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Mindbender

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  1. Different people, different tastes... For me Drukqs and LP5 are the best two IDM albums out there... But I am not a connoiseur of the scene. And Board of Canada slots into the chill-out section in my head.
  2. There are many things I simply can't fit in my head. One of them is the style of music played at "psy" parties these days. I know I've been bitching about this a lot (well, most of my few posts touch the subject). Here are some thoughts about the scene: A) I feel most of you would agree that the sort of full-on generally played at parties is just :wank: . Is this just about "psy" trying to make itself more accessible to people who've digged other types of dance-music (say hardcore or hardhouse) or to appeal more to the speed/coke crowd to increase the numbers at parties and thus income? Can you think of other reasons why it's almost always this totally un-psychedelic, 'heard this a million times already', harder than hard banging? Because I simply don't understand. B ) Another reason I don't understand this hard, hard and hard -approach is that it doesn't feel hard anymore after a couple of tracks. Even if those tracks are good, it becomes rather boring. It loses it's hardness and just becomes :wank: . To make the hard bits feel hard, I think you need to have contrast. To make hard feel hard, you need to have occasional hard tracks, not only hard. So as to not lose momentum and make the rest "un-danceable", play something that is danceable in its own way in between, like really groovy tracks. C) The above goes IMO for pretty much everything. If a DJ plays just "groovy" tracks, they too lose their grooviness and become boring. Yet there is this unwritten rule that a DJ should basically play just one style of "psy" for their entire set. This is again something I don't understand. I'd much rather have sets that go through several styles. No, I don't mean playing a "best of -list", but there's plenty of stuff straddling a couple of different styles, which would allow for smooth transitions between styles. And thus the music would remain continually interesting. How often do you hear sets that go something like this (for example): prog-techtrance-fullon-goa-suomi in two hours? Never. And it would be clearly possible. And if someone were to do this, why not them play for 4 hours? Why always 1-2 hours? To gather more crowds by having more performers? D) Even worse, whole parties tend to be labelled, usually either prog or full-on. Come on! A whole night of the same stuff. Boring! Yet it seems to me that some of the most attended parties are the ones which dare to shake things up a bit and are less limited in the scope of music played. Eg. Twisted parties. Of course, with Twisted, the name(s) draw in the crowds, but still. It's not the boring same-old-same-old and they get great attendance. E) Why is morning trance played only in the morning? I mean the name already says it all, but really, IMO this is where it's at. If I were to arrange a party it would be starting and ending with the some of the 'most morning' of morning trance mixed with "normal morning"; with most of the night a mixture of morning and night and everything in between. I know everyone has different criterions for what is morning trance, but I've bumped to quite a few people who call really hard stuff "morning", as long as it's not the really, really, really, hard-so-fucking-hard trance, which is "night". Seems like anything remotely softer is out of the question 2am-6am. Seems like smiling and grooving is forbidden for that time. It's just banging, grinding teeth and grimaces. Not fun. F) Why do the DJs just play the latest of the latest releases? When everybody is doing that, surely someone who'd play good classics from throughout the ages should be occasionally welcome, but it never happens. Why? I know, new music can surprise you and there's a definite (psychedelic) surprise factor involved in dancing to tracks you've never heard. But as far as I can tell, most of the party crowd doesn't listen to this music at home and most haven't been in the scene long enough to even have heard the classics, so it could as well be new to them. And the crowd seems to always go crazy when they hear a familiar monster-hit-track - so why not take advantage of that? Occasionally at least. But no, it happens like once a night, if even. Ok, well that was a major rant. But I'd like to know why to each of the points I made, because I simply don't understand a single one of them. PS. I'd be happy to help anyone in organising happier, trippier and more musically varied psy-parties in the London area, if someone here is thinking of doing that or knows people who are...
  3. I wont vote as I've heard only like 3 of the options, but the "y2k" rmx (Hell's Kitchen 12") is one of the most listened to tracks in my collection. It's perfect in its own way.
