acid-brain

It's great to have you back Radi. Most active the forum has been in ages.

Maybe I'm just getting old but I love these tracks too and find them more listenable than typical goa/psy but not too easy listening like a lot of psychill. One I will add is Doof - Second Revelation. Simple incredibly produced track with an absolutely beautiful arpeggio. And Dimension 5 - Flow. Would love a list of all these slow goa tracks, I'm sure there's other threads on the forums with good lists.

You've lost me now saying that Project Genesis is boring music 😄

I agree with you Radi. Maybe heresy to say around here but I think Mahadeva is one of the most overrated tracks in goa.

Yes Miranda is one of the top goa trance producers. Very powerful atmospheres and kick drums. Great collaborations too with other producers like Ominus. I don't feel like she is overlooked. I'm a sucker for the real old-school sound and the track Athena is my favourite:

Yeah it's just got this enormous cyberpunk atmosphere and personality. It was originally released in 1993 (!!) as a remix of Jungle High - Fire of Love. The Samurai mix is much better than the original version of that track. The version released on "Beyond the Infinite" improves it further mostly by removing samples and tightening up the drum patterns. Simply one of the most defining goa tracks ever produced IMO and easily Juno Reactor's best.

You know it's radi when half the top tracks are by Boris Blenn! Limiting myself to 5 God Tier Tracks: Juno Reactor - Samurai Tandu - Alien Pump Dimension 5 - Deep Space 5D Battle of the Future Buddhas - Lord of the Dance Jaïa - Maï Mai

I can kind of see where you're coming from a bit more now. Some tracks do have pretty generic kicks and basslines. Doesn't bother me though since there's still so much personality everywhere else, and I like the modern production. Abode of the Damned is fantastic. Negative Time gives me MFG vibes with the relentless energy, big spacey sounds and euphoric climax.

Agreed, and I can't understand the negative thoughts above. Especially since there's such a variety of tracks, some of which are so old-school. Adobe Of The Damned reminds me of when I first listened to Cassandra's Nightmare and Sandman's Witchcraft and is my favourite track here. @astralprojectionwe've chatted before about how we both love MFG's Project Genesis sound, you are on a different planet to me if you think Dying Sun is "horrible"!

Two track-by-track reviews of Netherverse have been posted now, would love to see yours too. I'm surprised you didn't enjoy this EP, in my mind the quality is equal to the album.

