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Time_Trap

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    Battle of the Future Buddhas - Digging Mud (2011,Self-released)

    in 2011

    Posted

    Listen & buy @ bandcamp.com

     

    Digging Mud @ Discogs

     

    Tracklist

     

    Babes And Babas

    Solenoid Leprechaun Driver

    One More For M.A.D. V2

    This Side Up / Unicorny

    Filoti

    Emission

    Here Comes The Sun!

    Wicked Work Of A Wrenched Witch

    Bonus Tracks

    Life In The Trenches Of Hyperspace (Into The Brain Remix)

    Enlil

    Elevated

    One More For M.A.D.

    Here Comes The Sun! V3

    You're A Moonlander Mate

     

    Most of you reading this review are already familiar with Battle of the Future

    Buddhas,through their albums Twin Sharkfins,Demonoizer,their tracks on various compilations

    such as Psychoactive Scandosounds and Goa Trance R.I.P as well as the Schlabbaduerst

    Rekkords(a label run by themselves) compilations.

     

    Briefly,the Battle Of the Future Buddhas' sound in their first album,Twin Sharkfins,can be

    described as Psychedelic/Goa Trance.It's not absolutely Goa Trance in the strict sense of

    the term (anyhow there's controversy on what is goa trance and what is psytrance in the psy

    community and there seem to be two main viwes on this subject but it's offtopic),for example it lacks oriental

    melodies,however it's certainly goa'ish ; it has distinct goa elements.More precisely I would

    call it "night goa" as it's music that fits a night scenery,for the most part of it.

     

    Their second album,Demonoizer,could be described as early dark psychedelic trance,although

    not much to do with today's "dark psy".The goa elements are reduced,there is more focus on

    the kick and the bass,hence the production is more modern,although still retains some

    rawness, and it's less melody-driven.

     

    Production-wise,I believe Demonoizer is their best work so far.Of course,music-wise, Twin

    Sharkfins as well as tracks like Shining Pigs,Mr. Fantastic,Sly!,Madhouse out of Schlabbaduerst Rekkords compilations are awesome too.

     

    Now lets talk about Digging Mud.As the title implies it is a collection of old,unreleased

    stuff (except from Filoti which has been released in a Boom! Records compilation).Now this

    might come across as a disapointment to those who were awaiting fresh new material but

    first,this is better than nothing,and secondly it's material good enough for me to wonder

    why it had been waiting for more than an decade buried under the mud.

     

    All material belongs in the pre-Twin Sharkfins era,1995-1997 specifically.Both production-

    and music- wise this album resembles some Twin Sharkfins a lot,however being ever more raw

    and chaotic.

     

    Hence,goa elements certainly exist,both sound-wise and pattern-wise,probably even more so

    than Twin Sharkfins.

     

    Some parts,mostly the chaotic,fuzzy and overloaded ones, give me the impression that this is

    how Pleiadians might have sounded if they lived in Uppsala.Still this is a distinct Battle

    of the Future Buddhas style of making music.

     

    The album is pretty consistent and although it's claimed that some tracks suffer from

    poor production quality,since they are remastered they sound pretty ok to me and especially if you

    like the oldschool sound of the mid-90s you will love this.

     

    The best thing about this album as well as the Schlabbaduerst style of making music is that

    the focus is on implementing something interesting and innovative and not spending insanely

    proportionless amounts of time on cleansing the production as opposed to writing some music.

     

    I think it's rather pointless,let alone difficult,to do a track-by-track review here so I will just describe

    certain tracks and parts that stand out.

     

    A lot of tracks are closer to the sound of typical oldskool goa trance of the mid-90s

    compared to other BoftB releases.For example, One More for M.A.D. v2 even uses typical acid

    sound towards the end and many tracks such as Filoti even seem to have less or more oriental

    trademark goa melodies.

     

    The remix of Life in the trenches of hyperspace is on the same level as the

    original,probably even trippier and more chaotic.

     

    Enlil,the second of the bonus tracks,is a great track and one of my favourite from this release.Many

    of the bassline patterns are original and unique,the leads are pretty awesome and all in all

    we are talking about a very complex track with lots of pattern changes that is both

    trippy,brainy and danceable.Madness!

