Snapinho

Orbital - In Sides atm: Out there Somewhere pt. 1

Just a quick question before I start a more elaborate reply: Trolsk, were you by any chance on the LSD Symposium in Basel, january this year? That was truly the most wonderful weekend of my life. Man, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. Anyway, next time there is such a convention (or well... a similar one, good ol' Albert isn't turning 100 every year ) you should really go. I was amazed to see that there's so many really really clever people, who are not only out there, but also in their right minds. Meaning, they were very friendly, open, warmhearted, natureloving people and at the same time very scientific. So, not too floaty, fuzzy (if you know what I mean: not hippies screaming turn on, tune in and whatever... hehehe) but very rational. Well, this is turning into a short review, but what the heck. Can you imagine there were parties every night and I still managed to go to bed early and get up even earlier (7 ish) to not miss any lecture? From 9 in the morning till 9 pm. Normally I'd have fallen asleep by noon, but this just gave me more and more energy. So many brilliant minds: Ralph Metzner, Jonathan Ott, Christian Rätsch (now there's a freak!! extremely funny dude), Alex Grey, the Shulgins, Martin Lee, Hoppy Hopkins, poets, musicians, people who opened the UFO club in London in the sixties, underground acid manufacturers, philosophers, filmmakers... Wow, I was just gonna ask you if you'd been there, hehe. Nevermind: I'm off to the library to rewrite my conclusion and I'll come back to the subject. Matter of fact: I'm still searching for a subject for my final thesis. Maybe you've given me an idea, Trolsk. You the man!

Infected Mushroom of course!

Hehehe, I am just laying the final hands on my bachelor's thesis on a very closely related subject. Though I'm afraid that I have used mostly dutch authors... I wrote about the relation between modernity and the ecstacy experience (not as in the drug, but as in the transcendental kinda experience). I must admit I do not completely understand the correlation between the discovery of psychedelics and postmodernism. My gut feeling tells me that people would find more 'sense' or more 'connection' in the world, between people and things and between people in general. Postmodernism seems to drift away from those things... I mean: the postmodern world isn't very cozy and comforting, so to say. But maybe that's what you were hinting at: the rise of postmodernism caused people to reinvestigate the possibilities of other ways of experiencing and 'going back to nature'. Anyway: personally I feel more and more attracted to the relation between quantum physics and psychedelics, but that's a whole different subject. Btw: are you planning to write a paper on the subject? Essential reading: Walter Benjamin - About Hashish. It's a little fragmented, cause it's not a work of his, rather than collected articles and writings on the subject of hashish and its relation to experience. There's a very good read in Lieven de Cauter - Archeology of the kick, but I have no idea whether or not it has been translated. He's a Belgian author... Anyway: I am probably able to find some more authors if you're really interested... Lemme know what you've come up with so far. Nice subject, dude! (what are you studying anyway?)

wow, nice initiative! Next mix I'm definitely gonna submit. [edit]why did you only post this one day before the closing of the submission date? damn, now I have to be really fast!

Very true. And that has something to do with what DP also noted: there's a lot of one-key synths used, some percussions start sounding the same all too soon and some of the melodies sound like they were made by a 15 year old. And most flutes sound like they come directly out of the same synth that was used for all other sounds. That being said, I do like the album, although it's indeed a little bit too accessible. And with that I mean a little too superficial. man it looks like I can only say negative things about chill albums lately, but I do admit that it's a very positive sounding piece of music. Very much not timeless though.

Couldn't agree with you more. Krumelur is oh so sweet for my ears !

maybe the least original name possible!

Taken from Sonkite.com, posted there by Sebastian. Interesting read!

Papua New Guinea OBVIOUSLY... despite it being quite easily accessible or something. One of my favorites is Among Myselves. Most psychedelic stuff, I think that most of the people jumped out of their chairs the first time they heard it loud. Egypt, Smoking Japanese Babe, My Kingdom, Cascade ... oooh and lots more!

Indeed, the youth is so uneducated these days. My oh my. This is the essence of psychedelia, if you ask me.

Squarepusher - Go! Spastic

Waaaah~!!! I copied my own thread in goatrance.nl (dutch psytrance site) and I found out that the Orb are playing here, in ONE MONTH!!! OMG OMG OMG ELEVEN! Weeeeeeeh, long live this! Gotta go there! Other side of the country, but still: Holland is a small place. Even for Belgians it's not that far away... Other cool artists performing there: akufen venetian snares kettel kubus My day has been made!!

Who is Ale?

once again, check ebay. there's lots of online shops there too. Or maybe www.amazon.com ? Albums are still out there everywhere! By the way, I buy a LOT off ebay... I'm getting addicted.

eBay has plenty. You mean the single, or the translations? The original version is on both.

Nice! Let me in the secret then, please. And yes, Orbital is quite good indeed (as a matter of fact, I played 'The girl with the sun in her head' at voov too) but thats like comparing apples to potatoes. You can both eat em, but they grow in different directions. Anyhoo: anything out there that's as good as FSOL to you? And I mean: in that style, or close?

Hahaha, I got myself listening to all my Orb albums again. Plus today I won Cydonia on eBay for ... let's see ... GBP 4,99 or EUR 7,36. Not bad, I'd say. np: Oxbow Lakes. Magical piano! Woohoo, the Orb rock!!!

Maybe he didn't have a collection to begin with? I seriously can't imagine that. Sure there's this thing called taste and like they say: various people have various tastes and what not, but some things are simply beyond taste. Fact. FSOL is one of those things. Other fact.

