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Did you hear Hotaka (I think)? Not very enticing, if that's the general direction of the album...

Did you ever hear The Messenger? Awesome track, and not very well known. "You Don't Exist" is very video gameish and cool. Deepongi is nice if mediocre. There are some hidden gems from Infected Mushroom here and there.

Did you even listen to the album? Like I said in my review, it is quite a mixed bag. Yes, some of the tracks are indeed what you said - an extremely wellconceived product who's target market is yet to be found (nu-trance fans ). Others, like Heavyweight, are great and lovable psytrance. I don't get your review, what does "plot" even mean? I have read what you said, that Classical Mushroom has a plot... come on! It is a mix of different tracks. Hell, if anything - this album has way more "plot" than Classical Mushroom. It has a goal, a purpose - to break mainstream. The tracks are similiar and in one context. Your "plot" concept is misguided. You want plot? Get Principle of Flight's album Nighttime Lullabies. Now THAT has plot. By the way, I don't know what your point is with BT's example. I haven't heard Emotional Technology, but even if it is a product as you claim it is - BT did release the wonderful This Binary Universe last year. Just like Infected Mushroom can be hailed for their initial efforts at producing quality psytrance, so can BT for producing beautiful IDM (or whatever This Binary Universe is).

Neo is a wonderful, wonderful track!

There's a review in the 2007 section, check it out.

