sleepingzombie

refer decree - point of you

Production Sound is soft. It isn't smooth as nowadays production, using rougher waves and effects . Pads are discarded in favour of more cascading bubbling synth and picked arpeggiators. Few layers, but in every one they really know what they are doing. Drum layer may sound minimalist at the beginning, but it is plenty of good ideas. Melodies Very good. Wonderful patterns, melancholic, gothic, chilling. Mood IMO the concept is : how far can you put a goa track without deranging into psy or progessive ? They touch the limit of goa ... sometimes they seem to prepare an explosion, but no, the song goes on without climax ... And you relax, feel softness, but at the same time the kick keeps you moving ... And there is this costant presence of something really magic here, it's like a background radiation filled with sleeping power ... Rate You love it if you : like old dream progressive, pleiadians, melodhic goa with sad melodies , old synth sounds. You like it if you : like chilled atmospheric music, backgound music with a very dark magic feel. You dislike it if you : are fan of high budget productions or an addict of warped layers and noise effects at any cost. You hate it if you: are Skazi.

IM - disco mushroom

Everyone was talking about this infected mushrooms , i was beginning to feel like woha do I listen to goa and I don't hold an IM's album yet ? I was very uncertain about which album to start with : leaving the latest ones, about which I really read too many negative comments , I preferred to risk my money on the gathering or classical mushrooms. I liked more classical mushrooms' cover (very serious and professional principle of choice) , so now I'm listening to this one for the first time, 7 years after its release. My first impression is really confused. I can't understand really what I'm listening to ... there are a lot of things ... some passages make me think to some Castlevania's soundtracks ... Maybe this will grow slowly, for now it 's really puzzling me. Anyway if I wanted something that could break the flatness of classic goa/trance style , avoiding any kind of deja-vu , surely a lot of passages here surprised me ... but I'm not really catching it ... I don't know, it's not having the same effect as twisted or IFO ... maybe it needs more time ...

Ok, seriously listened to the whole cd ... Very good production. Good sound, amazing the choice of some bass sounds which are very near to old style trance . Liked very much track #2 and #1 . Maybe I just discovered that I like more his older style, so now I want to collect info about his older trance style songs. #1 is dreaming, I find it closer to some Platipus releases, good song for the end of a party, when lights turn on ... #3 is strancge. Actually sometimes it gives the impression that neither Tim was really knowing what he was doing with the 303 , but luckily he made a really controlled choice of the bassline which is able to act as the spine of the whole track, keeping it consistent and danceable even if the synth sometimes deranges in total chaos about the other track : I like Om Shiva because of its good game beetween an atmospheric chorus pad and an exciting 303 riff. I haven't liked very much the other songs. There are good works with the rythmic layer, but I find some synth pads he uses too boring. Instead of adding atmosphere to the track they just ruin the adrenaline ... IMO some tracks would have sounded better without those pad (which to me sound like some Dark Soho productions), i.e: pretty poison. Absurd has a nice intro. I wonder if Tim listened to Helloween in his teens and stole form them the idea of the radio zapping Rate : Being objective , the tracks are very well produced, but some of them just aren't my cup of tea. There are nice ideas and some very danceable passages. If you (as myself) like old style progressive/trance, orange acid alone is worth the price of the whole cd.

I've liked monna lisa and navras. Actually I discovered that there was a thing called goa thanks to the matrix ost .... I'd prefer the new work to be oriented towards labyrinth than to something like pistolero ... maybe they'll remix navras adding electric guitars and hip hop vocals

The cd arrived yesterday, but I haven't managed to listen to it seriously further than the second track. Orange Acid has completely hipnotized me. I can't press the forward button, I need it to be in continuous repeat ... It's like a dream come true ... at the beginning it can sound as a classic trance track (but the flangered bubbling is more ill and arousing than usual mainstream ones), but it has every element at its right place and in the right dose : 303 is hard but not invasive (often kept on medium frequency), synth patterns are very catching, the song is progressive but not hardcore, it's uplifting but pumping bass keeps it grounded ... progression - climax- stop - restart - progression - climax ... oh my god I think I've just had an orgasm

