freak51

infinafta: whoops! My mistake - they release on a Canadian label though (Boshke Beats). Canucks write quite a bit of top-shelf quality collage-style minimal techno; psy-trance never really caught on in a big way (but the parties are good, as they are everywhere). Enough of me talking already. I'm still trying to find this comp.

This is the most self-indulgent, embarrassing, rancid piece of plastic I've heard this whole year. Highly unfortunate. Shudder. 1/10.

Essential. If you can find this, do not hesitate: get it. This release is a well-crafted, subtly twisted perfect flow. 9.5/10.

Typical Swedish dub-informed atmospheric sounds on top of typical new-Swedish-school-psytrance percussion. Typical everything - but still there is a definite unique subtle signature to it that I can't quite put my finger on. Is it enough to save the release? I vote for no. 6/10.

Very psychedelic, tilting more towards the ultra-full-on/GMS/3D Vision/it's-still-1999-again end of town. Still, there are some winners on this disc. I could do without the same samples as Wizzy Noise, Talamasca etc. I mean, there have been what, a million movies ever made - why do we have to keep sampling the same ones? At least there's no Matrix samples. And at least 'Like a Diamond' includes some new samples - about, you guessed it, a UFO sighting. It doesn't introduce anything new but it is competent and has some truly lethal hooks. 7/10 from me - I'm still waiting for a whole Elektrodub album from these guys.

Very serviceable comp with some genuinely classy progressive morning sounds. Never over-the-top, always in control. This is a feel-good winner, 8/10 from me.

This one was an infectious feel-good vibe. Lots of classic tracks: Starship 101, Lepton Head, Black Rain, Groove On Dream Off, The Pollinator, Cycles of Life, Full Moon over Parvatti and 230 000 Miles. I still get shivers when I think of that shuffling washboard-effect with the stop-motion bassline and the perfect haunting high keyboard line through 230 000 Miles. Cycles of Life has to be one of the happiest (yet not cheese) sounds of any kind. This was a really good job - get it if you can find it and want to take a retrodelic trip back to a rare groove before electronic music had permeated the grocery store and the used car lot.

Good for a grin, but not as detailed as some of their older stuff. Still, not for me to criticize - after over ten years, I don't doubt that everything they do is on purpose. Follow That Camel will endure; the rest is quite experimental and, I suspect, has a shelf life. Epidemic is a happy rave anthem, good to break up a set and change up the mood.

Why isn't this in RED? This is still my favourite psy-trance release, ever.

I'd forgotten all about this disc. It's overall a nice sampler to pull some tracks off of when you need some happy fluffy cheese that won't quite make you cringe. Way of Life, Cheese Balls and Happy End are all very serviceable. The Angel Kaya remix does go on, so you might not want to keep it playing all the way through, but is a nice update to the original. Anyway, all of these tracks are all about ecstasy or LSD - use accordingly for best results. I wish I could get into the Infected Mushroom track but I just don't enjoy it much. 7/10.

This is a really pretty release. Once again, I find the sound definition is not so hot, but it is better than Meter. Enough quibbling - over big beer/testosterone thumping worn-out old speakers, it'll sound like everything else. The direction is back towards retro-ish trance, lots of delay and sustain. This is no bad thing, M.O.S. never lets it turn into mushy cheese. There have been a few top-quality CD releases in 2002, and I'd say this belongs in that class. Better than X-Dream? I don't think so. Worth buying? Definitely. 9/10 from me.

Hmmmm - it does represent a one-degree departure from their formula. But their biggest influence is still GMS, like my friend Brian's 50-or-so-generations-of-inbreeding shrooms. You know what you're going to get; still, you can't help but grin, and sometimes it's a little different than the old trips. I'd rather not listen to it end-to-end, but there are some good tracks on here. Not the finest or most artistic work, it's purely for the body. Sometimes there's nothing wrong with that.

OK, it gets annoying if you actually listen to it. Tracks 5, 8 and 9 are not bad but nowhere _near_ as good as Skazi seems to think they are. Sampling your name over and over again? Wanker. This ruins an otherwise serviceable track - which would be forgiveable if there were more keepers on the album. In general he needs not to sample and loop quotes, this technique was old in 1997 and it's embarrassing now. 4/10, but take heart, this is still the highest I've ranked an Israeli release in a long time.