  4. Placed order for this a day or two ago: Sattel Battle - Sounds Good VA - Chronika III Principles of Flight - Night Time Lullabies Loud - Abstract Loud - Some Kind of Creativity Ian Ion - Gringolocomotion Fuzzion - Black Magic Kino Oko - Alphabetically... Matenda - Natural Developments Perfect Stranger - Learning = Change Haltya - Book of Nature Nystagmus - The Immaculate Perception VA - Chronika II Solar Fields - EarthShine VA - No Tone Unstirred Logic Bomb - Sonic Algebra I've bought very little music, especially psy, in the last 6 years. Coming back, I very much felt what Rino said: Same problem. Well, after 6 years, what can you expect? On the other hand, I the reason why I stopped following what was going on was that there were so many new labels and artists, that it required too much effort to stay on top of things. Especially when most of them were producing pretty much the same boring shit what I had heard before, making it really, really boring to sieve through all the new music to find the increasingly rare gems. But partially that's also to do with having heard so much music that anything that wasn't perfect was shit. After waiting a while, I could find a relative amount of fresh sounds. But I am pretty sure that selection of CD's I've got there above will entertain me for quite a while... Yet I have to buy Perfect Stranger's new album also (comes out later this month). Oh, and I wanted to reply to this: Don't bother! Sorry to be a spoil-sport, but I've got decks and lots and lots of good trance on vinyl (including plenty of old IM, BTW). Coming back after 6 years I was rather shocked to notice that vinyl is already dead. Basically, since about 2002, hardly anything in this scene has been pressed on vinyl. Couldn't find a single one of the many albums that I considered on vinyl. Back in the day practically every album got also a vinyl pressing (which was usually harder to find but the internet shops would have the whole selection). So I've been looking at my decks with a sad eye and been wondering should I bother learning to mix with CDs or files, or not to bother at all. Well, that's not too topical for the moment. Anyway, there's no point in owning turntables, unless you already have a rather large collection of vinyl. It'll be hard to find any good music, you essentially have to get it all second hand, probably paying much more than what it's worth and the sound is not *that* much better, even in my opinion, and I love vinyl. (The sound quality question is totally a matter of opinion - both have their good sides.)
  5. I voted WAV/RAR as the music goes straight on CDR and I have RAR softs. But I don't care about file size that much, so WAV/ZIP is really just as good from my point of view.
  6. I wanted it. But neither Psyshop or Wirikuta had it. I guess discogs would then be the next alternative, or what do you think? Decided to take Menog off the list too to save money.
  7. I guess what is psychedelic depends a lot on the person you ask. I found this not only awesome and fresh, but also psychedelic (fed my imagination). Sometimes too much of everything leaves no space for yourself. Less can be more. But I also like stuff that's choke-full. Question of balance. Ok, I think I've come up with a list of stuff to buy - a sort of starting point for getting back into the scene. Or perhaps better described as the peripheries of this scene, as that's where all good stuff seems to being going on... From Psyshop (cheapest): Sattel Battle - Sounds Good VA - Chronika III Principles of Flight - Night Time Lullabies Loud - Abstract Loud - Some Kind of Creativity Ian Ion - Gringolocomotion Fuzzion - Black Magic Kino Oko - Alphabetically... Matenda - Natural Developments Menog - Emotions Perfect Stranger - Learning = Change From Wirikuta (better selection, bit more costly). I'll probably get these first and buy the Psyshop stuff in about a month: Haltya - Book of Nature Nystagmus - The Immaculate Perception VA - Chronika II Solar Fields - EarthShine VA - No Tone Unstirred Logic Bomb - Sonic Algebra That still leaves quite a lot of stuff "unbought", but have start somewhere. Thanks to everyone for your help! And I don't mind getting yet more suggestions... As I'll order more in a little while.
  8. Thank you all for your replies! I did check samples of ALL the trance you recommended. Time for buying chill / breaks / IDM is later (though soon). Thanks for the info anyway - it will be helpful then. The stuff I liked a lot: Nystagmus - The Immaculate Percetion (especially the track Ananda. Among the best stuff I've heard EVER. Pure aural orgasm! Thanks frozen dream! Is there anything else like this someone could think of?) Sattel Battle - Sounds Cool (especially the track 'Sounds Good') Principles of Flight - Night Time Lullabyes Artifakt - The Magus Menog - Emotion VA - No Tone Unstirred VA - Schizm Hiyarat - Collision Which probably half of what you guys suggested (and even the rest was good), so well done, thanks! I have money to buy some of them for now, the rest probably later. On another note, there was quite a lot of forest crazyness there. It fits the description of music I was asking for and I like them, but... To balance my purchase a bit, would anyone know of any clean, smooth and dreamy goodies? Actually, I don't refuse to download illegally. It's just that I don't internet at home (long story). And I can't install software on my work computer, so all downloads are via www for me. Actually, back in the day when before my lapse from trance, I noticed that sharing music P2P actually increased the amount of music I bought as I got to sample more of it. Yes, it's true no one knows my taste as well as I do, but you've all still been very helpful! Cheers, but got both albums. Flock of Bleeps is indeed good, but not so good I'd use it to describe my taste in music. However, after an initial disappointment in Last Days of Gravity, I've learned to love it A LOT. Thanks again! And feel free to keep them coming!