Well, it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it... Infected Mushroom - Vicious Delicious BNE / YoYo 2007, (YoYo 078) Track listing: 01. 07'20" Becoming Insane 02. 04'28" Artillery 03. 07'25" Vicious Delicious 04. 08'41" Heavyweight 05. 06'11" Suliman 06. 03'20" Forgive Me 07. 06'53" Special Place 08. 04'29" In Front Of Me 09. 06'31" Eat It Raw 10. 07'44" Change The Formality 11. 06'57" Before Introduction: Infected Mushroom need no introduction to the psytrance scene crowd. Erez Aizen and Amit "Duvdev" Duvdevani have created some of the most loved psytrance music since the end of the the last century. With some genre defining tracks such as Psycho, Bust A Move, and Dancing With Kadafi, their place in the history of psytrance is guaranteed. Four years ago, Infected Mushroom begun undergoing a metamorphosis that is still undergoing today. The album released that year, Converting Vegetarians, was (retrospectively) a first step towards the "new" Infected Mushroom sound. Tracks such as I Wish were the first sign of their new direction - toward mass popularity. It seems Infected Mushroom got tired of writing music primarily geared towards the small, rather underground scene of psytrance and decided to target their music at bigger crowds. Many members of the psytrance scene disliked this move, but it did give Infected Mushroom their first taste of mass popularity and they sure seemed to like it. Two years later, Infected Mushroom released the much disputed IM the Supervisor. This album contained some tracks which are very mainstream oriented, with heavy emphasis on Duvdev's vocoded vocals: the title track and Cities of the Future with Muse Breaks being affected to a lesser extent. Very mixed reactions were seen in the months after the release of this album, as members of the psytrance scene were mostly disappointed, while the album was adored by the masses. Even if it did contain some highly loved psytrance tracks such as Meduzze, Bombat and Stretched - the album was mostly looked at with contempt by the most hardcore of psytrancers, as a "sold out" non-psytrance album. It was still reviewed on this forum. And now, we've come to the next chapter of Infected Mushroom's journey. Vicious Delicious will be released on March 26 and I managed to get an early copy, which I will review today. Review: 1. Becoming Insane This is without a doubt the signature track of this album. It will be played around the globe in many dance clubs and parties, and it is quite a dancefloor stomper. It begins with spanish guitars playing the soon to be very well known tune of this track, and a small build up gives us more of Duvdev's "lovable" vocals. I don't seem to get why he keeps insisting on singing, when he clearly does a bad job at it. The tracks continues into a nice Infected Mushroom multi-layered track, with typical arpeggios, a few nutty synth pieces and a sound very similiar to IM the Supervisor's tracks. Around 03:20 we get to hear the spanish guitars again, and now we get to listen to a guest singer on this album: Gil Cerezo, lead singer of the Mexican band Kinky does have a nice voice, at least at the higher pitched parts, but then we get more of Duvdev and then some low level "Insane... insane... insane... insane, insane... am bi da bi..." chants. Just weird. Still, the build up near the end, with the electric guitars storming in are quite energetic and I have no doubt the dancefloors will go insane around this part. This track is Infected Mushroom's equivalent to Juno Reactor's Pistolero. 6.5/10 2. Artillery It starts with really silly electric guitars, a drum machine and some rapper (credited as Infected Members, probably the hip hop group Swollen Members) going "Ah", "Hmmm", "Tshhh", "It's like...", "Yeah", "uh huhh". What the hell? The rapper is fairly tolerable, but he dominates the entire song until around 01:45 when (I think) Duvdev starts singing in a non-vocoded voice. It actually sounds rather okay. Melodic, not ear piercing. The rapper continues, these parts of the song are very monotonic - except for some interesting orchestral sounds underneath it all. Around 03:11 the song "errupts", with Duvdev (back with his favourite vocoder) singing and giving beat ("rat a tat a tat rat a tat a tat"). This part sounds very System of a Downish, and the song ends with another Duvdev non-vocoded solo. This track... nay, song, is so Linkin Parkish, so "emo rap" or whatever you might call it. It is not psytrance, not even close. Definitely a song for the radio. 5/10 3. Vicious Delicious Ah yes, this is the first track on this album where we get to listen to Infected Mushroom actually performing a psytrance track and not something completely different. It starts with souds that remind of me of old Arcade machine, sort of stretched razorsaw sounds. A nice speedy melody kicks in soon after, a few layers of beat, and then we get a melodic change that reminds me of IM circa-2000. Rather funny sound samples ("aaaah BOOOM!!! yeahhhhhhh") kick in, and it is rather silly fun. The track keeps on building up, and then we get the speedy melody once more, with added percussions - and it builds up and builds up, with the typical hills and valleys of tension. This is just a great piece of music. Tribal guitars (or something like it) come in, the "BOOOOM" samples return, a big melodic build up commences, and you can't help but smile, move around, and such a lovely, airy, happy melody enters - and it builds and builds and builds and buildssss.... joyous! We continue into a more full-onish groove, with typical Infected Mushroom sounds interwined. The track ends in rather epic sounds, with a high pitched chanting. What a lovely track! 8.5/10 4. Heavyweight And we though Vicious Delicious was great. We start with hammers pounding, a drum-n-base beat starts, and more tribal chanting begins, something distinctly tribal, but just so odd. Lovely guitars join in, and we're greeted to a nature flight, over the desert, the forests, lovely. Some variant of an oriental strings instruments joins in with a nice harmonic melody, the guitars changes to assist it in making us smile, and good God - this is what Infected Mushroom are all about! This is why we loved them in the first place, this is so beautiful! A female singer, or is it some sort of high pitched instrument? I'm not even sure, joins in. Lovely. Around 03:14 we get to hear some odd vocals, that remind me of Shpongle's vocal games. The track changes, and we're in a medieval mood, with a squinchy high pitched sound dictating the melody, and then we're transported into heavenly sounds, sort of reminiscent of Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy sound tracks - with electric guitars entering and lifting everything even higher. The