pr0fane

I personally found "Family of Light" better than "IFO", and I think "IFO" does sound quite dated today. I consider "Family of Light" one of the best psytrance albums released before the millennium, and tracks like "Modulation", "Meter" and "Headspin" are still fresh, and will surely rock any dance floor.

Don’t like it, even after several listens. Yet another album where I shouldn’t have listened to the massive hype

The first album was one of the biggest surprises for me in 2003 – a deep, emotional journey. The 2nd album was more disappointing. Better production, but total lack of ideas. Track 1 and 3 where really nice, but the problem was that every track was made using the same formula – same sounds and same buildup. Still, some of the tracks are nice though – but you should really check out the first album, “Overwhelming”. Excellent, deep morning music. Music to dive into.

Never really liked Yahel (although I do like much ”cheesy” and ”commercial” music). Heard him DJ at Full Moon though, and I must say his technical skills are superb. Trackselection was a bit weak though, with too many tracks played many times previously in the festival.

As far as I know, this release isn’t related to Deedrahs work on the game Gran Turismo 4.

I didn’t write that the artists should make music that they don’t like – of course the artists should be interested in the project, and ready to try something (although perhaps only slightly) new. And full on and progressive was just a suggestion. It could be “dark psy” vs. IDM, breaks vs. heavy metal, or something completely different. Your last statement seemed pointless in my opinion by the way. Of course I only buy what I like, and yes – there are still some people out there who buy music. I personally buy somewhere between 4 and 10 releases each month.

I’d love to see some more ”melting pot” releases. Releases, where we hear some artists try something new, as way to many artists are stuck in one style in my opinion. It could be a compilation with progressive artists making full on or vice versa – or it could be a compilation with progressive artists collaborating with full on artists to make something in between. I read a few months back on Ibogas website that they have something somewhat similar in the works actually – a Digiboga 2. Copy/paste from their site: "The idea of the project is that a number of selected artists from the full on scene are getting into making some strong remixes of some known progressive artists, and the other way around. Some selected progressive artists will make more progressive mixes of the fullon track. The artists to mention in this project till now is: Pixel and Sub6, Orion, Tristan, Son Kite, Vibrasphere, Antix, Freq, Phony Orphants, Beat Bizarre and still more to come. So prepare you self for something new and border braking." Sounds very interesting. Digiboga 1 was also quite nice by the way, and also had a concept behind it (combining the cream of the crop from the 2 labels Digital Structures and Iboga)

I won’t argue with your taste as its personal, but calling Son Kite “childish”, “simple” and “easy” is ridiculous and ignorant. Again and again they have proven that their level (and I’m talking both production and creativity) is almost unmatched on the psytrance scene, and artists better or even on par with them can probably be counted on less than 2 hands. And what’s up with the house-prejudices? You sound completely biased, on the sole fact that it has house-influences – but there’s so much more to “Colours” than that. There are also influences of electro, early acidtrance, minimal - tracks like “The Stars Within Us” and “Made To Move” are hard progressive trance stompers, and the track “Game & Watch” definitely falls under my definition of full on (it reminds me a lot of Deedrah). Let me also remind you that “More Psychedelic” doesn’t necessarily equal “Better” – a very common misconception on the psytrance scene. But of course you have your opinion, and if you don’t like the music there’s not much I can or will do about it. Just back up your views next time

I find that most progressive released these days is morning oriented - and there is just so much great stuff to choose from, you can hardly go wrong. Some of the best and most essential progressive albums released this year are in my opinion (in no particular): Son Kite – Colours (Digital Structures) Kooler – Open (Kamaflage/Dragonfly) 12 Moons – Solid State (Candyflip) Atmos – 2nd Brigade (Spiral Trax) Tetraktys - Tetraktys (Sub Machine) FREq – Strange Attractors (Iboga) Shakta – Feed The Flame (Dragonfly) BLT & Danni Makov – Anything U Want (Tokyo Dance – and it’s a bit of a mixture between full on and progressive, but definitely a gem that stands out in the jungle of releases from Israel) Also worth checking out are: Soul Surfer – Surfers Paradise (YSE/Millenium) Krüger & Coyle – Randy Expander (ACDC) Andromeda – Temptations (YSE/Millenium) Human Blue – Electrolüx (Spiral Trax) Buzzmonx – Toms’N Jerry (Plusquam) Matenda – Tunnel Vision (Flow) Teleport – Werkschau (PORN) Lunaspice – Reflexion (Sub Machine) The Higher Human Form – Neurohighways (ZMA) Vision & Canedy – Another Life (Hadshot)

I don’t agree with you at all – in fact I think this has been one of the best years ever for psytrance. Sure, a lot of copy/paste stuff has been released, but don’t base your judgements on the worst releases – base your judgements on the best. But of course taste differs

Very enjoyable album for sure, with an excellent atmosphere and lush pads all the way through. There where a few fillers though, and I cant help thinking that it would have been a really great album if they put some more work into a couple of the tracks, who at times sounded quite amateurish. But overall a nice debut though. ZMA have a really high standard in progressive releases.

