Jikkenteki

Japan got it first as usual. I picked it up last week. Disc one is great Talamasca work and the remixes and such on disc 2 are surprisingly solid too. There are a few I'm not so keen on, but Lestat manages to fill out the "weaker" (in some people's opinion) points of some of the artists that were involved in the remixes.

On a much lighter note, what ever happened to Nerve? They only released a few tracks, but everything they made was absolute quality.

I don't know for sure, but I'd guess it's usual situation were some Japanese label got first release rights to it locally and thus it will only be on sale in Japan for the first month or so before the rest of the world gets it.

Yeah, the whole thing basically sucked, seeing as there were two of the coolest people I ever met and probably just about the most perfect couple I'd ever seen as well. Shin's girlfriend passed on suddenly due to some health related issues that most of us were unaware of until after it happened. It was weird as I had chatted with her on MSN less than 24 hours before it happened and were we discussing the next time I came down to visit them and she was trying to convince me to go with everyone to Goa for New Years.　(as a side note, Although I've said I'd never give away all the details of the story behind "The Long Walk Home" and its follow up, "Flights Of Infinity", it doesn't take much effort to figure out that this story is one of the major themes behind both. She was the "angel" in "An Angel Takes Flight". It was written in her memory and was 27 minutes because she was 27 year old when she died and Flights has a 30 minute track written in Shin's memory, again the time reflecting his age.... but I digress). After she died everyone decided to keep the Goa trip on in her memory. Shin and a few other of the core group of friends decided to stay for a few months to heal and generally reset (due to work related reasons I wasn't able to make it). Near the end of his planned stay in Goa, Shin was involved in a scooter crash and killed instantly. Phi had broken up nearly a year before that and the two members weren't on very good terms at all, but after Shin passed away, Shuji (Slum) held a free outdoor party and had one final Phi live performance, complete with a movable life-size puppet of Shin that various people took turns controlling behind the mixer while Shuji handled the sound. Again due to work reasons I wasn't able to attend it (I've since quit that job, thankfully), but everyone who attended it said it was an absolutely amazing party, partly because no one ever thought Phi tunes would be played again, partly because a lot of people never suspected Shuji would make such a gesture but mostly just because everyone seems to approach it in such a positive way. Shin was cremated in India so at the party they burned the puppet at the end of the Phi set as his "Japanese cremation" and several people said a huge shooting star burned across the sky at that same moment. While both of their deaths hit me pretty hard, I will say that considering how good of a couple they were, when Shin died it did seem "fitting" to me in some way that they were back together, and that took a (very) little bit of the edge off of it.

As far as labels go, I miss Flying Rhino and Matsuri Productions. Artists leaving the scene doesn't really bother me so much since they are still around. Its the ones who've passed away that hurt, so as far as actual people go, I miss Shinorama (Symphonics/ex. Phi) the most. I digress here I suppose, but this picture always brings home how fragile life can be. I took this picture of Shinorama and his girlfriend, Reimi, late in 2005. Three days later she was gone, two months later he was gone too. Never take anything for granted, you never know when your friends, family and those you love might suddenly be gone

I've only had time to listen to it once through, but I definitely prefer it to Made In Trance. If you've heard any of his recent stuff you basically know what your in for (i.e. big dance floor assaults along the lines of "Overload"). I'm sure a lot of people will complain about it being too commercial, cheesy, melodic and what not, but Talamasca is one of the few artists one has a completely and instantly recognizable sound that I also happen to love. The Talamasca only disc is pretty good, but the collaborations disc, which I didn't have much hope for, turns out to be not too bad either. Maybe not fine art, but I still dig it.

Mr. Peculiar - Infinite Evolution is definitely doing it for me now...

I agree with you that cool booklets are, .....well, cool. However from a label's perspective going from a 4 page to even just an 8 page booklet in full color is a fairly serious jump in printing price (close to 50% more at most places I have looked into). On "The Long Walk Home" we bit the bullet and did full color and more that the standard 4 page jackets and the jacket/back card printing alone cost me almost $900 for 1000 copies. (To compare we can print a full 1000 copies of a complete single disc release CD, with cases, 4p jackets, back cards, shrink wrapping and everything for about $1000.) While the results were artistically satisfying for me, doing that also means that, in today's market, I will probably never earn back what it cost me to print the album. While printing cool booklets is a great idea and increases how "sell-able" the release may be, for most labels adding those extra pages crosses the line between having a chance of recouping your production costs and having no prayer of doing so. With that said, I think most labels could definitely do a whole lot more even with the 4 pages they are using already as most releases I buy now are practically empty inside. No interesting text, nothing much new art wise.

E-Mu has a couple of good large sample collections for their Proteus-X and Emulator-X software samplers.

You'll notice the version on the online store which you copied here is just the tracks in alphabetical order. The original zip file is on my hard disc on my computer back home so I can't check right now, but I definitely remember seeing the track list I have a few other places on the net as well. Either way, all the tracks kick ass so its not really all that big an issue I guess.

Picked up Talamasca's new double album "Obsessive Dream" yesterday.

Talamasca - Obsessive Dream cd 1

When "The Long Walk Home" was printed, the printing of the discs was about $500 (USD) more, but the cost of the cases was a lot higher. Single disc releases have become so cheap to press at many places (around $1000 USD where PAR-2 goes) that printing a double disc release is now basically close to the same as printing 2 single releases.

Trance Chick: How is the new Alien Project? I like dsome of his older stuff, but the last few albums have left me... well... wary I guess. My most recent order from the good folks at Saiko Sounds just came in: Federico Baltimore - Beleza Infected Mushroom - Vicious Delicious Mr Peculiar - Infinite Evolution Mr Peculiar - Mind-dala Mr Peculiar - Elements Sound Field - Audio Surfin' Tristan - Chemisphere Various Artists - The Crystal Blasters Various Artists - Twist Dreams Various Artists - Supervision 2 DVD

The remastered version I bought at Chi-A.D.'s website had all 8 1 - Hammerhead 2 - Blacklight 3 - Zero Barrier 4 - X-Isle 5 - Transparent Sea 6 - Book Of Eden 7 - Liquid Neon Sky 8 - Blue Effect

I probably shouldn't bother responding at all, but I have always made an effort to avoid self promotion here, especially since I've been a member here since around 2000 or so, I kind of feel the need to comment. Due to PAR-2's business, yes, we have occasionally done the odd cd giveaway here and there, but that has been about the extant of my active promotion on these forums. Any hype that my album has had on this site is more due to people like Abasio than anything I have actively done.

There are more, but the two that come to mind most are... Hallucinogen - Space Pussy CD single GMS - The Growly Family

Psyshop doesn't carry it because they never answered our emails asking if they would be interested in doing so.

Software purchase myself, but I got Amplitude 2 a few days back. http://www.amplitube.com/Main.html?prod_AT.php

While bandwagon worshiping can be an issue, I'd say its even more trendy for people to bandwagon slag whatever artist happens to be the victim of the moment. It works both ways....

Its both actually, although I can understand why it might be hard to find links through the titles without knowing the whole story behind it. That said the details of the "story" (a series of true events actually) have been purposefully left unclear as it's preferable that the listener finds their own story in the album than just following some written guide about "this track means this and the next tracks means this".

I have it on good word that Jikkenteki - The Long Walk Home is a concept album....

Try some Hydraglyph maybe? SA but not the usual SA style. Slum might be a good option as well.

It did come out and has even been released on DVD (which I have). But being that it is a Japanese film probably your only chance of getting it overseas is via import.