freak51

At last I get it! "It's not day-glo. it's fluorescent." The sample encapsulates the whole flavour of the album. Whoever suggested to use it as background noise had the right idea. To be listened to out of the peripheral vision of your ears. If you focus on it too hard, it disappears. Jimmy the Plate is lovely. What blows me away is that it's released on Cosmophilia; everything else they release seems to be the hard bangin' Yumade/Absolum/Wizzy Noise/Hadshot Haidezar sound.

V/A - Trancentral 7 Artist: Various Title: Trancentral 7 Label: Kickin Date: 1997 Track listing: CD 1 01. 08'36" Synchro : Power On 02. 09'13" Crop Circles : Full Mental Jackpot 03. 05'56" Dimension 5 : Temple Of Chaos 04. 06'24" The Delta : As A Child I Could Walk On The Ceiling 05. 06'10" Ominus : Tribalistic 06. 06'23" Fuzzy Logic : Double Barrel 07. 06'24" The Secret : The Camberwell Carrot 08. 05'30" Multiplex : Flotation CD 2 01. 06'35" Eco : Crowd Nine 02. 08'21" Nervasystem : Zones 03. 06'27" Noosphere : 23rd Chromosome 04. 08'13" Radiotrance : Plasma 05. 07'20" Element Over Nature : Cyber Reality 06. 06'13" Tristan : Sensory Deception 07. 05'51" Manmademan : Delirium 08. 07'25" Athena : Wood Walking Review: Both discs are mixed, sometimes prematurely - one fade is even a train-wreck. However, there are some standout tracks I haven't found anywhere else: Power On, Temple of Chaos, Crowd Nine and Plasma (although this last one is a tad anthemic in parts). The Noosphere and the The Delta tracks are very good too, but available on other releases. Worth buying if you can find it. Beware - Kickin has re-packaged these discs as "Trance 9" and "Trance 10". Fiends.

The 3 Turn track is very good. Absolum absolutely rocks. But this is psychedelic techno, and pretty much sounds like any other psy-tech release (Heavy Machinery, the last half of Distance To Goa 8, etc). Perhaps it needs e or acid or something, because this all sounds too synthetic/chemical for my liking. There's a lot of data here, to be sure: you can't process it all in real-time the first time through. Also, I think there's rather too much bass in the equalization. Tentatively I'll give it 7/10 but I haven't really decided yet.

LSG - The Black Album Artist: LSG Title: The Black Album Label: Black Series Date: 1998 Track listing: 01. 02'16" The Train Of Thought V0.9 02. 06'58" The Train Of Thought V1.1 03. 08'25" Go Fishing 04. 09'21" Cellular 05. 07'43" The Blaxone 06. 07'40" Rotation 07. 07'00" 88 08. 06'04" Freakz 09. 07'14" Hellfire 10. 09'28" Deep Blue Review: First things first. That bassline that runs through most of the record features the most gorgeously warm mushroomy-good organic kick-drum. The sound waves are anything but square here. From start to finish the whole record just washes right over you. Minimal sounds starting off more techno than trance (after the first ambient 2 minutes) that sloooooowly morph, as if over inverted time-lapse photography. It takes 256 beats for some sounds to be born, grow and fade out peacefully or flower into something totally other. Yet the whole thing is groovy and danceable, if only in a hip-swaying, head-bobbing 135 BPM fashion. Everything is all mixed together exquisitely so the track separation seems kind of arbitrary here. Still, nice of him not to make one gigantic 70 minute track. Anyway, the further into the album you get, the more psychedelic the noises become. This is what I had in mind when picturing how Goa trance could merge back in with the techno it schismed off of in the 90s, since both genres have both evolved since (like a 7 year macrocosm of a proper Goa track) and both have spawned some spectacular sounds. I can't believe I found this by accident for 15 bucks Canadian! Total score! Bag this today if you can find it. LSG can scarcely contain his love for all of us!

V/A - Heavy Machinery Artist: Various Title: Heavy Machinery Label: Hadshot Date: 1999 Track listing: 01. 09'30" Abra Cadabra : Nature Calling 02. 08'40" Sandman : Illegal Business 03. 07'13" Sinister Funk : Propulsion 04. 06'14" Eat Meaterr : Neighbours 05. 08'43" Screec : Schangel 06. 08'14" Activate Morlack : Psai Sai 07. 08'40" DIMO : Modularis 08. 07'05" Impact : Start Control Review: This record is full of harsh, psychedelic-techno noises. This sound shows a deep Industrial influence and probably kicks ass on a very good stereo. Increasingly though, I find the psy-tech sound suffers greatly, losing all its interesting bits, in the white noise of stereos with even the tiniest bit of distortion. Also, fundamentally it's just not that interesting. Unfortunately the techno that it seems to borrow from is the harsh UK techno sound, more an exercise in toughing it out rather than the wonderful (to my ears) organic, minimal Detroit sound. Worth picking up if you really liked the DJ Dede comp off Psychedelic Deli.