Warm, deep, dubby - genuine class from a producer who isn't out to prove anything to anyone - this is my electronic music record of the week. The only thing that I might get annoyed about is a slight Boom Devil-like commercial touch - but it's very, very faint and only in a couple of tracks and not enough to detract from the overall great effort here. This is one of the highlights of 2002.

You won't talk to God or gain any new insight with this record, but it is tasty hard candy for the body. Good for the crowd, when the drugs start to work.

This is all old stuff. You might want to pick this up if you haven't bought any goa CDs from 1999-2001. Otherwise, forget it.

Those were the days, these were the sounds. Listening to this is like going through old photos for me. Was I really that young? A lot of miles since then ... I wouldn't buy it now, but I'd listen to a friend's copy over Sunday morning.

Nice effects and sounds, as cubensis says, but the B-grade percussion reminds me of that blowfly in the tent that doesn't bite, but just lands on you and wakes you up, annoying you out of your dreams. Try again, please.

Closer translation of Varg Nicolas, through my rusty French: "It's an absolute bomb to the world of psy tech-trance, a gem in the pure tradition of MIDIMILIZ. 'Aeromode' is hypnotic techno, overload for the ears: gentle souls, abstain. 'No exit' has a touch I'd qualify as 'industrial': the first time I heard it, I found it had a resemblance to NIN. Anyway, on a dancefloor, the track has an incredible impact."

No, no, wait a minute - upon repeated listening, I can say I was wrong above. This record is still MILES AND MILES ABOVE anything else in the genre. The subtleties and details ... they bring back that "Oh my God!" to the music. To those that are still disappointed, it's about the timing. Mixing this back to back with even the new Wizzy Noise, well, Cyclotron is a really nice record for 2002, but Irritant is an audio tome for the Ages. This masterpiece is their best work to date. Apart from "Radio" and their side projects, anything else you mix in your set is just killing time until you can mix more X-Dream: "Irritant". They are men among boys. This record risks dragging me back into psy-trance. Worth the wait and then some - but please let's not go another 4 years this time eh? I can't take it! Holy shit. 10/10 and getting better.

X-Dream : Trance = Canada : Hockey. There are many other squads out there that can compete now on a release-to-release basis, but these guys showed the way and still influence the way this sort of music is made. And we can't say just yet that there's an act that's consistently better. The fact that this record isn't a brand new revolution in the sound is good news, on the whole, for the scene in a way, because it means that they've been so special that enough others (to stretch the hockey metaphor, say, the Swedes ...) have picked up the vibe and made it their own equally valid thing. And this is still a solid release. They make it sound easy, but the details are crafted minutely if you pay attention, and it still has that signature X-Dream rock-em-sock-em-dirty-buzz touch. 9/10 from me.

What a wonderful release. This is a must-have, full of gurn-worthy chewns all tied together with the theme of those damnedest-thing crystal skulls. Some world-beat influences, but it's still professional-quality. 9/10.

This comp is The Business. 9.5/10 where it's good, and there is enough good stuff on here to make me say 'owww'. This label has one high-class studio!

Hujaboy extends the tip of the Israeli sound down the direction that Future Prophecy and Spiral Active Project [whatever happened to that outfit anyway?] was working. Lots of 1998-99-ish germanic influence with properly developed psychedelia to chew on. Plenty of good stuff here, lots of keepers. You don't have to rush out and get this, but look for it next time you're buying psy-trance CDs. He doesn't try to cram in too much information - he lets it flow and sustain on its own. This is high quality entertainment, and it will drive dance floors late late at night.

... of course it's not only X-Dream influence: those above who noted Delta, Absolum and Deedrah influences, good call. There's also a nice GMS-style stonkfest touch that makes you dance. Basically, this record represents at last the hatching of the last couple of years of the psy-techno movement. We can now change the keyboard settings, please: no more like this is necessary because these guys have finally got the tweakage exactly right and said what the music demanded, all in one place.