V/A - Lo-land Hi-Tech

DeathPosture · September 16, 2005

V/A – Lo-land Hi-tech

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Hi-res cover: front + back

Artist: Various (The Netherlands)

Title: Lo-land Hi-tech

Format: CD (digipack)

Label: Sonic Dragon (Hong Kong)

Cat. #: SDREC-04

Distribution: Arabesque

Date: July 2005

Track listing:

01. 08’45” Liftshift – Contracting Waves

02. 08’26” Drexl – Eating Movies

03. 08’34” Zen Mechanics – Dolly Dots

04. 06’15” Cyrus The Virus & Sono Loco – I Robot

05. 07’20” Loki - Lagomorph

06. 07’03” Rev Particle - Scheldezoi

07. 07’41” Synchro – Star Spangled

08. 08’53” Zebra-N - Souperman

09. 08’39” Jocid & Psychobit – Global Control

.m3u-playlist: http://tinyurl.com/8ubmv (all tracks!)

Review:

Toit like a toiger!

Dutch psytrance? I’m sure everyone agrees that The Netherlands is far better known across the world for its liberal, open-mindedness and general tolerance concerning drugs, alcohol and pornography – than for its vast psytrance scene… But the psytrance scene is indeed very much alive and kicking in Holland – and this compilation from Sonic Dragon is here to showcase the Dutch psytrance producers currently active… Let’s find out what this is all about…

Let me take you thru the tracks…

#01: Liftshift – Contracting Waves

First track is by Eric Bijl who has his debut album signed to Gplus Records due for release in late 2005… And by the looks of it, that’s an album to look out for – this is some deep, serious shit… In the best possible way! This is deep, funky, progressive trance… Starts out rather bland and yeah – pretty boring actually, but luckily things shape up as the track progresses… I’ve always been a sucker for the good old FREq-reverb effect, and that one is cleverly used here… Don’t expect big wall-to-wall madness – this is a clever little tune packed with morphing sounds and little cool, naïve melodies… I’m impressed by just how trippy this is – with so few elements… Funky minimal trance! Cool track!

#02: Drexl – Eating Movies

“Check it out Butthead, this chick has three boobs… How many butts does she have?” Bart Matthias is both a DJ and a party promoter in Holland – and he also compiled this CD along with Jocid… And now he’s a producer too! We stay on the same path – deep, simple progressive trance – though we’re approaching a more psy-trance edge here… Reminds me of some of the early Candyflip stuff really… The rhythm-section, the experimental intro and the subtle climax-part are down-right brilliant and it works perfectly with the naïve, uplifting melody… This took me some time to fully get into, but now I adore it… Simple, but oh so addictive… What a charming little track!

#03: Zen Mechanics – Dolly Dots

“This shit is starting to freak me out man!” Wouter Thomassen is the first artist on this compilation, which I’ve actually heard of before… I really, really enjoyed his remix on the recent Iboga compilation Set/5 and I’ve also really enjoyed his chilled tracks lately… His debut album is signed to Neurobiotic and should be out some time next year… Looking forward to that one too – as this is another pretty damn good track… It fits in perfectly after the two previous tracks, as this is also highly addictive, deep progressive trance – with rich psy-trance influences… Very full on’ish in structure and with big phat reverb FX all over the place… The pads here are huuuuuuuuge – wall-to-wall groove… Also the climax is spot on - will work absolute wonders on the dancefloor! Kick-ass track!

#04: Cyrus The Virus & Sono Loco – I Robot

Cyrus is GMS-padawan Jan-Willem Bot who released his debut album Subliminal on Spun Records in 2004… So, as you might have guessed we’re heading toward formulated full-on here… Epic melodies and over-the-top full-on basslines… Bleh – we had such a great progressive thing going, I wasn’t hoping for the transition into full-on to sound like this… It’s not a bad track per se… I’ve heard much, much worse full-on coming out of Israel… But still…

#05: Loki – Lagomorph

Loki is Alistair Johnson who runs trance.org… The style of this track is not easily categorized – it’s a hybrid somewhere in between progressive and full-on… Though with more full-on in the mix than progressive… The energy-level is impressive – but I can’t help feel that this is a little too chaotic… It lacks somewhat structure and an overall sense of direction… It has its moments though – the staccato rhythms are pretty cool and so is the melody that swings in, in the last half - I just wish the rest of the track was as intriguing… Good, but not stand-out good!

#06: Rev Particle – Scheldezoi

Rev Particle is Troy Leidich of Fungus of Light fame… And that connection reveals it all – gone are the fluffy, full-on tones – enter the hard-core, nocturnal hyper-trance! Yeah – this is dark, hard-hitting stuff – So damn powerful and hypnotizing… Music to be played in the darkest hours of the night! The groove here is fucking immense… I can vividly imagine dancing my ass off to this one in a dark, abandoned warehouse somewhere… Crackling, bubbling, bursting with energy… What an absolute smash of a track!

#07: Synchro – Star Spangled

“Where is he? I dunno – your guess is as good as mine!.. What’s wrong? What the hell – where am I?It’s the million dollar question…” Woow – good old Synchro is back! Jeroen van Garling has been in the game for over a decade and has released four albums… The oldest ones being the best! Anyway, this is also deep, darkish trance – though not as dark as its predecessor… I really like it in all its forest-like madness – the trip factor is fucking high here, and this reminds me of why I like the old Synchro albums… As the title suggest, this track has a bit that uses the old American national anthem – executed by Hendrix guitar… Kinda cheesy yes, but it doesn’t ruin an otherwise brilliant track… Cracking, atmospheric stuff!

#08: Zebra-N – Souperman

“Presenting superman! Look, it’s a bird; it’s a plane, its superman!” Paul Elferich is another familiar face… I’ve pretty much liked everything he’s released on Ketuh and Trishula Records compilations… He’s got a certain dark, twisted style that I seem to enjoy… And sure enough, this is as dark and twisted as I could have hoped for… The changes in paces are very well executed and will freak people out… Nice! There is a bleak moment or two here, which prevents me from giving this the double thumbs up… One thumb up is pretty nice too though… ;o)

#09: Jocid & Psychobit – Global Control

Jocid (Joshua Gablan) just released his third album Sonic Addiction on Manic Dragon Records – and he’s working with Psychobit (Rolf Bussink) on the next… A productive guy for sure! Anyway, just as this very compilation, this track is very diverse… It starts as soft, floating morning trance – but something is lurking under the surface… Slowly penetrating, bubbling with life… And before you know it, this track is in full effect… Holy shit! Eventually this is an acid-ridden, full-power night-time bomb… Extremely twisted and trance-inducing! Stellar!

Flying, floating, trippin’ Dutchman! Who would have thought that there was so much talent lurking in The Netherlands? I’m really impressed here – both by the scale of obvious talent, but also by the sheer diversity of this compilation… We go from deep, minimal progressive trance – over full-on – to dark, acid-driven hypertrance… In nine easy steps! …And the best thing is that is actually works as a journey… I don’t care about CDs having to stay within a certain genre – this compilation has loads and that’s brilliant!

Also the mastering by Xenomorph sounds pretty damn good to me, and despite the tacky cover-art I like the cool artist bios inside the digipack… All in all, this is a pretty tasty compilation. It took me completely by surprise, but I really like being surprised… Especially when its positive surprises like this one… Check it out, if you like a broad, diverse spectre within progressive/psytrance… This one crossed over successfully! Enjoy!

Favourites: 1, 2, 3(!), 6(!), 7, 8, 9(!)

DeathPosture

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