Nice overall, and stunning for its time, but sounds pretty old now. I wouldn't play anything off this anymore, probably because I couldn't get a hold of it until last year (1999). I imagine it's the sort of thing that you had to be there to enjoy to its full potential.

It isn't Goa. If they hadn't been in the scene since the beginning, it wouldn't even be trance (like the new Total Eclipse record (Access Denied) - it gives record store managers fits as to where to file it). It's an exercise in how to craft weird noises into music - not that that's a bad thing, but it's not for me.

The Filthy Beasts track. Oh my God, where did these people come from? That's among the finest sounds I have ever heard. It's those haunted vocal effects over that clearly insane industrially-influenced saw-like noise in the background that kills me every time. Worth it for just that track and #9, which sounds like a cross between Hallucinogen and X-Dream. Tasty fare, but you probably won't like it the first time through. It's harsh and very full.

This is a comp, so you can expect some dog tracks. So far I really like this one though. Excellent sample from The Matrix, slowed down to about half-speed so it sounds sooo lazy, on the Absolum track. "Hooow do youuuu dooo thaaat?" "Whhaat?" "Youu mooove liike theeeyyy dooo - 2've nevverr seeeennn aannyonnne moooove thaaat faasst". Heh heh. I've found a new friend. The Infected Mushroom and Space Cat tracks are excellent. The Phoetus track is also a killer, IMHO. Between that and the track on Goa Head 8 (_Groovy_Symptoms_, I believe), I can't wait for the Phoetus album!

Kay Sea Isle is just SICK SICK SICK! The Jaïa track is lovely and Peacemaker incorporates an excellent funky sound - surprising for me to say because I normally cannot stand when artits try to do this, to me it usually mangles and wastes an otherwise great track. Harsh is well-named. A lot of the other stuff is iffy. If you can afford about $30 for 3-4 good tracks, worth picking up.

"The system has been successfully used - but people in other parts of the world need to know about the system." Is this from Scientology or something? Fantastic sample! Gorgeous record. Interstellar Dawn is just turgid with happiness. I love the thing in Visually Distorted where he brings in the melody as though unfolding it out of crepe paper from the ceiling, filling in subharmonics rather than overtones. Very crafty, pure smut. There are enough really nice tracks on here to justify its place in any trance collection. The best thing out of Israel in 1997 IMHO, including the Astral Projection record that year.

Ehh. The sounds are excellent, but the tracks themselves are really harsh and jarring for the most part. Hey, he comes by it honestly; he _is_ German. Still, some transitions are amazing. That bit in Red Hair Hospital where you think, 'oh I see where this is going, it'll - ' WRONG! That's where it totally bitchsmacks you, ties you up and locks you in the trunk of the car. The ride from there isn't really any fun, but it is unexpected. This one might grow on me. But I don't know. I just got this yesterday, so I'll write more when I make up my mind for the medium term.

I've given this my best try and I still really hate this sound. Too 'progressive', not deep enough for my tastes, sounds to me in some sense thin or underdeveloped. I'm all for minimalism, but more like LSG or like Luminus or like Darshan, and less like Flying Rhino has been sounding lately or like the whole Ibiza sound. I can't put my finger on the exact thing I hate about these bass lines, but I know it when I hear it and this is it. Still, I think Atmos has their finger on a certain pulse and that this sound will develop. I wish the best to all on this journey, but this is where I step off and head for weirder ground.

Scandinavian-sounding. Good as filler or for between moods because it's pleasant, danceable, yet there's not actually much going on here so it's also breezy-easy to mix. Too many guitar noises for my taste, yet still somehow engaging. 7/10.

This comp kicks serious ass. It's Mark Allen's track selections, so that's no surprise: around 1995 he was The Bomb. I don't listen to this much anymore, but insofar as one doesn't buy music so much as rent it, this has had one of the lowest costs per rotation of any disc I've ever owned. I must have played this 200 times through, end-to-end. "Where are we going?" "I don't know - but one thing I do know, it's a long long way from where we are."

I quite liked this one, except "Shark", which is more like "Goldfish": mundane. God is God is excellent and so is the bonus track (High Energy Protons), although that's from the ancient Trancemissions album of almost TEN YEARS AGO! TEN YEARS! (calm down: breathe in, breathe out.) Having picked out individual tracks, allow me to mention that this works really well as a record, but not so well as individual tracks.