guitars move to a very metalish solo, and then we're treated to a rather lullabyish piece of music, chilled out, slow, cold - until the guitars return. So many different styles in one track! Amazing! This is this album's Dancing With Kadafi. It becomes silly around 07:45 with Indian "aaaahh" chants, and you can't help but laugh. This is so cheesy it is beyond cheesy and is just hillarious, maybe even a bit suomisaundi. Infected Mushroom can still write the tracks we love them for, and thank god for that. 9.5/10 5. Suliman This track, like Becoming Insane, will be a good dancefloor stomper. It has a very arabic sound, interwined with heavy metal guitars, quite a bit of distortion and interesting samples - like some sort of xylophone instrument and a razorsaw sound. The lovely melody around 03:02 is very memorable and likable, but the track in its entirety is a bit cheesy. We get a guitar solo at 03:45, which eventually errupts into a guitar storm that will no doubt be a favourite of crows all over the globe this year. 6/10 6. Forgive Me This has to be the weirdest track on this album. It sounds as if it could've been on CD2 of Converting Vegetarians. With a rather quirky, strange melody and samples used, even Duvdev's vocoded vocals are somewhat likable. This sort of reminds me of Cher's last attempt at pop stardom, even if it does have Aizen's magic melodic touch. This would definitely shine with Michelle Adamson performing the vocals, sort of like Blink or Illuminaughty. As it is, it feels like a miss. 5.5/10 7. Special Place A nice introduction greets us into this song, and humming with it is quite immediate. Nothing spectacular about the first 2 minutes, but it is fairly standard issue Infected Mushroom psytrance - which is well produced, ineresting and varied. Around 02:30 the track shifts to a rather Goa style, which is done great, but 30 seconds later we're already in a down-tempo build up, sort of reminiscent of Beauty and the Beat, which eventually leads us into a groovy part of the track, which is spoiled a bit by Duvdev's vocals. Still, of all the tracks on this album, his vocals are best here. A part that is very clearly inspired by the feel System of a Down starts, and it a classic guitar assists in giving a very nice melodic feel, until an entirely unneccesary and cheesy vocoded low-pitched rapper voice enters, slowly becoming higher-pitched. Damn it, this is just wrong - such a lovely track ruined. At least the song ends with the more beautiful parts of the track. 7/10 8. In Front Of Me The last song on the album, it is all psytrance from here on. The Infected Member rapper begins rapping, with weepy-teary depressed lyrics which are very badly written. It seems as if someone translated the lyrics from Hebrew and somehow lost the meaning of the original. This song is very Linkin Park, and even if it is beautifully melodic - like almost every track Infected Mushroom have ever released - it simply is not well done. Too bad. 6/10 9. Eat It Raw A weird, goofy track - it sounds a bit off-key at times, but that seems to be the intention of the Infected Mushrooms guys. A stomping bass line begins, and we're greeted to a more old-fashioned Infected Mushroom sound. This track wouldn't be out of place in their older albums, that is - until the electric guitar joins and then we're up for something very different indeed. At 01:45 an interesting rhythmic sample, I'm not sure what it is, joins in - and at 02:10 the electric guitar takes the front of the stage, a-la Suliman. A very melodic part ensues soon after, and another typical lovely Infected Mushroom build-up which just makes you want to dance around in a circle, feeling like jolly gnomes, until it turns simply evil, and you've become a horrible night dweller - and when it errupts it sure is nasty! A lovely, well done full-onish part with high-pitched sounds and plenty of original sounds begins, and then it breaks down to a down-tempo chapel organ sort of sound.. it ends on the same note it started. Tasty! 8/10 10. Change The Formality Well known Infected Mushroom synths launch this track on it way, with a swampish sort of feel, a bit video gameish, a bit machine- danceish. Metallic as hell, and very goofy too. A xylophone sound soon joins in, and is lovingly well embraced - even the electric guitars that obviously were waiting for their que are well done. Nice track! The track continues with odd laserish sounds, very nice rhythms and finally into chimes which make you wonder where this could possibly go next - and we soon discover that into happy vocals land. This is actually very nice, except maybe for the Israeli accent Lovely melody, if rather odd lyrics, but I actually like it. This is a nice interlude, after which we get a trippy, energetic buildup, which I can imagine would freak people out on the dancefloor. Awesome! Beautiful melody, heart wrenching beats, this is just great. 8/10 11. Before Speaking of weird sounds, this starts with something that reminds me of... I'm not even sure of what. A washing machine? A nice floating melody is played underneath, and then we're treated to an epic build that comes to a totally strange insect-like part. What a weird track. Still, the melody is beautiful, the samples well done, and you are so busy enjoying the track you aren't ready for the sudden change at 02:20. A bit of progressive trance sound, a bit of old-style Infected Mushroom, even a bit of Goa - this is a very special part, in my opinion. At 04:14 we get a feel of where we're going next, with a very very beautiful, even Jaia'ish melody - this is just perfect! Rain drops join the melody, and during its last minute the track just lapses into insanely Goaish melodies, which just launch you into a domain of utter happiness. What a great ending to the album! 8.5/10 Final words: Infected Mushroom's new album is quite a mixed bag. It contains some simply fantastic tracks, which will be classics of the psytrance scene without a doubt - Heavyweight primarily, but also Before and Vicious Delicious. It also contains some cheesy if very dancefloor'ish tracks - Becoming Insane, Suliman, Change The Formality, Eat It Raw - some of which are quite good. And, sadly, it also contains some badly done (or well done - time will tell) attempts to create a new genre, which I am forced to call nu-trance following recent years outburst of nu-metal (Linkin Park being the most prominent example of that genre). Infected Mushroom fans should defintely check the album out, if only for the few very well done tracks. Hardcore psytrancers can probably skip it. It is not as plastic as IM the Supervisor, but it is very experimental, goofy, and a bit over the top at times. Overall: 79/100 Favourites: 3 (!), 4 (!!), 9, 10, 11 (!)