  9. Hi all! [i didn't mean this to be a long post, but decided to re-introduce myself, taking some space. If you just wanted to help without reading crap, jump to the point where you start seeing album names. Thanks.] Some of you might remember me from, well, the days of way back... I used to be quite active here. Lately I've started lurking about, mainly for reviews, and have noticed many old names are still here. This is my first login. Back in 2002 I don't remember having to register... Anyway, nice to see some of you are still alive and from what I can gather, rather ok too. I got semi-turned-off from psy about 5 years ago, as there started to be too many releases, particularly as most of them had no innovation what-so-ever. It became to hard to listen to what was released, too hard to find the gems among the chaff. And maybe I had heard a bit too much psy as well - I got turned off by most stuff just sounding like it had been done before (including also often the stuff that "did it" in the first place). Plus some other more minor issues... Oh, and the major issue of DJ's apparently lacking any musical taste. It seems all that matters for being a DJ is that you have the very latest, preferably unreleased, tracks and that you can beat mix. No matter how soulless the music is. No matter that I might hear maybe one sound, one melody, and one rhythm I haven't heard before in a whole DJ set, of course all three distributed among three different tracks. At least that's what I feel it's generally like in London. Some positive surprises come up once in a while, though, which is utterly refreshing. A DJ with musical taste!?! Who would have imagined!?! Ok, time to end rant// Anyway, after not going to too many parties over the last half a decade (roughly 4 a year), I've managed to cherry pick a few that have restored my faith in trance. And thus I also want to get some new (trance) music - getting bored of listening to the same old, same old... So, after checking stuff here, myspace and here and there elsewhere, I have started to formulate a shopping list, mainly by reading people here mentioning stuff in passing, following it up etc... In the days of old, it used to be simpler, as I could order smaller batches from Chaosunlimited, as the UK-internal postage wasn't that much. Now I am mainly thinking of psyshop and wirikuta, as they are in Europe. Saikosounds seems a bit far. First things first: how up-to-date am I with shops? Anything I should know before placing an order? Psyshop or Wirikuta, which is better? Or equal? Anything else i should know? I thought I would place a massive order to save on postage, but then open only one record per week, so as to have time to get to know each one. I probably should start by trying to give you a sense of my taste. Off the top of my head, here's some trance that I still bother listening to: Hux Flux - Bring Your Own Bios (probably the best track ever), Cryptic Crunch, old singles/comp tracks Logic Bomb - old singles, some comp tracks Hallucinogen - bits here and there, Angelic Particles and mi-loony-um on top of the pile Beast single IM - Psycho, Classical Mushroom, My Mommy Said, bits here and there Prometheus - Corridor of Mirrors, Ok Computer, older singles Process (+Prom) - half of first album, Clarity from Deep Fog, Dealing With Demons (w Tristan) Juno Reactor - bits here and there S>Range - Singles released before 2001 (album) Orion - Neu X-Dream - Panic in Paradise, Irritant, first 2 albums, radio rmx (the track) Spirallianz Deedrah - reload (album) Cosma - Simplicity Haldolium - Pi-symptome Atmos - up to and including 1st album Bus - pretty much all of it, Bullet in particular Kox Box - 1st and 3rd albums, bit of the latest Accu - Polemik Son Kite - Colors Texas Faggott - Hoosianna, some of petoman's peflett Eraser vs Yojalka - Home Deep Home Sam Spacey/Swan & Spacey Silk - GM Telephone PsySex - Bionic Bong 2001 + Survival Kit Bigwigs - some tracks before fraktalik fraternity Parasense - Boomerang Morphem - Hypnotone Prana - Geomantik (album) Sandman - half of Witchcraft Reefer Decree - Curved Air (filur rmx) Plus of course of lots of other bits here and there, pretty much across the board from Isra (Voojoo Rituals, IsrAliens 2) to some prog (FR, Iboga, Spiral Trax); from some Suomi (but generally don't like the too low production values) to some old Goa (but mostly I am bored of the old goa sounds). Feel free to suggest stuff that I might like based on the above. I want music that stands out of the mass, that doesn't sound quite like anything else. Music that is emotional and clever. Oh, and complex and subtle are usually good. Quirky too. I don't want stuff that sounds like everything else out there... I am looking at you, modern psy-full-on (but quite a lot