grahf

mmm, yes, i liked crystalelixir as well.

"spiritual trance" is the name of an old mix compilation series by Goa Gil, perhaps it is one of the tracks on these? http://www.discogs.com/release/127980 http://www.discogs.com/release/127984

I was gonna add a bunch, but then I re-read the original question and realized it was specifically psychedelic effects that you're looking for. So... Shulman - In Search of a Meaningful Moment album... I really don't think I could name a specific track, it's all beyond words. Shpongle - the Day Turned to Night... Hallucinogen in Dub - Gamma Goblins I think freeform music has more possibilities for extreme psychedelia than 4/4 trance.

I dunno about that man... can you really tell the difference between ultrahigh kbit mp3 (256-320, properly encoded) and CDDA/WAV? I sure can't. Although I don't have $10,000 audiophile equipment to do a blind test on... And just to nitpick, it's not compression that is bad per se, it's lossy compression. There are compressed lossless formats (SHN, FLAC, APE, Apple Lossless) which get down close to half the filesize of WAV.

Orb Live 93 Island Records 1.1 Plateau 1.2 OOBE 1.3 Little Fluffy Clouds 1.4 Star 6 & 7 8 9 1.5 Towers of Dub 1.6 Blue Room 2.1 Valley 2.2 Perpetual Dawn 2.3 Assassin 2.4 Outlands 2.5 Spanish Castles In Space 2.6 A Huge Evergrowing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Center of the Ultraworld So, thanks to Seraph we now have reviews of almost all the classic Orb albums, which is great to see. However, there's one very important Orb album for me that he didn't cover: Live 93! This is the Orb at their absolute trippiest: the tracks are deconstructed and lengthened from their album versions, and extra reverbs, percussion, and tons of ridiculous samples are inserted, thanks to LX Paterson's DJing considerable skills. Sound quality is very good, for a live recording. All in all it's a double CD trip through the Orb's best early tracks. 1. Plateau. This starts off completely differently than the Orbus Terrarum Plateau, but with a similar drifting vibe. Slowly, over the course of the track, familiar elements are teased at the listener and then introduced. Then a sample is repeated: "We don't need no education...no dark sarcasm in the classroom" (little bit o' pink floyd homage there) and the bassline and drums from the original Plateau are introduced. Some occasional drums are sparsely woven into the mix. By the 8:30 mark, the familar drifting synth waves from the original are introduced. 2. Now OOBE. Similar to album version, except a minimal 4/4 beat is added under the track. The sample of some guy talking about the "noosphere" is extended, but I still dunno what he's on about. The sound of a cock crowing is introduced, and thoroughly fucked with. Near the end there is a flute introduced - again, distorted and played with for the listener's enjoyment 3. Little Fluffy Clouds. OK, this is starts a little ridiculous - we get some televangelist guy talking to a guy with a morphine drip...? It's really weird and random. After that familiar strains of Orb's most famous track come in. A sample tells us, "layering different sounds on top of each other." And then of course Ricky Lee Jones telling us about the sunsets and little fluffy clouds of her childhood. If I'm not mistaken, this bit is taken from Reading Rainbow! The Orb do a very funky, dancey rendition here, complete with speaker-crushing bass. Ricky's voice is chopped up, reverbed, stereo-panned... 4. Star 6 & 7 8 9. Starts out with a motorcycle and biplane sound coming in and out. Vroom, vroom. Umm, not much to say, not exactly my favorite Orb track. 6...7...8...9... Kinda floating and relaxing, but not much to write home about. 5. now we travel to the Towers of Dub... and the Hailee Sailaisee/Marcus Garvey sample is reverbed almost beyond recognition. The Orb really went over the top on this one: reverbs and overtones and tribal drums and a goofy bouncey dub beat and a dog barking flying all over place. Good way to make you head spin on some chemicals. I can only imagine what this must have sounded like at the actual concert. 6. OK, cool down. Have a seat in the Blue Room, we've almost made it through the first cd. Rolling tribal percussion will get you in the mood. Whoops, a car just crashed - oh well. That classic dub bassline (played by Jah Wobble) will get your head nodding. And of course the wha-wha of Steve Hillage's guitar. Another classic track you will surely recognize - but there's a lot more going on here than in the album version. Track by track is fun for a while - but I think you get the idea! CD2 explores even deeper and more bizarre territory, with some slightly lesser known tracks... check out the very atmospheric Valley with massive reverberating dub bassline, and crazy Outlands with Arabian singing with Martin Luther King speech thrown on top! favorite tracks (if I had to choose): Plateau, Towers of Dub, Valley, Outlands, Huge Evergrowing... rating: timeless (ok fine, 9.9/10)