Cheese? Come on. In my opinion, The Art of Being Non is to Psytrance (or "butt-rock goa"?) as Sky Input is to Goa. It is a classic of the genre, or at least of the newer stream of it.

Listening to it now.. Special Place sounds a bit like System of a Down on trance or something like that.. odd Heavyweight is cool. WEIRD, WEIRD sound sample - sort of an indian war-cry thing, like when you say "aaaaahhh" and drum on your mouth. SO odddddd. Vicious Delicious is indeed fast and interesting, if a bit too clubby. Interesting as hell, and not as bad as I thought it would be.. only Artillery is too Linkin Park as of yet

Awesome album. I agree Nystagmus' The Immaculate Perception and IM's Classical Mushroom are just as good, maybe better. Thank god we can hear all three albums without having to choose only a single one!

I'm not a negative person, but look - this is not right. It's been over a month since the ballot closed, and 20 days since the supposed "results publishing". What is going on? Should I perform the counting myself? :/

Just to make things clear, THESE AREN'T THE OFFICIAL RESULTS!!! Wait 'till moni posts them.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiigggggghhhhhtttt....

What's YOUR top 5?

Dirty mails? I can't fathom a reason to send you one... odd. Too bad about no samples, would make it much cooler :/

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music http://www.ishkur.com/music

Dude... Ticon!

What's the Imperia lineup? I'll definitely be in the O.O.O.D./Texas Faggott rave... need a more melodic trance after the party that we'll have with CPU, Absolum and the other 3DV guys a week before

Anoebis - the next step would be to do something like Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music only more trance oriented... I haven't heard most of these album, I doubt I'll be able to get most of them nowadays, and I'm not even sure I'll like them. A website with sound samples for each genre would be very cool!

Soooo....? Feb. 15?

When I manage that I can probably go on the 2008 Olypmpics as well

What is the Artifakt up to? Any new album planned? How about Jaia, what is he up to? And the new Talpa album, when is that coming? The more hard-core Ka-Sol album? Another Jikkenteki? :D:D

I love this album! It grows on me every listen. I gauge myself based on the track I reach at the end of my run

Damn, had a nice post but the server decided not to respond just as I posted it... ;/ I haven't heard this entirely. I've just heard the few tracks in the beginning, as I admit I wasn't very drawn to it initially. However, I wasn't drawn to the Artifakts II album either. I ended up fiercely loving it, so that goes to show you not to judge anything by first impressions. I heard Dynamic Symmetry while my player was in shuffle mode, and after realizing the greatness and weirdness of the track has to find what I was listening to. It sort of reminded me of Jaia's Orchestra 2.0 - a non-linear, non-standard time signatures piece of music - just weird and lovely. This is a fusion of jazz and IDM (though I dislike the term, nothing dancy about it). Beyond lovely. All That Makes Us Human Continues is the introduction track - slow, touching, relaxing, with the odd electronic touches. This is the first track among quite a few that has a bit of Aphex Twin like sounds. Dynamic Symmetry is my favourite track currently. I've typed a bit about it earlier. The golden ratio track, 1.618, is just relaxing and beautiful. I assume the actual ratio is in play in the actual track - I can't hear it but then again I'm not a musical professional. The Internal Locus is indeed very video-gameish at times. It sounds like what Nubuo Uematsu would've composed had he the tools and processing power on the PlayStation 1 sound processing unit. If you've ever played Final Fantasy 7, 8 or 9 - you know what I mean. See You On The Other Side is so relaxing, harpish, atmospheric - though not in the Solar Winds / Carbon Based Lifeforms sort of way. It ends up sort of Aphex Twinish... Bucephalus Bouncing Ball. But with such a hopeful melody... The Anhtkythera Mechanism starts so childish, so small townish and grows into a insect attack soundtrack, with occasional relaxed parts. Like the background music of Starship Troopers had it been done well The medieval sounds move into eastern, groovy mood music... a very remarkable track. Good Morning Kaia is very... rock. It isn't very electronic. Lots of distortion, lovely melody - I wouldn't have been surprised to have heard it on... I don't know, any indie, brit or grungy rock album. I can't put my finger on the exact genre, but it might be a bit Radioheadish. All in all, I have to recommend this album. It is quite remarkable, unorthodox and beautiful.

I love this double release. I don't get the definition for IDM... what exactly is dancy about this? Intelligent, yeah, but I don't see anyone calling Infected Mushroom's early albums "intelligent trance" for that matter This is downtempo trance, in my humble opinion... much more related to Carbon Based Lifeforms with a touch of Ott than to anything else I've heard. I can sleep with it playing in the background... love it.