of prog too). Yes, I'd like innovative full-on, but not the typical stuff I hear too much at parties. And good, innovative, prog tends to really fire me up these days. I've bought everything I want from Twisted Records already, so no need to suggest anything from them. Ok, so then to some stuff I've been planning to buy: Based on *samples*, I've given a rating of 0-5 for some of the stuff I am considering. If there's no number, I haven't listened to samples. Feel free to comment on them regardless. When I felt I had something to say, I've marked it with *. I won't buy everything here, just the "best". But I know from experience that some albums grow on you, while others wither and this is something that I can't judge very well on samples, thus, I would appreciate your comments. 5 Perfect Stranger - Learning = Change Perfect Stranger - Changed * This is what inspired me to buy some new music. I saw them at Glade and was blown away (the highlight of the festival). Then I thought buying just his albums would be bad value (due to postage), so tried to figure out other new stuff, which became a bit of an obsession and has taken too much of my time. Here's the result. 3 AMD - Bigfish * Everyone seems to rave about this. Seems "just" good prog to me. What am I missing? Wingmakers 2 * mainly for the Prometheus track (I've always been a fan), but doesn't seem a bad comp. 4/5 OOOD - Free Range * Used to hate old OOOD, but seems they've matured. Or I've changed? 2-5 MEEO - Highlight me please *nuts. Opinion changes each time I listen from shit to awesome Ott Skylon * Will buy. Decided. 4.5 Loud - Abstract 4.5 Loud - Some Kind of Creativity * will get both: nothing quite compares and they sound good. 3.5 BUS - morebusinesslinkyouthere * saw Gus live maybe some 20 months ago, really liked it. The samples from this album sounded somewhat similar, but just not as good. Again, am I missing something? 3.5 Luomuhappo - Pogo... 30.... * people rave about this, yes, sounds good to me to, but *that* good? Really? 3 Kiwa - On the Frequency * I love Hertz, but the rest seems just usual Kiwa (have previous 2 albums, don't listen much) Nuclear Ramjet - Mission to Sedna * Lots of praise here, unfortunately it's sold out everywhere (haven't listened, but first album sounded promising to me, yet not quite there) Hujaboy - Black Belt * am I confused or was this that nitzhonot dude? Any good, anything new? 4? Kindzadza - Waves from Inner Space * dark in itself is not a value to me, but I love older Hux Flux. However, this doesn't quite seem to flow the same way, or have melodies as much. Not quite sure what to make of it. 3 Voice of Cod - We Are Free * myspace samples of upcoming album sounded fantastic, but wasn't quite as impressed with this. Freaked Frequency - FF *supposed to be somehow special: myspace samples are so-so IMO. Give me the same basic melodies, but improve (=complicate) the rhythm section, twist and modulate the melody-sounds more (and use other sounds as well for melodies), add some fitting noisy, crunchy and glitchy sounds, AND give me some breaks without the in-your-face melodies - THEN I WOULD BE DROOLING! I don't mean offend, just not my cup of tea, but in an annoyingly specific way where I can see how it could have been my cup of tea. That reminded me that I downloaded Jikkenteki's album, which he kindly offered for free and was thinking somewhat similar: It's almost a masterpiece (closer than the FF stuff I've heard), but he should really recruit another person to the group to do the low end, the groove, plus nicer rhythm section. Great melodies, but that just isn't enough. Almost there. 10 points for effort. And more general sound-crazyness (modulations, noizes), wouldn't hurt. Xenomorph * The old stuff used to sound to me like childish "I wanna be evil and a bad-ass"-sort of stuff, not managing to pull it off, but someone again praised newer xenomorph here... Haven't listened. 4.5 Fuzzion - Black Magic * Will get this. Liked his old trance and this sounds just FRESH! PS. Really like the Chordless myspace sample that seems unreleased. 3.5 Reefer Decree - Point of You * Frames of Sound was a bit too samey for my taste. This seems better. Samples were nice. I was just wondering, would I actually listen to this (does it stand out enough)? 5 Haltya - Book of Nature * I got the first Haltya album; was weird and unusual, some nice ideas, but like most Suomi, too chaotic and without direction. From the samples, it sounds like this one could be first Suomi-album I could really call a master-piece. Need to hear it at home, though. Will buy. Borboleta Purpura made my jaw drop. Ticon *what is his best stuff so that I can check it out? Vibrasphere *as above. I have Lime Structure, but never listened to it much. Actually, haven't listened to it in years. Because didn't like it then. Tastes change, should try again... But anyway, I was under the impression they've got better since. 