I dunno - I think maybe the stereotypical Israelian trance sound is, dare I suggest it, getting old? I find myself wishing for more psychedelia, more flow, more intricate melodies and some changes in the synth noises. If you enjoy the stereotypical/classic [depending on your point of view] Israeli trance sound you are going to need this record in your collection. If you already have a couple of dozen from Hom-Mega, Krembo, Phonokol, Trust in Trance, Yoyo/BNE Records then you don't really need this one IMHO. Pity, because I thought I'd never tire of this stuff. Could I be ... getting old? Gasp! I find myself enjoying Detroit Techno more and more .. hopefully the newer Psychedelic Techno coming out of Germany and England will slow my drift back across the Atlantic. I do still love to sounds that make my hairs prickle, and have a soft spot for the sort of clever transitions one can only find in Goa/Psy Trance.

Definitely among the darkest releases ever. Some just plain unpleasant noises mar it, especially in "Not for Children", just sounds like noise to me. You're almost guaranteed not to enjoy this the first time you listen to it. However, a couple of months later you might pull it out again and realize that it actually freaks really well. #3, 5, 6 are very good tracks and at any given time there are one or two I really dislike. However, that one-or-two track set changes with every rotation, depending on the mood. I'll say this, it is a LOT of data. Since this era (late 1997), FR has changed its sound at least twice, so if you've only heard some of the progressive trance from 4th/5th Flight, you may be surprised.

I think alexg1029 above has it. The Gathering : Twisted = Classical Mushroom : Are You Shpongled, largely. They've taken a more introspective bent on playing with textures, etc. Very good for home listening, although several parts are quite danceable. Still I don't enjoy this one as much as Shpongle because Classical Mushroom still is very much a straight 4/4 release whereas two tracks on AYS? dig into 5/4 and 7/4 tempo. Nice work overall, but I hope they can still produce more partiful beats ... actually these very tracks would all remix into MASSACRE danceable stuff. Anyone have the equipment? And access to their lawyers to work out the rights?

I'm not keen on flutes or the vocoder in track 5 or 6, but otherwise this is a Monster Hit. If you don't have it, stop reading this and hunt it down and buy it. Now. So deep, so liquid.

Gave this one a second try, when in a good mood already. Some nice tracks on here, just not what I was originally expecting. Biot's first record was great to work out annoyance; this one's useless for that. Much better if you're already quite content. She-Va has a nice lush voice effect. Still, I can do without the US-style bass line on many of the tracks.

We mustn't be listening to the same release! To me this is like watching your favourite grandparent [let's call him Grandpa Dragonfly] lose his memory, mind and then start drooling and needing diapers. This label was so FAT once apon a time, not even that long ago, pretty much consensus pick for the leading edge. Now it sounds like another Boris Blenn side project. From the horrible plinky-plinky noises at the start, we go to Everyday, which is a nice track but needs more overlays and sounds, and has no business going over 6 minutes. Namaska is a decent 'smooth' progressive vanilla track, but for DARSHAN it is really weak. I mean, this is the same act that produced such gems as Energy Trace, ECG, 0G and Tranceformations. They can go much deeper than this. Same thing for the Shakta and X-Dream tracks. It's one thing to get a backrub from a 17-year-old raver chick who has only read some place about back pain and so you can't really blame her for having no idea h! ow to hit good spots or apply goodhurt pleasurepain. It's another to get a lame second-rate job from someone who's made your eyes water and hips crack before. Disappointing. Track 8 is nothing special, and the best part about the Zodiac Youth track is the sample. The 2nd disc is quite literally the worst thing I've ever imagined. What is the Tommy-Gear-Wearing Rapper saying "I know yall wanna git down", over and over, like a Daft Punk Mic Check, doing in trance? TRANCE IS NOT ABOUT DOWN. TRANCE IS ABOUT UP. If I want to get down I drink booze and listen to blues or R&B or hip hop or contemplate my working day, or just, hey, cut out the middleman and beat my head in with a clue-by-four. I do not want anyone, ever, on a trance release to address me as 'yall'. Trance is not funky - it did not come from Louisiana. That's why I like it. The rest of the 2nd disc is what to put on if you're trying to lay a really naive 20-year-old neopagan with no appreciation of composit! ion. Cringe Factory. I will never buy anything from Dragonfly again.

Decent comp, mainly for Energy Trace, the Corridors of Chaos (NB - Hunab Ku is the reincarnation of Dimension 5 after Intastella Records folded) and Spirit. 7/10.

Recall that Boris Blenn (Jupiter 8000) was once half of Yello. Ohhh Yeah. It's obvious once you realize. Just my two cents.

1, 3, 5, 6 are decent tracks. Track 7 (STOP) is very, very potent. Track 8 is self-indulgent flatulence. The rest doesn't really work. Don't bother trying to play it through as a record because it won't even come close to working. Still, some tasty meat on it. 7/10.