I tend to prefer Family Of Light over IFO. IFO was stunning back then, but compared to FOL it sounds quite dated today. Tracks like Meter, Headspin and the 16-minute journey Modulation are still excellent tracks in my opinion, and one of the reasons why I consider FOL one of the best psychedelic trance albums ever made.

- Hallucinogen. Heard him live last year, and boy, what a journey. Perhaps it was just me being nostalgic, but it was pure bliss from the first to the last second. All the tracks sounded as fresh as they where made yesterday. - Son Kite. Heard them 2 times (last time was this weekend), and like Hallucinogen they manage to spice up their tracks, make small rearrangements, change the tempo, sometimes change the bassline a bit, and sometimes add new elements. Like when Seb pulls out the MIDI-Violin, and starts playing some of the synths. Amazing to say the least.

Pretty incomplete list if you ask me. How about these albums? Shakta - Silicon Trip Elysium - Monzoon + Dance For The Celestial Beings Orion - Futuristic Poetry Transwave - Hypnorhythm + Helium + Phototropic Green Nuns Of The Revolution - Rock Bitch Mafia Man With No Name - Moment Of Truth Chakra And Edi Mis - The Promised Land And I’m sure there’s plenty more I’ve forgotten.

I don't have a credit card either, but I know that both psyshop and trance-shop have cash on delivery. I usually order 6-10 CD’s at a time.

A few more: http://www.beatspace.com http://www.chaosunlimited.co.uk

Taste differs. I think they’ve released some of the best and most emotional releases this year: - The beautiful chillout album from Abakus. - The new Vatos Locos album - Easily one of the best mixtures of progressive, full on, psytrance and ambient. - The new Shakta album - In my opinion the best value-for-money album this year. It’s excellent, groovy, dark progressive trance with a hint of house, and with a marvellous extra CD with old vinyl-releases like his breaks project Digitalis, the 2001 collab “Into The Light” with Bill from Cosmosis and much more. - and let’s not forget their progressive sidelabel Kamaflage, who released the amazing Kooler album by Seb from Son Kite Dragonfly are still one of the best labels around in my opinion.

24 €? Way to expensive if you ask me – especially for a compilation where I’ve only heard of 3 of the artists beforehand (and to be honest I don’t like them). Thumbs up for eliminating the distributors and shops that take a big piece of the cake – but shouldn’t that result in cheaper prices?

Flying Rhino went bankrupt. Apparently they got fucked by some distributors who owed them money. Also a big loss that Blue Room closed down: They where certainly one of the most interesting labels back then. The label was only a side-thing for them as far as I know though – they still produce their famous Mini Pod speakers.

I also found the second Shpongle album hugely overrated. The first album and both “Mystery of the Yeti” releases where so much better. From newer releases, I guess I must say The Misted Muppet, and everything from Chemical Crew (former Shaffel).

Massimo Vivona - Secret.

To be honest I think it's one of Spuns worst releases to date.

Forgot Eskimos “Open Your Eyes Up”. Possibly one of the best tracks from him. Bottom line, one of the best releases from Spun. For the dance floor.

I my opinion it’s the best compilation from Spun in a long time. Usually I’m not a big fan of Spun, but there’s some mighty fine full on tracks on this one, and more diversity than their latest releases. Exailes “Radio Edit” is one of the only tracks I like by Exaile, and also worth mentioning is GMS’ “Tweakers”, Brain XLs “Hypercube”, the opening superstar-collaboration and of course “Navigate Into” by Sub6 And Pixel. I recommend it.

I’m no master at English, and I’ve “only” received 5 promo-CD’s during the last years. Psytekk from USTA (which I graded 6,5, and I haven’t received any more promos from them - hehe), Igneous Sauria and Genetic Spin on CreamCrop (which I graded 8 and 7) and the Son Kite album “Colours” + “On Air Remixes” (graded 9,5 and 9 – and that was certainly not exaggerating). How do you get those promos anyways? Although forums like psynews and isratrance are relatively well known, do the labels really get their money back from sending a promo to a reviewer at one of these places? Sure, sometimes there are +20-30 comments, but usually it’s the same crowd of insiders (at isratrance anyways, I haven’t used the psynews forum that much) commenting. Do we really just write these reviews for a small, closed circle of people, or are there a big bunch of people reading along, and ultimately buying the cd’s when they’ve read a positive review?