Rotwang

Hey I really don't think the RR cover is that bad... some of the doodles are pretty nice, and I'd much rather look at that than, say, this: I mean, for crying out loud. Piss-yellow text on a shit-brown background? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

Slum - Why You Have My Beer? No Problem

All over the place! Romanesco Cauliflower

My favourite vegetable features prominently in that pic

No, actually he's 10 years younger.

I listened to "The art..." for the first time in ages recently and it sounded better than I had remembered. Good in small doses I guess; I don't think any track on the album is as good as either of the two tracks of his on Vibraspirit 23. Awesome compilation, you should get that if you want to hear Talpa at his best - his sound there was much more unique, whereas his solo album is pretty heavily indebted to classical era IM.

I gather the Nommos have a new album coming, that could be good.

I can only see two of your images

I reckon The Gathering is their best by miles, but BPEmpire is pretty good too. I think that IM the supervisor is my worst psytrance buy by miles though

Isn't that when Terrence McKenna reckoned the universe will reach the omega point of infinite novelty?

Va - Durdom (Devil's Mind records) is a good dark comp, if you like it noisy and tuneless. Androcell - Efflorescence is a good chill album I'm rather partial to 4Real by Highcosmos, but everyone else seems to hate it.

Definitely lifeforms for me... I thought it was boring when I first got it, and only realised a year or so later how good it is. After that the Otherness is probably my favourite.

I saw her live, she had a couple of guys in masks ironing in front of her while she played records. No idea what that was all about.

Now this I like

If you like extremely gritty dark psy, you should check out the Devil's Mind compilation "Durdom". Limited edition, but they still seem to be selling it from Wirikuta's website.

I reckon Tri Repetae is overrated, it has a couple of great tracks (the ambient ones, stud and overand) but on the whole it's their weakest album to my mind. I think it was kind of a transitional album they made as they were changing from ambient to more noisy stuff, and the result is kind of half-arsed.

On the subject of Raja Ram, does anyone own any of Quintessence's albums? If so which would you recommend?

I'm a huge fan of Autechre, but that's really the only IDM I listen to... everything else I hear just sounds lame in comparison (I would love to be proved wrong about this... is there anything I should check out?). If you want to get into Autechre's IDM stuff I would suggest getting Chiastic slide and Cichlisuite first.

Just my two cents... I don't know exactly what Raja contributed to Shpongle or 1200 mics, but to my ears they both sound a hell of a lot better than what Posford/GMS could have done on their own. And as for his flute playing, I myself played flute for 10 years, and it sounds pretty good to me. Incidentally... "But I've seen on this forum that Simon is Godford and Raja ram is just Goa Gil..." I don't understand why the Goa Gil comparison is supposed to be derogatory. Goa Gil is awesome!

Forgive my ignorance, but can someone explain the difference between forest and dark? The first time I heard people using the word forest to describe psytrance referred to Derango's album, which as far as I can tell is dark psy with a picture of a forest on the cover

Agreed. I thought his tracks "Kalashari" and "Mandragor" on Vibraspirit 23 were awesome; on his album he seemed to be trying too hard to put as many ideas into each song as possible, and none of the ideas were that good. I liked "the moon" though.

Yeah I've been looking out for them too, but nothing. Does anyone have any info on them?

I love this album... strangely for an album with an average bpm of 152, I don't think it's so much an album to dance to as one to listen to while lying down in the dark with one's head between the speakers. Top stuff, there isn't a single weak track.

Total - Mr. Fingers

I'm rather partial to Buggy G. Riphead's cover for Lifeforms by FSOL: Also TDR's cover for Autechre's Amber, which someone posted earlier. Fave Psytrance covers are probably these: