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Artist: Electrypnose Title: Sweet Sadness Label: Suntrip Records Released: 24 September 2010 Style: Downbeat, IDM, Psychill Tracklist 1 A5sention (7:06) 2 Histoire d'Histoires (5:55) 3 A Part Of Myself Is Somewhere Else (5:31) 4 Sady (8:22) 5 Triste Gaîté (8:45) 6 A Wasp At The Fairies (2:23) 7 Out There (7:35) 8 Triste Vie (6:50) 9 Perle De Vie (8:56) 10 Dramatic Orchestra (6:09) 11 El Cornio Second Chapter (5:40) 12 Peurs Et Pleurs (4:16) Electrypnose follows up his amazing first chillout album: Subliminal Melancholies with Sweet Sadness in 2010 on Suntrip Records. Now both Electrypnose and Suntrip are more famous for their upbeat trance music but when they decide to release chillout music it is of the highest calibre. Subliminal Melancholies was an album I ignored for far too long after buying it and I only really got into it after hearing an amazing track I didn't recognise on one of my own mixes, looked it up and realised it was Electrypnose. I then started listening to the album and I really loved the unique sound of bright melodic melancholy. Sweet Sadness too has this oxymoronic feel to it where the music is both bright and sad at the same time, as if a depressive is putting on a very good brave face for the world to see but look deeply into his eyes and you can see the pain and hurt hidden deep beneath the façade. This album has more of an IDMish feel to it than your usual psytrance related chillout music, the beats are more complicated, the are times when the music gets quite glitchy and the lengths of the tracks vary from fairly long intricate tracks to short sharp tunes that arrest your attention and then finish abruptly. Unfortunately form me, my favourite track is A Wasp At The Fairies which weighs in at just under two and a half minutes. The track is like a short soundtrack to a animated fantasy intro: it feels like I am deep within a forest at midnight under a full moon and there is life everywhere just beneath, above or to the side of perception. It feels great, I really want to know where it is going but then it's over. That would be my only gripe with the album though and when the problem is that your favourite track is too short you can count yourself lucky that the music begs you to listen to it again. If you liked Subliminal Melancholies then I don't think you'll be disappointed with this album. Electrypnose has done his second chillout album very well, he has managed to stay true to the feeling of the first album while moving his sound forward considerably. The atmosphere is great but seems more polished, more vivid and in my head more animated. The beats have become more varied and in my head give the album a more metallic feel which tugs at the animated feeling I get opposing it while it accentuates it.

Artist: David Abrgel Title: Reverse Universe Label: Freeance Released: 24 September 2010 Style: Mid tempo melodic Tracklist 1 Afternoon (4:36) 2 Strum (4:27) 3 Diversity (4:25) 4 Changes (4:45) 5 Reverse Universe (5:00) 6 Tech A Break (5:05) 7 Liquid (5:07) 8 Rain Season (5:15) 9 Optimistic (3:46) 10 Blue Nation (4:26) 11 Farewell (1:39) This is the sort of album you are either going to love or hate; I know I should hate it, it is cheesy, overly melodic and has some pretty awful singing in it but it turns out into a really fantastic album. I thought at first that it might be a guilty pleasure that I would quickly tire of but this was not the case at all, after about 50 listens I can actually say that I love this album even more than when I first heard it. The energy it exudes is wonderful to behold and even though it is mid tempo verging on chillout and most likely designed for home listening I can still imagine dancefloors kicking off to this music. The key here is the synths, the synth work is brilliant and it has me anticipating when they will come in and even rewinding tracks to listen to them again and again. The best tracks are Changes featuring Adam Madar, Ariel Feldman (production) and Hagar Klein (vocals) which starts off as a fairly cheesy song but by the time the synths come in it has me tripping seratonin out of my eyeballs and dribbling acid from my ears. The title Track is also an excellent track, I could describe it as I would Changes except without that it starts off as a cheesy song. It is everything that is great in the last track but amplified threefold. My Favourite track though is Liquid which is just five minutes of pure joy that I find myself playing three or four times when I play the album. The only downside to the album for me is that it is not quite 50 minutes but I suppose that is the norm for cheesy pop albums: a category which this is undoubtedly a part of. I don't want anyone to get me wrong as my usual taste in music is more serious difficult to digest music: this album is cheesy pop in the extreme but it has done what very few cheesy pop albums do and that is to perform cheese well, unadulterated and for its own sake. This album is my guilty pleasure of the year and remains pretty high in my top list of albums in 2010.