2 Texas Faggott - Pilluminati Cunt-Roll * same old fags, no self-control. Still they make the occasional master-piece track among a forest of tracks that are weird, funny and innovative, often with several good elements, but that somehow still manage to break my ears by going to far or by not clearing up the junk. Gotta love them for what they do, even it's usually not really my thing. The samples of "Who needs Koneisto" sound really promising. 1.5 Texas Faggott - Kinigin * as above, some bits sound promising. But I get the feeling that even they are starting to follow more their own formula. Ok, it's not someone else's formula, but sounds too familiar, having heard lots of Suomisaundi already. 3.5 James Reipas - Personal Trainer * Some quite good bits. Might check it out. 2.5 Astroschnautzer - Debut * Yes and no. I haven't quite heard this exact same thing before, but I've heard rather similar stuff... 3.5 Vishnudata - Dreamforce * again, decent prog, but is it really anything new? 3 VA Ultrapop 2 * funky, original, can't complain about that. It's just that with most of the samples, something didn't quite click. Maybe better than I rate it now. 4 Bigwigs - National Heroes... *promising couple of samples. I really liked the stuff they started with, before fraktalik fraternity. Need to listen more thoroughly. 3.5 Digicult - OotW * Very typical melodic full-on. I might still like this in small doses, as it sounded rather good for typical full-on. 4 Matenda - Natural Development * Liked some matenda's stuff before on comps, though not the 1st album. Melodic progressive. Nice. 3 Zub Zub *Nothing particularly wrong, nothing amazing though. 3? The Zap Benji, but not quite there. I like "because", which is not on the album. 4 Logic Bomb - Sonic Algebra *would probably get this already purely out of principle, but some tracks sound rather good too... yet not really anything surprising. 3.5 Ace Ventura - Rebirth * again, good prog, but is it anything more? Ian Ion - Gringolocomotion *the few samples I hear were so good that will probably get it... And I have faith in Ian Ion. Ok, below are more stuff that I've picked up mainly by lurking in the forum and reading your texts. But these ones I haven't got around to listening yet. Concept VA Universo Parallello FREq remixed Furious Psykovsky Hamish Flowjob (heard especially that support normality should be great) Zen mechanics flip flop ans & allaby yotopia quantize daily basis 2 latest Juno Reactor Atmos - 2nd brigade Tegma AtWi80mins Human Blue - BBB Moon Spirits - Moonkeys Tip.world comps: I used to like them, but seems they've gone down hill. Some I'd like to ask about: Red Purple Digital Collusions 2.5 God Save the Machine * This I even listened to - sounded like well-made, but typical full-on - not new 6 stringadelica imagi:nation, day 2 Most of the above list was from the last year or two... I checked less carefully backwards beyond that. Basically, I'd like to hear about anything good after 2001. I might have some of the 2001-2003 stuff, but not that much. After that, hardly anything. Some other non-psy music that I am interested in, usually would like a recommendation of what album to pick up if I would take one: [More of] Dead Can Dance - what are the good albums? iTAL tEK Venetian Snares Pendulum Proem Kattoo Secede Stendeck Kettel Far Too Loud doesn't have an album yet? While I am now looking for trance mainly, some chill suggestions would be welcome. People here seem to rave about Ultimae: where to start? Some examples of chill I like: Shpongle (duh!) FSOL Silence (Pete Namlook + Dr Atmo) Dead Can Dance Briskey DH Krill Cinematic Orchestra Ott Abakus Alien Soap Opera Opak Whoa! I didn't really mean to write at such length. Actually I am being a bit of a selfish asshole here, asking you guys to help me out, as I could simply read more reviews and listen to more samples, but frankly: I've done probably close to 100 hours of that already and I am starting to be sick and tired of it. T'was fun to begin with, now I just want to place my order and listen at my leisure. Plus I don't have internet at home (staying at work after hours to do this stuff and I'd rather be home). Thus the plea for help... While I wrote at length, you don't have to. Any little will be of help, I am sure. Suggesting one or two albums I haven't listed, or eliminating some based on what you gathered about my taste, or telling me to reconsider something I didn't find that appealing... Every small effort welcome! Thanks a lot everyone, nice to see that this forum is still active!
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