acid being

As Cronomi is unfortunately about to disappear off the face of the Earth I am listening to, and yeah in many cases purchasing, their various releases. I will try to do some mini reviews of some of the ones I have missed. Portamento - The Portal Cronomi Records – CRONOMI005CD 1. White Dwarf 08:41 2. 48 Hours 08:05 3. The Portal 08:07 4. Monkshroom 08:41 5. Injected Spawn 08:17 6. Biosphere 09:24 7. Vitamin E 07:56 8. A Grain Of Sand 07:33 9. Controlled Experiment 09:12 This is such a cool album because it really nails the sound of early Goa, with tons of croaky acid, highly resonant synths and classic sawtooth basslines. It is incredibly old skool and yet the sound production sounds a lot more clean and modern. It manages to be highly energetic, highly melodic and highly acidic all at the same time. Very, very good. Do Cronomi a favor in their last days and BUY IT NOW: https://cronomi.bandcamp.com/album/the-portal If you don't they will actually destroy the CDs! No joke: 8/10

I have listened to the whole thing since I wrote that review and it is all well made but at this stage I think I prefer the Dawn CD to the Dusk one, which is probably not too surprising as I like their later stuff a bit better than Twin Sharkfins. I found this really interesting about the production in the bandcamp writeup: That's quite impressive there is no compression in the mixing stage at all. To my ears it doesn't sound like the sound suffers as a result of that.

This is sad news but also not too surprising in today's world. For me personally, I have been enjoying Goa trance since the late 90s but I had to drastically cut back my music purchases in recent years due to financial pressures which I am sure is the same for countless others (and no I don't go to festivals either). I think I had bought only 2 or 3 psy albums in the past 8 years. My rationale was that if and when my financial situation improved I would reward all my favorite artists at that point, but I see now, for some it is too late. However on a slightly happier note I have just bought Artha's 2 albums, M-Run - Some Run Just For Fun and Flumina - Globox. All digital download though as most of my CDs just end up wrecked these days. Thanks for all the great music and best wishes.

I highly doubt that. I only got my impression from rando comments on sites like discogs.

I listened to the whole thing today. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. Little bits of it sound great, including the opening track. Other bits I honestly found a bit boring. A few of the sounds do sound like they are right out of one of the earlier Shpongle albums, which I guess is what the fans were asking for. I will still listen to this in the future but it won't be a regular.

I guess if I was being really picky it might sound a tiny bit muffled compared to the most modern Goa productions but I enjoy their sound and I love the high pitched melodies. There is no harshness to my ears. It is fine. I think I like music that sounds old. I adore all of RA's melodies and I like this Egyptian vibe. I don't care if some people find it generic or clichéd as it sounds lovely to me. Incidentally it is not so straightforward trying to sound like ancient Egypt - have a read of this: https://www.jeffbuser.com/egyptian.html Basically there is not one accepted ancient Egyptian musical scale. Khetzal's music is great too but I really feel RA has better storytelling, one of the very best.

I need to give this another listen. I really like their first two albums. Vaccine I don't remember listening to at all because with very few exceptions I dislike what usually gets called indie rock. It seems to me they decided, for some reason, to go a similar route to The Chemical Brothers' Surrender (which I gave away after hearing) or Fatboy Slim's Palookaville. I guess it appeals to Beatles fans. I don't like the Beatles. Then I read about Vaccine Electronic through the narrative that Younger Brother caved into pressure from fans not liking Vaccine, and I must admit this narrative immediately soured my expectations of Vaccine Electronic, because if that is true, it is rarely good when an artist works under duress. So as I began to listen to it, maybe it was those preconceptions that made me think Posford might have been just reluctantly going through the motions of arranging sounds he had done many times before for this one. But on reflection that might be a bit unfair and I think this album deserves a second chance, so I will listen again and try to reevaluate it.

I get like that with a lot of music lately (Not this, though) but I put it more down to my own brain chemistry than anything to do with the actual music! Give it another 7 years and maybe you will love it again. Everything around you is what you create...

I want to review this but I am not sure I can do it justice. Every aspect of it is beautifully and expertly crafted. It is so melodic, so trippy, so atmospheric and so meaningful. I think every single track is at least a 9/10. I stand by my claim that their later downtempo album, Unearthly, is the greatest musical work of all time. This on the other hand definitely makes my top ten of uptempo Goa albums. I am reluctant to award it a full 10/10 but then I cannot really find any obvious fault with it. OK, what the hell then: 10/10

I understand where you're coming from. For me their sound on this album is a bit more focused on exploring amazing sonic textures and rhythms but still with decent amounts of melody, rather than on great harmony. I like all those things in Goa trance which is why the real masters for me are those who excel at harmony, texture and rhythm all in one track: Dimension 5, RA, Elysium. As for MFG, I will try and pay more attention to consonance and dissonance when I listen to their music. I don't really remember much if any discord standing out to be honest but there is certainly a lot of distortion and noise by design. I am a sucker for dark and gloomy music. A few tritones always help with the dark vibes. As for the chaos, I agree there are moments in this album where it starts to head that way, and the whole thing is more chaotic than a lot of other Goa. Again, for me though one of the things that makes Goa trance enjoyable are those moments where on a casual listen you almost can't follow what is going on, because there are so many layers and rhythms and different sounds. It would be boring if we all liked the same trance music though.