Dave and Suntrip records should get together, they're all about the old-school thing. Mars, you listening?

haha, I can't help but notice that Shpongle 3 and "hallucinogen vs eat static" are both given the same catalog number, twscd28. I guess that means the eat static collab is delayed for a while? ;P

My copy of Aes Dana - Memory Shell has the SACD logo on the cd. So I guess it is, though I never heard any promoting about this.

if you look at the interview at the beginning of this topic, it says it all... they descibe the new pleiadians album as lighter melodic morning music. Ummmm the old Pleiadians is not morning music in the least to me, rather very intense peaktime stuff for the night. Bleh... there's nothing i can add that hasn't already been said.

This is a promo... where's the review?

Trance: Juno Reactor - Labyrinth Son Kite - Colors Talpa - Art of Being Non Texas Faggott - Pilluminati Cuntroll Beat Bizarre - Pandora's Groove Box (Filteria would probably be on here, but I havent ordered them yet) Chill: Live at Dakini Nights. Best release of the year for me. Almost every track blows my mind in some way. (Makyo, Karsh Kale, Ochi Brothers, Puff Dragon, Ishq, wow!) Orb - Bikes and Trikes. After all these years they are still going strong and not stale. Following in the tradition of Orblivion. Ozric Tentacles - Spirals in Hyperspace. Ozrics never do me wrong. Youth - Secret Language of Ordinary Objects Bluetech - Prima Materia. Actually first released last year, but people are finally catching onto the the Aleph 0 rerelease, so... HUVA Network - Distances (more intelligent than Aes Dana solo) Hi-Fi Companions - Swingers in Paradise. I Need to stick up for this one, it's way different than standard psy-chill, into the realm of, omg, actual music! Sounds very jazzy to me, esp the first track with the trumpet solo. (Adham Shaikh - Fusion) - would probably make this list but I've not got it yet.

www.touchsamadhi.com <- these guys are pretty much the life of the east coast psy scene, outisde of NYC. Dunno if any of their events match up with your travels.

Eh? I doubt the artists set the ticket price. That would be the promoter's job; and Japan is definitely a rich country, and I'm sure many well-off people listen to psy there, so I don't see the big deal. Those are all top-notch acts; booking all of them together will cost a pretty penny.

Saafi Brothers and Synaesthesia are both great, but they both have percussion, and Ormion was looking for percussion-less ambient. Here's my picks from my collection: TIPWorld - Twelve compilation. Most of the tracks here are beatless ambient. Ornament - Bleu. Very deep ambient, occasionally a hint of rhythm, kinda reminds me of Biosphere. Don't forget oldschool Tangerine Dream. Check out Phaedra. It's just a single track, but surely one of the most beautiful: Amorphous Androgynous - Mountain Goat. HUVA Network - Distances has some nice contemplative ambient tracks, e.g. Time Circles. Interchill Record's Floatation compilation is really really good. Padmasana's self titled EP on Dakini; 3rd track Holistic Resonance is pure floatiness. Mystery of the Yeti #1 1st and 3rd tracks! And the first track on Yeti part 2, by Process. Anybody ever played the 1st person shooter Quake? Trent Reznor did the soundtrack, and it's spooky dark ambient. an interesting record label i found that specializes in the stuff: http://www.councilofnine.co.uk/ I got Maitreya - Telluric waves from there and it's pretty interesting, organic, constantly changing sound. Phew, ok, that's all i can think of right now.

the sound mastering quality on Younger Brother is amazing. Usually I only hear it on my decent but home-sized stereo, but last summer i was listening to this Dj playing out some dub stuff and he played Evil & Harm, and there were whole new dimensions of bass frequencies I'd never noticed before! I love it when music does that.