Yay, my words exactly. Let me try to be critical. I'm writing this as I'm listening to it, so it might be a little fragmented. The Entheogenic song is just plain boring and cliche, if you ask me, the woman's voice adding nothing to the song. It's been done before (by them!) and better too. Elysium's track was pretty nice and floaty until this dude's voice comes in. AARGH. Skip to next song!! Ouch, that was nasty. Please don't ever do that again! The CBL remix fo Shulman is actually quite nice and is a good remix with that heavy thumping bass with the Shulman fluteline on top of it. I do like this! Nice 'n acidic track! Ishq is alright too, although I'm not too big a fan of Ishq. Jaia fits really well with the album-cover, although I'd expected a little bit more: it's got a certain cloudy feeling. I find this quite boring, but maybe I expected something a little less ambient? Towards the end it gets a little busier and a little more upbeat with some standard psychill synthy sounds, which fills the song somewhat more. Not that interesting, but not really bad either. I hate (!) the Cell song. Damn, that's annoying, those ethnic chants. Otherwise the song is too busy as well, really doesnt work for me. Phasephour to me sounds like a very pitched down goa tune. Not bad again, but no inspiration if you ask me. Dull. Maybe I shouldnt review psybient albums anymore. Next are Elysium and Space Cat, who start of with some funky bass plucking, dry thudding dubby beats and some kid screaming something non understandable in the background. There's some strings in the background, stringing away... Still, there doesn't seem to be a lot happening. The Dub does make my head bob though and that's definitely a good sign. All in all it's not really that dubby, I must add... Altitudes is upbeat psychill and again, it feels like I've heard it all before. Nothing spectacular. SKIP! The final song, well, its kinda groovey but fukkit. I have had enough of this. I doubt I'll ever give this a listen again. Sorry.

Yesterday I got (bought without knowing what I'd get, hehehe) Dr. Speedlove presents Chemical Warfare 2xCD http://www.discogs.com/release/372193 Transambient Communications - Mauve http://www.discogs.com/release/313859 VA - Hybrids (hypnogogia label, pretty obscure but seme nice tracks on there too!) and a few more that I cant remember cause there not here with me right now.

Hey thanks, good comments! But I admit this: I almost always hate vocals. There are exceptions of course, but usually they're terrible. Although the Orb can pull it off. Loving You, FFS! It's wonderful! Same goes for Little Fluffy Clouds, but you can hardly call that vocals... Hmm. Well, I'm gonna have to check it out anyway, I guess.

Yay, this thread is turning out exactly how I wanted it to. I still haven't heard any comments on the newer Orb albums, like Cydonia and Bicyles and Tricycles. What about them? Has anyone listened well to 'em, are they as good as their older work etcetera etcetera? I hardly believe it, but it's worth a try, right? @Colin: could you elaborate? I'm always interested in gossip and I've never quite understood the whole story behind the people that used to work as the Orb. I mean, who was who and who did what, etc. I remember reading a lot of stuff about Paterson being an asshole and him not being nearly as influential as everybody claims him to be. and @heva: you're quite right. I think Live 93 was my first Orb album as well and to date it still counts as one of my favorite album covers ever. Gotta love the sheep!

Thanks Seraph. We needed a thread like this as well. FSOL and the Orb are probably my all-time-favorite groups. This time I picked ISDN, but I could just as well have picked Lifeforms. Dead Cities is also amazing. I really love playing 'Among Myselves' as the first song (volume way up) in a set. It really shakes and wakes everybody up, especially when that creepy squeeeek (or how the hell you translate that) sound starts. Wopnderful! By the way, Papua New Guinea Translations also has some amazing tunes on there. Some excellent remixes! Anyhoo: FSOL rocks! And I really never understood Amorphous Androgynous. To be honest, I hated it when I first heard it. Especially the Isness. I think when you expect something similar to FSOL, you're gonna be very disappointed. Anyway, nice thread! FSOL is perfect tripping music by the way. Their albums shouldn't be listened as separate songs, they'er telling a whole story. very unique stuff! [edit]Question: what singles are worth getting?

And UP this thread goes! I liked in the beginning, but after a while I'm starting to feel that it's much more of the same. Most of the tracks last too long, which is because there's not enough ideas going on to make the whole song worthwhile. This goes particularly for the first track Rites of Passage. It's quite okay, but it's the same sounds repeated throughout the whole track and that gets boring after some time. Darkness is also quite alright; It's deep and a little dark indeed, heavily dubbed and I like the melodic bleeps towards the end. Elysium is just pure psychill cliche if ya ask me... repetitive tribal-ish stuff. Ritual is also ok, but again towards the middle of the song I'm getting bored. This is not at all bad music, but I just feel there could've been an extra touch here and there. It's like he used one basic feeling and stretched that one out over the whole track. And from here onwards, most tracks are just not interesting to me. Spanish Fly is supposed to be Flamenco Dub but it just isn't as cool as it could've been. It's irritating even! Hypersence is just too annoyingly filled with cliched psybient ethnic chants, trancey leads and too simple guitar twingles, Drifting is too Shpongley. Not original. And what about the intro of Submerge? Those waterdrops seem to be taken straight out of Are you Shpongled? Get a life!! Anyhow: as you can see I find the praise of this album highly exaggerated. I don't understand it, it all sounds too cliche and repetitive but now I'm myself doing just that. Nevermind.