MFG - Project Genesis Phonokol – 2118-2 I have been listening to this a lot lately and it is rapidly turning into my favorite MFG album. I loved Pure Energy but a lot of that album is remixes of older tracks and I think Project Genesis is darker, which I like. For those who say it has a muddy sound, I really think it is supposed to sound like that as it makes it gloomier, bassier and creates a harder, tougher sound. I am sure you know MFG's music and indeed their name itself feature a lot of religious references. The title of this album in particular is interesting in itself because it references not only the first book of the Bible concerning the creation of the world and life, but also as we will hear in track 3, the Genesis Device of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (first introduced in Star Trek II). The latter device was designed to terraform planets which ultimately proved to be dangerously unstable due to the way the device was made. As this album also has killer robots, the message seems to be that using human technology to play God and create life and intelligence can have catastrophic consequences. Such a theme is hinted at in the book of Genesis itself where the knowledge Adam and Eve gain leads to humans being expelled from the Garden of Eden. 1 Intro 0:41 2 Intelligent Machine 7:30 3 Project Genesis 7:34 4 Open Mind 8:08 5 Why? 8:12 6 Voices 8:27 7 Sunshine 7:41 8 On Mars 8:02 9 The Creation 7:42 10 Metamorphosis 9:29 1. Intro: Really nothing much to say about this very short intro. It does the job just fine. 2. Intelligent Machine: Definitely at least 99% as evil as Psychaos - Chaos to Order, actually maybe even more evil, this track introduces us to killer androids with scary voices, thus establishing the mood of most of the rest of the album to come. The sounds in this track are just incredible. The effects at the start at the sides of the stereo field are modulated just right to actually tickle my ears. It is groovy, everything about the track is dark, the choices of sound, the little bits of melody including a nice gated synth flute sound and one of the most awesome basses ever with key changes as well. 9.5/10 3. Project Genesis: Another nice bassline, but pretty much every track has one because MFG are the masters of amazing basslines. Nice acid. Nice effects again. A nice build up of layers as the track progresses. Some people may feel this borders on the chaotic but I would say it is part of the point and what chaos there is is expertly selected and delivered. The Star Trek samples are cool and the crazy tweaking bassy synths after those are lovely. 7.5/10 4. Open Mind: This has some cool weird melodies, loads of twisted sounds. The mood I would say is slightly closer to neutral compared to the darkness of the previous two tracks (yeah I know, "life from lifelessness", but like I said, watch the movie). This is a perfectly serviceable track but some of the others are even better. 7/10 5. Why?: has cool distorted drums and a wild wailing melody that is gated so much it feels like it has been torn up into little bits. Then of course there are the evocative voice samples. Nice key changes again on this one. It's catchy. 8/10 6. Voices: Others have considered this a weaker track. For me, it is a favorite. The best bit is that loud twitchy, twangy acid lead which is pretty memorable and unique. It has a fast, energetic pace, and I just really like the particular way all the crazy effects fit together in this one, and how unsure of herself the woman sounds when she says "I don't hear any voices". 8/10 7. Sunshine: This is a bit smoother than the previous track, a little bit upbeat, and the title and voice sample suggest a happy mood yet it is still filled with plenty of darkness and layers of wild sounds. 7.5/10 8. On Mars: The dark bassy synth at the start of this sounds like an evil alien slurping up all life from a planet. The bassline itself is heavy and great yet again of course. My head was bopping at the relentless drive of this one. 8/10 9. The Creation: A slightly more laid back feeling with some fascinatingly gloopy vibes bring you into the start of this track, then the heavier kick and bass and snares come in and as the track goes on the tension builds and the darker mood returns along with nice layers of melodies. 7.5/10 10. Metamorphosis: This is such an excellent way to close out the album, with a relentless deep, dark resonant synth pattern playing almost continuously in a groovy, hypnotic pattern and later wailing melodies come in as well and the track builds and gradually metamorphoses, like the name suggests. At the end we get key changes. 9/10 My favorite tracks are 2, 3, 6, 8 and 10. They were not all my highest scored tracks, because I try to score on technical and artistic merit as best I can rather than just my own subjective preference which seems to vary quite a bit over time anyway. Overall score: 8.5/10 https://mfgmemo604.bandcamp.com/album/project-genesis

I think this is an extremely useful addition to a digital studio. It is fantastic that it is free software which will also hopefully continue to be improved for years to come. I have been using it for a while and it is capable of producing some excellent acid sounds. However, in my opinion compared to some other emulators, it can take a lot more time with this to get the type of sound you want. I think this is mainly because it has so many different controls to alter the sound, including emulation of a number of popular distortion modules and notably the Modifications to the basic 303 sound which are partly inspired by the legendary Devil Fish mods to the TB 303. So because there are so many ways to configure the exact sound, it is easy to get lost in them and it can be very sensitive to slight changes in one setting. You might think that just starting with the default settings with all the modifications off would give a good acid sound, but on my system I needed to fiddle with it a lot more to get that. It is possible there are still some bugs in it to be honest. However, once you take the time to learn it, the possibilities are almost endless. Just make sure you save your favorite presets so you can quickly get it back where you need it. Having used it quite a bit now, I find that this is a great synth to use alongside other acid synths so you can build up layers of different acid sounds. I would not personally use it as my only acid synth at this stage, but it is certainly good enough if you plan to do that.

Quite possibly my best work so far, this dark melodic Goa trance track is also my fastest at 153 bpm. I am quite pleased with the sonic textures and acid sounds in this one and hope you are too. "My algorithm decides when you eat, sleep and work, and how much of each you get."

Bandcamp link: https://suntriprecords.bandcamp.com/album/m-u-s-i-c-melodies-uniting-souls-in-connection This is really pleasurable Goa. It is both beautifully mellow and energetically trippy. Extra points for the seagulls on the opening track! 8.5/10

Amazing album. It's a lovely surprise when you discover some excellent music you didn't know about before. Lovely organic textures and great layered, classic Goa. Great work! 8.5/10