Yes, I'm with Manuser, the 3rd Revelation is sweeeeeet. No other logic bomb tracks I've heard compare to that (many are disappointingly unmelodic to my ears). I'm sure Headware is good too, but I don't expect to ever find a copy. I do like Datalinks though...

2cents: Umm, it was pretty good, though I liked the first half better than the 2nd. It stayed pretty spiritual sounding until about midway through, what with the Star Sounds tracks, but the full-on basslines at the end (Talamasca) didn't quite do it for me.

Hmm, the vocals in the samples I heard seemed kinda cheesy (like in never coming down), and certainly nowhere near Pink Floyd's level of songwriting. This release looks interesting, but I'm hesitant...

from listening to the samples.... it sounds like it would be good party music. Happy, crazy, a little goofy, but definitely not deep or cerebral. The ridiculous voice samples are a little off-putting. I'm really startin to think (and maybe this should have been obvious from the very beginning) that 1200 Mics are NOT meant to be taken seriously. It's party/comedy trance.

I have a laptop, and I want a cheap-ish way to input and output sound. I'm considering the Indigo I/O; anybody have experience with this? http://www.audiomidi.com/common/cfm/product.cfm?pid=3919

Big kudos to seraph to posting reviews of all these classic Orb and FSOL albums. In my opinion, this is the Orb's densest, most inaccessible album... but in many ways their most accomplished as well. This album is a journey... when you're listening to it in an altered state it feels SO much longer than it actually is. By the time Plateau is finished you feel like the album could be over, but oh no, it's just beginning. Takes some endurance to listen all the way through. 1. Deep bizarre bassline here... the first time I heard this track, I thought some jerk with a big car stereo system was blasting hip-hop outside my window... nope, it's just the Orb. 2. "and now folks, for an old familiar favorite..." Imagine flying over a lush jungle plateau, with bizarre alien birds joining you on your flight, and you might get some of the feeling of this track. At least, that's what I visualize when I listen to it. Sounds and melodies and basslines come soaring at you, then echo into the background. There's so much going on that you can't possibly dissect it all; just kick back and listen to the whole soundscape. One of my favorite Orb tracks of all time, for sure. 3. Oxbow Lakes... A slightly bubbly, aquatic theme here. Weird piano melody going on. Less "beautiful" and floating than Plateau, things are getting more dissonant here. 4. Starts out slow and ambient, but by the middle of the track there are some intense waves of sound coming at you. And then a little past the 8 minute mark it goes absolutely bonkers with some crazy distorted breakbeats. My stereo can barely keep up with all the bass frequencies here. Definitely the most intense track on the album. Good way to scare a chillout room. 5. Phew, tired now, back to ambient. We start with a sample from a self-help tape (?). Listen carefully now - there's a distorted vocal sample in the background that repeats itself in the beginning and end of the track - do you hear it? 6. Kinda groovy... True to the name, it has a "western" feel, with some voice samples of redneck americans. ;-) 7. Some goofy samples about slugs eating all the lettuce open this, the final track. At 17 minutes long, this track doesn't worry too much about structure or progression. It drifts along, revealing itself slowly. This album sounds nothing like any music I have ever heard. No other chillout music comes close. No other Orb album even comes close. Truly unique.

these three tracks have short sections with extremely twisted melodies that really mess with one's head: texas faggott - gero gero shpongle - vapor rumors frontline assembly - comatose (eat static rmx)

ok, i'll bite. 1. BP Empire 2. Classical Mushroom 3. Converting Veg CD2 4. The Gathering 5. Conv Veg CD1 6. IM The Supervisor Sorry, just had to split up the two sides of converting vegitarians, i found them to be very different.

Too much categorization and comparison and judging of this music going on. It's all completely beyond words as far as I'm concerned, just sit back and let it envelop you.

very interesting that this guy used to make ambient, A Shocking Hobby is hard industrial techno. that's the only album of his i've heard. whenever i play with the scream destruction unit in reason, it sounds like speedy j to me, hehe.