Artist: Solar Fields Title: Altered: Second Movements Label: Ultimae Released: 26 July 2010 Style: Ambient, Downbeat Tracklist 1 Insolate (9:15) 2 eMotion Of Circles (7:23) 3 Rediscover (9:45) 4 Closing The Sky (6:34) 5 Our Blue Stones (6:23) 6 Universal Dust (6:25) 7 Bngl.w (7:20) 8 Feel (8:42) 9 Changing Patterns (4:10) 10 Staring Into The Nothingness (7:30) 11 A Breeze Through Life (5:42) This is the perfect example of what a remix album should sound like. The first time I heard this album I didn't hear much of the original tracks in these reworkings of them. I heard the siganture stuttering bassline from Sol in the opening track Isolate and that was about it. However on further listening and comparisons I can hear the elements from each track but played so differently that I am often left wondering: Is this a remix album? Of course this is a remix album of Solar Fields last labum Movements but the blurb stating that this is so much more (something of which I was very skeptical of at the time of purchasing) turned out to be 100% true. Over the last few years I have become more of an ambient head than a lover of downbeat and psychill. Whilst I used to listen to Psychill about 65% to ambient's 35% it has probably reversed recently and now Extended is in my CD player more often than Leaving Home & I feel that Altered is a lot better than Movements. I loved movements it moved me a lot and I loved playing it over and over again even when I played live I would often include a healthy dose from that album. Altered though goes one step further for me and I just cannot stop listening to this album. I have had it about 6 months now and must have listened to it a hundred times. It is everything you'd expect from Solar Fields: powerful, emotional and very classy. For some it might not be as easily accessible as Movements but for others I think it will be more of a grower. I liked it a lot when I first listened to it but I loved it more and more as I listened to it again and again. In such a great album it is hard to have a standout but Solar Fields is nothing if not consistent and his albums usually have one track that stands out among the crowd of giants. In the album it is Staring Into The Nothingness which has a real cinematic edge to it, it is deep, it is emotional, it is epic. I don't often use the word epic but I would say it about this track. My favourite track this year so far on one of my favourite albums of 2010.

I don't think Timelapse In Mercury was ever intended as an Ishq album. The album in fact has no artist titled as so was just credited to Ishq at discogs. Matt Hillier said though the the Ishq moniker was only for his music of the specific style we can hear on Orchid and now on Sama. I guess though with some collaborations he has given the title Ishq so people know it's him but I will still only think of this and Orchid (and Fluid Earth) as Ishq.

Artist: Ishq Title: Sama Label: Electronic Soundscapes Records Released: 10 September 2010 Style: Natural Ambient Tracklist 1 Intro (1:44) 2 Sama (10:00) 3 Vidya (9:22) 4 Energeia (4:01) 5 Elysian (7:11) 6 Urasvati (15:42) 7 Persia (6:47) 8 Path (3:14) 9 Mandala (12:13) How long have we been waiting for a new Ishq album? I mean Timelapse in Mercury was never intended as an Ishq album as it was in a completely different style and it just got labeled as Ishq as Matt Hillier never gave it an artist name. Similarly with the Ishq collaborations About Time with Pan Electric and Voice From Home with Steve Brand, they weren't Ishq albums like Orchid, they didn't have the Ishq feel that we know and love: that natural feeling, very organic with every element in harmony with each other as well as the listener. 9 years, it has been 9 years since Orchid was released on Dakini records and it has been 9 years without another album of that signature Ishq sound. With the Ishq moniker being bandied about so often in the interim but without actually having an album it became almost unbearable. It was only the strength of Orchid (& Fluid Earth on CD2) that made the wait somewhat bearable as I could always go back to that album and listen to it as if it was fresh. Being one of the most timeless albums I own helped a lot there. So with such huge expectations, how did the difficult second album hold up. I must say that it holds up very well against my expectations. It lacks the groundbreaking "Wow" factor of Orchid as it is similar in style to the album I have listened to countless times before but it is very good. The quality is very high, the tracks have not been rushed and you can feel the love and the attention to detail in them. The style is soft organice ambient with enough beats to give it rhythm and not just be floaty soundscapes with a tagline that says create your own adventure. This music would work well as background music, deep engrossing music or even enjoyable music for when not so esoteric loving people visit your home. The sounds of nature: weather, rivers, trees rustling etc mix excellently with more ethereal sounds giving an atmosphere like walking through a forest on a warm spring afternoon as the sun wanes in the sky and the shadows are long. The unreal inhabitants are out of sight now but you can feel them waking up and the energy of the place is charged with an unreal wonder. Meditate in an empty forest at the start of summer, make sure that you won't be disturbed and sit with this on good headphones. The experience feels like this album has been designed for it. It is naturally spiritual: like it has stumbled upon spirituality rather than having set out to achieve it. It's not as good as Orchid but then again not much is, it is however a highly enjoyable second album which will rank in my favourites come the end of the year.