A long-awaited album by the master of dark goa & psychedelic trance! We got a taster of some of these tracks in Xenomorph's ZNA Gathering 2019 set (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3N1BEkHB8) and finally five years later the new album is released. However, not all the tracks from that performance, such as the amazing Atrocity Archive, were released on either the recent EP nor this album - hopefully another release is upcoming. Further, a few of the tracks are mixes of existing released tracks with very minor changes. Why do I love Xenomorph's music? 1) A huge part of why I like psychedelic music overall is its ability to create powerful atmospheres. Xenomorph is almost unmatched at that. His tracks tell stories ranging the whole spectrum of darkness from apocalyptic hopelessness to unhinged lunacy to stony-faced esoterica. 2) Xenomorph's melodies are very strong. Classic tracks like Abominations are surprisingly melodic. The combination of dark storytelling talent with melodic payoffs does much more for me than most later darkpsy. 3) Lastly, Xenomorph kept forging a unique path, each album is novel and just so different to what anyone else was doing at the time. It's no surprise that he's gained many fans with this uncompromisingly creative approach. 01 Sinister Contours This track's name describes it perfectly. The first half feels like an intro to the moment when the sinister contours really kick in at around 5:00 with tense eastern melodies, croaking acid, and spooky samples. The main lead is brought back in and the tension just ratchets up and up with so many intertwining ominous layers. A build up which we might anticipate leading to a break down actually leads to the addition of an off-beat clap along with an echoing foreboding sound at 6:55. A driving new melody starts emerging and and at 7:45 most layers drop away leaving this new theme. The pressure release ultimately happens at 8:00 when a cheeky goa melody drops! At this point I have a huge grin on my face. Despite how much I love this track, some aspects seem a little overprocessed for my taste, such as the main lead when it first comes in. The break at 6:50, which was previously understated in the ZNA Gathering clip with just the clap added, now also brings in another layer which makes that section a little crowded - maybe my headphones need upgrading. 02 Dying Sun (Sol Aeternus Mix) A fantastic song already released on the Gamma Draconis compilation. I didn't do a detailed comparison but it sounds like the bassline has been thickened and some minor tweaks have been made (the original track did have poor mastering for some reason), otherwise everything is the same. The storytelling of the sense of melancholia about the dying sun is beautifully expressed. 03 War In Heaven This one is a cool change of mood and pace, and recalls industrial/EBM artists like Velvet Acid Christ and Hocico when they have dabbled in trance. Less of the high-tech psy leads or Xenomorph's signature menacing atmosphere. The focus is more on danceable high energy with a gothic touch that can actually end up sounding euphoric. The interlacing arpeggiated melodies at 4:00 are absolutely gorgeous!! 04 Negative Time (-L Di-Dt Mix) Again, it says this is a mix but the version sounds pretty much identical to what was released in the Negative Time EP. The track takes off like a rocket with a bouncy bassline, and at 0:55 comes a massive and absolutely delicious lead. Then a slower response section with more metallic sounds, which finally runs out of energy at 2:40. Suddenly to be replaced by another massive resonant lead, mirrored by a shimmering second melody, I could listen to this section all day as the modulations sound so nice. A series of acid melodies slowly build up the energy back to a metallic section, it's clear we're heading for something big. At 6:40 there's a spine-tingling breakdown leading to a very old-school goa climax! 05 No Beginning No End Not such a fan of this track personally, feels like it's perched between the styles of the last two tracks. Lots of interesting ideas but not structured with the urgency of previous tracks nor with any real stand out sections. The only dud on the album. 06 Nebula Of Souls Yet another change of style, this track is more of a slow-burner compared to the others and evokes the mood of hopelessness and weirdness most similar to the Qlippoth album. Intriguing start feels like being in a space station drifting through freezing space. Again the title is fitting. At 3:00 a crunchy growling lead starts to takes the fore. The track builds up in intensity until at 5:45 a sad stringed instrument melody comes in. I can see why for some fans this would be the top pick of the album, it's easily the darkest track here. 07 Subdimensional Anomaly Time for another more trancey track, but with a pensive mood. Big sweeping pads and a lot of more subtle layers over the top take us all the way to 3:00 where we get a radiant psy lead along with a big snappy snare. The track doesn't evolve in any major way from here but doesn't need to. It's absolutely beautiful. 08 Abode Of The Damned This one heavily reminds me of Cassandra's Nightmare, still my most loved Xenomorph album. The first half has the twisted horror style with a playful array of spooky squelchy sounds. The second half breaks out into powerful melodies that just get better and better on top of a pumping bassline. The melodies aren't particularly memorable however unlike the previous track. 09 Netherverse Wow a rare psybient track from Xenomorph, this one also wouldn't have felt out of place as the last track on many oldschool albums. The first half is deeply atmospheric and intriguing, similar to Koxbox's Searching For Psychoactive Herbs. Unfortunately the change of direction that feels like it's coming at some point never does arrive, besides a small modulation near the end. Still an enjoyable track but could have been more. Overall, there's a large variety of styles here, and at first I think this makes the album as a whole difficult to comprehend. It's harder to fully appreciate tracks 7 and 8 after you've just listened to the nightmare tour de force of Nebula of Souls. After repeated listens I really appreciate the quality of each track and there's only one that I feel is weak. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how euphoric a few of the tracks are, especially Negative Time, one of the least dark songs Xenomorph has produced. But still has that signature intensity and urgency and I love it. I'm a sucker for the big psychedelic leads used and production level is high as you'd expect. I expect the range of styles is due to the long time period this album took to put together, and my only disappointment is we didn't see more new tracks instead of a few minor mixes of existing songs.

Why do you want FLAC? Double blind studies show that MP3 320kbps or even 256kbps sounds equally as good, and takes up much less space. The only advantage of FLAC is that if you decide to transcode to another format in future, you won't lose quality.

Fantastic EP! Can't believe I only listened to this for the first time now. Dark, driving, metallic, highly psychedelic industrial goa.

Some great thoughts above. The first one that jumps to mind is Alienapia – Goapocalipsis (2010).

Thanks for the recommendations. The Trust In Trance compilations are a big blind spot, I'll hunt the best of those down. It looks like I'm missing some absolute classics like Goa Vibes Vol. 2. I haven't heard much "cosmic neogoa" besides some Celestial Intellience tracks which I liked, I'll look into that thank you! Also really appreciate the Rootless and MystikA recommendations as they do seem like exactly the type of modern compilations I'd like.