     

    Elevated ends rather weird,absurdly,and wrong,with a short stoner rock riff all of a sudden playing the main melody.I still wonder what that's supposed to mean(probably imitating the melody plus a hint towards BotFB's musical past??).

     

    You're a Moonlander Mate has a melody that resembles Leave The World Behind pretty much, slightly altered.So If I get this right it's the ancestor of Leave The World Behind ? ;)

     

    All in all,goa-heads will get a smile listening to this release and those new in the psy(?)

    scene not familiar with them should give them a try to see what oldschool was about.

     

    This is 2011's best release so far and I don't think any other release is going to top it.

     

    Rating: 9/10

    US Debt

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    Yes RTP in a way I think we take more loans to pay our debts, which makes no sense.

     

    I wonder however how life would be without banks. I guess it wouldn't be that bad but you should have the infrastructure to provide the country with goods and services

     

    About Greece I think the rest of EU will not let it go bankrupt but either way Greeks will have to live a much poorer life, wages and pensions going down,etc...

    US Debt

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    Nice find.

     

    Yes, we are in deep shit. Europe is not better off. Just look at the 400+ billion Euro fund we are now creating to save Greece and other crisis countries.

     

    But do we really save Greece? No we don't save Greece - the Greek won't see a cent of the money. We are saving the BANKS who bought the greek assets!

    This is all a big SCAM on taxpayer money and at the cost of everyone of the working class - Greeks and other Europeans alike. All to just save the banks.

    If we had a last bit of sanity we would send Greece bankrupt.

    Why oh why nobody sees this?

     

    The really shocking thing is that everybody counts on the crash meanwhile. I don't know anybody who tells me that it will continue like this. Everybody knows! So why not let it be and let the crash happen now instead of having an even bigger one some years from now?!

     

    Nice said RTP. Glad to see such a view from your side :)

     

    One note however... Greece is already going bankrupt although that's controlled so as France and Germany are affected as little as possible ;)

    D-Dave - Pleading Insanity (Schlabbaduerst Rekkords,2011)

    in 2011

    Posted

    D-Dave - Pleading Insanity @ discogs

     

    Buy @ Bandcamp

     

    Posted Image

     

    1 Jofahjälm 6:36

    2 Seriekrock 4:43

    3 Bodydub 7:46

    4 Kulspel 7:29

    5 Defcon 1 7:43

    6 Completely Operational 8:41

    7 Pausmusik 7:47

    8 Pretty Hardcore 5:59

    9 Materialsport 10:05

     

    For those of you that do not belong in the "Schlab freaks" category, D-Dave is the alias of David Tingsgård from Battle of the Future Buddhas.Until recently he had only released one track as D-Dave,titled "Completely Operational" and released in Schlabbaduerst Rekkords Vol 5 (the one that was intended as forest music).Completely Operational is also included in this release.

     

    Most of the tracks here have been produced around 2000 with the exception of Bodydub which was made this summer.All tracks except for Bodydub and Completely Operational have been converted from DATs.

     

    David's own short description of this album is:

     

    It's not BotFB-style, it's more raw, more industrial, almost techno-ish, yet with melodies but produced "wrong"

    Although David himself claims that this release is very different from the BotfB sound I find some similar traits,mostly in the melodic elements where they exist(eg Pausmusik) or some trippy use of voice-like sounds(eg Jofahjälm),the way basslines are shifted shortly and then back to default,or general structure/style (eg Defcon) as well as apparent use of chorus/flanger and phaser effects.

     

    However despite certain resemblances this album is much more hypnotic than your average BoftB,it's generally a bit simpler pattern-wise,maybe with 1-2 layers less and certainly less melodic overall although groovier(eg Seriekrock) and more rhythm-oriented(eg Bodydub).

     

    I am pretty much satisfied with the production,it's raw and unique, Schlabb-style.Hence if you are used only to modern full-on,prog and "darkpsy" cleansed,polished,modern hypochondriac productions I think this one will seem strange or even wrong to you.However I still find it cleaner than most Schlabb releases,maybe because the music is less overloaded and therefore more breathing space exists.

     

    Let's try a track by track review.

     

    Jofahjälm contains trippy synth-voices and a weird shrunk bass which are trademarks of this track.

     

    Seriekrock is characterized by a strong kick that seems loud at first but then is integrated smoothly in the oneness of the track,accompanied by a very low-freq bass and some mid-bass with a mid-freq edge.

     

    In Bodydub we come across some pretty nice rhythmic patterns as well as trippy chorus/flanger'ed and/or phasered sounds.

     

    Kulspel starts with crazy,fuzzy sounds constituting some sort of melody and the whole track goes on to build up based on it.The vocals added after a certain point give the track an even trippier touch.

     

    Defcon resembles Demonoizer material quite much IMO.

     

    Completely Operational is a track many of you are familiar as it has been released in Schlabbaduerst Rekkords Vol 5. This track has a very characteristic kick pattern you don't come across often in other psytrance.I am not sure but it sounds as some delay and/or reverb effect has been applied to it,then I again I could be wrong(David should shed some light here).Anyhow,this track has been in my favourites off Schlabbaduerst Rekkords Vol 5 for quite a while, along with Ripoff by L.A.B. and Iris by Ka-Sol.

     

    The melodic elements in Pausmusik after 3:10 as well as the general production style remind me a bit of Twin Sharkfins.Most melodic track of this release.

     

    Pretty Hardcore starts pretty minimal, focusing entirely on drums and the bass until some leads and effects come into play and gradually make things more noisy.

     

    Materialsport sounds like disco music on mushrooms.Sorry but I fail to describe this track =P

     

    All in all,if you are a Schlabbaduerst Rekkords fan you should definitely check it,if you haven't already, and I

    believe you won't be dissapointed.If you haven't heard anything else from Schlabb,do so,and

    if you are rather indifferent give it a try because it might be different than what you expect.

     

    Buy here

     

    Favourite Tracks: Seriekrock,Kulspel,Completely Operational,Pausmusik

     

    Rating:8/10

    New Battle of the Future Buddhas album

    in Artist News and Labels announcements

    Posted

    Hm I remember an old interview of BotfB where there was a question about piracy and the reply was that it's no problem for the schlabb guys because this way more people get to know their music.

     

    http://www.psynews.org/forums/index.php?/topic/37572-artist-battle-of-the-future-buddhas/

     

    Anyway, so what do you think about the mp3/FTP-scene ?

    A: Its basically the same as the DAT copying scene that existed before, and still exist but is not as big. People have always been swapping music, now its just on a bigger scale. I dont care if people copy our music as long as they dont try and sell it, that pisses me off. If more people hear our music its better cause maybe we get a live gig or I get a DJ-gig or whatever.

     

    Q: Is all the copying killing Goa-labels, or not ?

    A: I'm not the right person to answer that, I dont know much about the sales at the moment... And I dont care much about labels, the individual artists are more important and they have to be payed!

    Don't know if something has changed in the way they see it today :)

    • Like 1

    Psychedelic Trance Pioneers

    in General Psytrance

    Posted

    While opininons are contradictory on this one. I consider goa-trance to be a subgenre of psychedelic trance,and i certainly consider Koxbox to be goa-ish - although it doesn't have the oriental melodies but goa isn't only restricted to it.

     

    Hux flux and GMS might be called early full-on and X-dream psytech/tech-trance

    Pablo Gargano

    in General Psytrance

    Posted

    Pablo Gargano is a great Hard/Acid Trance producer. Sure I like his tracks. Check this out:

     

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLa7wjXCv_A

     

     

    But please stop comparing to Goa Trance - he has nothing to do with Goa Trance even though has had 2 tracks on Goa-Head 2 and Goa Trance 7 on Rumour Records, which (the latter) was never a 100% Goa series.

     

    That said, mixed properly in the right hour his tracks could have gone hand in hand with proper Goa from the 90s.

     

    Nothing ? Are you sure? I pretty much find lots of similiraties with Goa Trance. Main difference being that Goa Trance is more overloaded,melodic and multi-layered ;)

     

    PS. You contradict yourself with your last statement =]

    Pablo Gargano

    in General Psytrance

    Posted

    Unknown to commercial lovers, not for me :)

     

    Hope u know I am not a commercial lover, right? But I have been in this forum since 2005 or something, and I have never seen him mentioned , while I have seen many underground names being mentioned ...

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