Cheers! I will most likely be ordering this too

I already have both those albums That is in my wishlist. How does it compare to other Suns Of Arqa? I like them but their releases are hit and miss for me.

Will definitely be checking this out. His last album might not have been as good as his debut but it was still a good listen

But Asura varies the beats in his tracks I am liking this album, not every track is as good as I hoped but regenesis is one of the best tracks I have heard this year

But with no set limit the future possibilities are infinite, however with a limited release no matter what happens in the future the label has made a commitment to never release any more copies ever in the life of the universe. The reason why they use limited edition, I always thought it was because too many buyers procrastinate buying something so the profits don't come for a release in any decent amount of time. 2 CDs sold a week is not every retailers dream. So if they assume that a CD will only sell around 1000 copies anyway, why not put it as a limited edition, then the fans will mostly try and buy it quickly before it's too late. This way they can recoup the money on the release fairly quickly and have the funds for another release.

The new Androcell is a must have. I want that pretty soon. Just wondering what else to order with it

The new chill album by Electrypnose is pretty good. Definitely a grower. Solar Fields' 2 releases this year are pretty fantastic too. Tripswitch was OK David Abrgel - Reverse Universe although a little cheesy is one of my favourites of the year.

I haven't posted in 3 weeks and I am only 2 pages behind? Times really have changed ay? np CBL - Interloper awesome album

I've been pondering this. The cover seems to me a whole lot better than his last mega-collab album. How's the music?

Finally

BPC all the way. Blue Planet is a timesless classic that I have never gotten bored of and the release on DAT records recently while not quite in the same A+++ calibre was still pretty ace! BPC have also done some sublime chillout too (but then so has Total Eclipse )

Recently Tripswitch - Geometry Asura - 360 Artifakt & Poizon - Versus David Abrgel - Reverse Universe Crossing Mind - The Holographic Paradigm Electrypnose - Sweet Sadness Orthonorma - Time2wait Makyo - Visamaya Supercozi - Fruits From The Future

Brilliant! CAn't wait to get my grubby little hands on this one. I also think the cover is pretty nice

Atrium Carceri http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkcQpGhv5Os&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC-FMONcpmc&feature=related

Green Nuns Of The Revolution - Rock Bitch Mafia Pleiadians - Family Of Light Sandman - Witchcraft Sienis - From A Nutter Perspective Total Eclipse - Violent Relaxation Planet BEN - Trippy Future Garden Would probably be my favourite psy albums....of all of these I might say GNoTR is top of the list but then I am sure that I'll disagree with myself tomorrow.

Yesterday I played at our autumn live show at Sirocco! It was a much better night than the last few with a much better turnout on a holiday weekend rather than a regular weekend. Much fun, I got there late and only had time to eat a small bite before going on. I played a 2 hour glitchy IDM/Ambient set that went down a lot better than I was expecting. I was just thinking: fuck it, I'll play what I want. It was pretty cool even if the volume on the set I recorded fluctuates a bit too much. Download my set here Tracklist 1. Yasume - Rengoku (Condensed) 2. Autechre - Clipper 3. Legiac - Faex Decimae 4. Kattoo - Place 1 5. Hellfish - Turntable Savage 6. Correctional Facilities - Rock Parrot 7. Sandspider - Levchenko 8. Kettel - Mwoeb 9. Secede - Friday Fall 10. Kattoo - Place 8 11. Kettel - Kingscourt Imp 12. Nalepa - Porcelain 13. Subheim - Away 14. Altair - Outsider Looking In 15. Electrypnose - Neverending Story 16. Solar Fields - Staring Into The Nothingness 17. Aligning Minds - Tee-child 18. Aerostatic - Continuous 19. Sgnl_fltr - Limk 20. Autechre - Garbagemx36 21. Good Rester - Dark 22. Alexander Daf - One Point One It's a pretty random set but I think it was reflective of my recent mood and was generally well received so maybe not as random as I was hoping