Yes. But reallt yes. I felt in love with the cover of this cd, and because I can't say no to a beautiful cover I took it. But before being able to listen at least to the whole first cd , I had to play it dozens of time. Track one was damn good, track two also, track three ... whoa, I had to pull the cd out and replace it with something with a kickdrum because I was feeling like losing any gravity ... Then a sunday morning, it was 5 a.m., I was just came back home ... I felt in need of something really soft to get asleep with . I played Orchid and my mind completely stopped every wandering. And it was beautiful,with stillness , slowly music and natural noises flowing through the ears. Really mystic ... But Orchid is too much minimal for my tastes. I'm in such a mood not more than twice in a year, so usually I choose Asura and Aes Dana because they help the listener to get in , using more rhytmic and bass layers. But it's to say that these guys are genius for how they can make a good song with so few elements . Maybe if you practice zen this cd would be the best prelude to your daily meditation session .

Because of this thread I had great expectations from this cd. #1 Sun spots opens with a very pleasant surprise. I like metal and love this track with a slow guitar melody that seems to come straight from an old Paradise Lost/Testament song, with the trip hop drum , the warped synth bassline and the rhytmic guitar riff. Deviant mood for a great warm up #2 Synth pads and a guitar riff kept in the background, under the monotonous bassline. The track tries to uplift in the end with a line of synthetic pad, but its melody isn't anything special. #3 Bassline and noises . Boring until a very nice warped 303 riff breaks in, making the song very danceable in the last two minutes. #4 The pads here try to make some horror/thriller atmosphere, but the rythmic / bass section is too flat. #5 very common trance track until 3'25''.Then a dark pad preludes to a very trash style metal riff upon which starts a guitar lead of great effect (most of all if you like gothic/black metal moods). Pleasant surprise if you like this kind of experiments #6 Very common bassline/kick layer with effects and choir pads. Maybe the concept was to create an atmospheric interleave, but I found this song boring. #7 I like the last two minutes of this track, where the acid riff is able to complete the mood that the first 6 minutes were preparing. Good production in the percussions' layer. #8 Horror pads and acid warped basses on a heavy percussion line. The concept is appealing, but the final result isn't so catching. #9 "Horror" melodies, a good work with the warped synth and basses, good production . But when you put all these things together the track becomes something like a background music for Resident Evil with a trance/trip hop rhytm. Rate. On the pros side, there are a lot of good moments, with guitar riffs, dark and hipnotical moods, breaking climax. Many concepts are good, and with their orientation towards dark atmospheres also bring some originality. On the cons side, there are also a lot of dead moments, with minutes of bassline/kick/noises which don't add anything new to the hundreds of songs already appeared before this cd. I understand that you want to prepare a climax, but why to structure a song of 8 minutes in 6 minutes of boredom preceding the other 2 good minutes in which you really play what the song was supposed to be ? And then I haven't liked some of the melodies of the pad's layer, which sound someway kitsch . But maybe its the effect they wanted to achieve. Overall, I like tracks #1 and #5 and I don't dislike #3 and #9. I found the rest quite boring, even if I find the concept behind their experiments very interesting.

Agree. And this is also the spirit you have to listen to this cd with. In the beginning this cd disappointed me, becuase I usually look for something more aggressive, but then I realized that goa actually is trance in a more melodic and "relaxed" way, so I changed my mind and instead of looking for my ususal expectations I just let the music take me where it desired. Very well written. You must be a great reviewer because this one summes the whole album's spirit. So if you relax down and let go the desire for a climax you can appreciate a lot this cd. I like very much the melodies and the fact that production is very controlled to avoid the boredom and to keep the listeners' attenction high even if the concpet is very uplifting. Here I disagree. It doesn't give me all this acid vibe. 303 appears but it seems shy if confronted to other artists (Green nuns of the revolution, slinky wizard). It never plays IMO a leading role, it acts more in the background to avoid the melodies to sound too cheesy. Anyway it's interesting the way in which two different people can read in different ways the same production, becuase here I'm really satisfied with melodies and instead I would have appreciated some inserts of more aggressive 303. Different people different tastes, peace and love I prefer I.F.O. becuase it's more sharp in the choice of sounds and IMO its production is more elaborate. And wow, I can go on listening to IFO for a whole day and still being jumping and dreaming ... Ominus is good and you listen to it gladly, but IFO really takes my brain out of my skull .

