76:00) silX - Friends of the Forest ["Ol Slug EP", self-released 2011] 15. (83:15) Doc von Ooze - Hexon Fluid ["In Vitro EP", Acid Chemical Plant 2011] 16. (88:30) Toï Doï - Spiral Dive (2011 Remix) ["Goa Overdose 2", Underground Alien Factory 2011] 17. (96:00) E-Mantra - If There Is Nothing ["Pathfinder", Suntrip 2011] Download (161 MB VBR, 102 min, zipped) Txt list Soundcloud Now here's a short story: At some point of summer I thought that there's only been one or two good releases all year and that I should skip this year's mix. In November-December I did some more digging and eventually this mix ended up longer than any of its predecessor. I even left a few good releases out due to matching and length. Weird things happen. Tip: Nowadays you really should check the "free" and "obscure" departments. Sometimes I wonder if this is worth the effort...let me know if you found something interesting, here or elsewhere. Oh, and happy year.

What an interesting coincidence. (I'll explain in a moment. )

Did you play Dubmission's back catalogue?

I must agree that this has slim chances of success, but some classics with long intros include: Dimension 5 - Harmonic Convergence Doof - Star Above Parvati Unfortunately I cannot guess any better from that description.

This is a non-competitive Christmas thread for people who like sharing...

The first post won those all. Sadly, the author got nothing.

I misread the topic "The first time you realized psytrance was shit" and thought "somewhere between the second and third Alien Project album"... OK, I guess around here goa became "popular" (as in, available at all in record stores) with the first Destination Goa and Goa Inside compilations. Their opening tracks were Technossomy - Pyramid and Phreaky - Paranormal Activity, respectively. That's when I really started to love acid synths...those juicy techno counterparts of electric guitars. They also had colourful Buddha and Shiva and whatnot artwork like any good goa release should. No twits in sunglasses. Good times...

Hehe.

So...the best album in history after you exclude the actually good ones? This is going to be difficult.

I don't understand the question. If an album is very good and belongs to psytrance history, isn't it almost guaranteed to have high nostalgy value? And why one couldn't play IFO at a party? OK, we already have about a trillion mixtapes with Alcyone so it's not that original a pick, but I didn't know that the whole album has become unplayable. Are we supposed to nominate the least bad album of the bunch which hasn't become widely praised, and call it the best? Or the best album in the last two years, and call it the best in psytrance history? Please explain.

None... On average, every pixel of my display(s) is covered by three layers of program windows so why bother? I guess an A0 poster would be better suited for just ogling art. More bang per buck, less likely that I'd want to do any actual work on it... (Well, actually the distro comes with a default and I haven't bothered switching it off either.)

I may have one faulty copy with the last 5 minutes or so skipping. If you want that one, it's yours for the cost of shipping. I got a replacement back then so this copy is free in, free out.

But does it always take five weeks from payment to delivery?

It's quite groovy.

Anyone who has spun Kerri Chandler knows this feeling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZTZthjEhZM

I trust in lounge... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLLspYFzFdc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryli3byylns

OK, music making (like all arts) should be a creative process. Doing it 9 to 5 under strict deadlines won't end well. Good releases turn up when the stars are right, that is, when inspiration, motivation and free time meet. Sometimes they just don't. I can accept that. However, where this episode got silly was announcing new release dates every few months since 2008. As we all know, each of those has failed spectacularly. That's why this topic has gone deep into DNF territory and beyond. All the comedy and tragedy could have been avoided by not announcing solid dates until the material has been finished or at least close to it. I can live with "when it's done" estimates too. Sometimes they're simply more honest and honourable than overoptimistic promises which crash-land repeatedly. As these announcements have gone from exciting to embarrassing already a long time ago, couldn't we just revert back to "when it's done" mode and forget about this hyping for nothing? That move itself is three years late now, but better late than never...

I got mine today and listened it through twice. It would be nice to rate each album as an individual piece of work, but at this point of CBL's career comparisons to previous work are common and unavoidable. Everyone has their own ranking of CBL albums. While the #1 spot also varies, few can deny the fact that Hydroponic Garden was a landmark release. When the ominous beat of Central Plains kicked in at 5:30, CBL and even Ultimae as a whole stepped permanently on the map. People may favour later albums musically, but that defining moment is hard to top. World of Sleepers was another solid album. It was equally fine mix of sturdy beats, spacey samples and colourful soundscapes. I found it a little less coherent than HG, but that could be simply because the flow of HG is 100% hard-coded in my spine. Still plenty of big hits on WoS, so to speak. Now Interloper...for some it's the best, for me it didn't work that well. It was fine music again, no doubt, but somehow too casual. The previous albums had a feeling of being somewhere far away. Interloper felt like the title of HUVA Network's track "Sunday Barbecue with the Neighbours". It's very organic and down to earth. There are many analogue elements in its sounds. It's not pre-party, rave party (well, chillout room) or after-party music. It's Sunday noon music. (Add "to me" to everything, of course.) Also, many of the patterns were directly recycled from WoS. That's why it felt like leftovers - of very good stuff, sure, but leftovers nevertheless. Maybe it has its places and times. However, I haven't been in that kind of mood too often. That's why it hasn't received much attention around here. Then we got Twentythree, surprisingly soon after Interloper. It has fewer beats than any of the previous albums (well, none, really) - but it's cosmic again! Am I just fooled by the cover? I don't think so. It's "far away" music. It's for pre-party, rave party, after-party, planning things, doing serious work, you name it. There's very little Sunday barbecue here. The flow is even more seamless than before. It's easy to spot recycled instruments here too, but this time they're from HG and Irdial EP, which were the heavy stuff. For those reasons, I'd rank it #2 among the main CBL albums. Many people will undoubtedly disagree but hey, ambient is for listening and discovering your own style, not for teaming up with the cool guys...

Well...obviously these compilations are mainly targetted to those who don't own the original TIP discography yet. Assuming that you do happen to own the first four colour compilations (Yellow, Orange, Blue, Phosphorescent, or the same as Colours of Shiva 1&2), I think you already have something like 11 out of 19 tracks on these two new compilations. Feeling Weird adds maybe three of the missing ones. From Yellow alone, five tracks have now been rereleased and even more will probably follow. So, interesting samplers for someone who wants a quick look at the TIP history, but largely redundant if you have the originals or plan to get them eventually. To be honest, I might be more pissed off if there was one unreleased track on each CD, forcing me to buy the rest as duplicates. Now you can simply conclude you're not in the target audience and move on. Still...I'm afraid people are nowadays just using YouTube, Spotify-like services or plain mass downloading for their sampling needs. Collectors should get the originals instead. Who's in the target audience then? Someone who just wants to blast one compilation in their car stereo or drop a random classic in a DJ set? I don't know. Oh well, I guess these help to keep the TIP tradition alive so they can't be entirely evil.

There was a poll?

The Antidote - Sunrise?

It's the soundtrack of Future Crew's 1992 demo 'Panic'. I remember downloading it from a BBS when it was fresh. Possibly with a 2.4 kbps modem. 19 years ago? OK, now I feel officially old.

Actually, the whole world is just making quips and astonished remarks today about a game that spent 14 years in development. But hey, DNF was the very definition of vaporware or "not existing" for a decade. Still, it eventually got released so who knows, what kind of weird things can happen in this world.

Meanwhile, Duke Nukem Forever was released...

So is this a real closure or just the usual renaming/merging stunt?