Anyway, guitars aren't so invasive in this cd. They appear in a couple of songs, and in a really crap lead ... there are psy artist that abuse more of electric guitars than SUN Project. Reading the thread I expected to find something like Megadeth but with a trance drum/bass line ... there are songs by other guys (i.e. : Tim Schuldt) that are more contaminated by metal

Thanks to gurutrance I discovered Platipus compilations. Wow, this one have tracks that I love from really much time, and some tracks that I didn't know before. I think there's no need to spend many words here, because almost all are classic. My preferred are : Octopus (original version), Two full moons and a trout, children , elektron bender (this one more for nostalgic reason). Pleasant surprises have been two tracks by Art of Trance : Orange and Sea of tranquillity . Rate . Well, if you (like me) like this old style of trance, this is a perfect compilation. It's more dreaming than acid , with relaxing tracks and funny/party ones. But you've to like old school .

Aes Dana/Asura Green Nuns of the Revolution Juno Reactor Limp Bizkit Tiamat (don't remember the names of the guys so posted the bands' name)

Liked very much track #1, with its film-style landscapes and pathos. Disliked #2 , even if the concept of the track is ok ("punk" vocals on a trip/hop base), maybe the riff didn't catch me enough. Disliked #3 and #4 : acoustic drums and string pads , original concept in a goa environment, but too much similar to any caothic production you can find on some demo-tapes released by "alternative" metal bands ... Unconditional love for #5 and #9 : these two tracks alone are worth the price of the cd, even if you have been not lobotomized by Matrix. Dislike melody of #6, but very good produced track. Like much #7 and #8. Surprised by this sudden chill-out with femal vocals, "flamenco" guitars and very melancholic and "out-of mind" mood. Rate . Experimental (even if not every result is good), amazing atmosphere, two of the best tracks ever released with a 4/4 kick, and a great chill out interleave . Really worth buying.

On which project ? remixes or new tracks ? Do you know the title of the cd or of the song ? Thanks

Top Tracks : Landmass Dead skin cells Antique toy First dead in the family Papua new guinea (and too many others) Top cds : Dead Cities and Lifeforms. Sorry Seraph, sometimes I play ISDN but I find very difficult to get into it. .I really can't stand all that drum'n'bass, but the passages with the piano are very good. Dead Cities is my fav cd because IMO in this cd they show their ability to play with different styles of music touching high levels of quality with every experiment . IMO FSOL can appeal different people in different ways, because their production is very caleidoscopic : they range from trance to ambient passing through different degrees . Two persons can say : yes, this is my fav cd by FSOL, but maybe they enjoy it in very different way . From Dead cities I love antique toy for its melanchonic appeal and amazing drum patterns, and First dead in the family because the first time I heared the punk guitar it just blowed my mind ... so I think that everyone can read FSOL in the way he likes most. That's because actually I agree that FSOL it's a matter that rests beyond tastes. To be honest, I discovered FSOL thanks to Wipe Out 2 soundtrack ... I like very much their song from that soundtrack (Landmass) but I never managed to find the cd/ep/whatever on which they have officially released it. Any hint ?

Old videogame tunes, Yoko Kanno, and some rock.

Great post ! this kind of things is great for people (like me) who have joined very late the movement and want to learn the way the whole thing developed. Thank you

Traces (Light And Weight) - Enigma

Yesterday a friend gave me some mp3 by Dark Soho. Maybe now I understand better your position. Actually EU's use of guitars is really tooooooo straight ... Dark Soho use guitars in a more smooth and fashioned way, and after listening to Dark Soho, EU's Science may sound just as a track for people high on drugs during a rave ... Weeeeell, I carry on liking that song very much , but I admit that it can sound more childish than Dark Soho's productions Waiting for the shipment of the cd ...

I agree with your review. Sometimes I play Poison or Artcore, just to shift the playlist from mainstream (Planet Funk) to more psy oriented, and on high volume these songs are danceable. I agree with the cryticism, because IMO the album is someway "flat", without climax or masterpieces.

Lisa Gerrald singing on a goa track would be amazing Enigma + Electric Universe, Hallucinogen + Carmina Burana, Monna Lisa Overdrive progressive remix by Emmanuel Top, Gothic Metal + Progressive, FSOL + Limp Bizkit (I'd like to hear the hip hop singing style on Dead Cities and then a great guitar riff exploding ), Trentemoller + Etnica + Tegma, Dark Soho + Cradle Of Filth, Pleiadians remixing Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Paradise Lost + SUN Project, Massive Attack involved in any goa production