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Hunab Ku - Magik Universe


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Label: Blue Moon Productions HQ

Catalog#: BMPHQ CD003

Format: CD, Album, Mixed, Digipack

Country: Thailand

Released: 2000

Genre: Electronic

Style: Goa Trance

Credits:

Artwork By - Mandy Rocha

Artwork By [Adapted] - Simon@BMP

Artwork By [Logos] - Nar@BMP

Producer - Hunab Ku

Written-By - Clarke* , Wenham*

Notes: Total time: 72:22

Rating: 4.63/5 (24 votes)

 

Tracklisting:

1 Phoenix (10:37)

2 Radiance (7:37)

3 Fractal Harmonic (6:32)

4 Dominion (6:10)

5 Fallen Angel (8:21)

6 Dreamstar (6:42)

7 Evolution (7:04)

8 Magic Mirror (6:09)

9 Matrix (5:21)

10 Wavespell (7:45)

 

 

This must be the most neglected and underrated gem, nobody even made a review thread for it? <_<

 

 

This is the greatest sequel to Transdimensional of all the D5 & Co albums from 2000, indeed it surpasses it. It's super energetic, intelligent, deep and full of epic melodies with little cheese if any. Having a really loud kick and baseline with melodies swirling in the background makes it all the more powerful and better, not to mention giving it another unique edge.

 

The opening track Phoenix takes awhile (several minutes) to build up ambient atmosphere and set the tone for the whole album before anything really starts. When it does it is soon evident this is a two up on the Pleiadians! It uses very similar sounds as the Pleiadians did but it also has a huge overarching direction and presence they mostly lacked. After that the album becomes less superficial but maintains energy and interest throughout. I won't type about all the tracks, I'll just say they are all excellent and steeped in truly magical sounds and melodies. In the D5 style the sounds used in the music are unique to this CD and particularly amazing. The heights of the album are Fallen Angel, Dreamstar, Magic Mirror and Matrix, though all the tracks are favorites. The other notable track is Wavespell, which has a cool tribal beat and beautifully closes the album and the journey leaving us in a state of tranquility!

 

I really can't think of any more spiritual musical experience than this CD. I'm actually convinced that all spiritual music lovers will love it and it's the psytrancer harsh-music-for-dancing scene that cannot appreciate it. Most of the tracks are perfect. The flow and mixing of the album is perfect. The opening and closing tracks are perfect. Hell, even the artwork is perfect.

 

This and the other D5 albums, along with the albums from Chi-AD, were both the last breath and greatest height of goa trance. There's no hint of psytrance or minimalism or whatever else that had already taken hold at the time, this is pure melodic goa that has yet to have been rivaled by any of the "newschool goa" artists.

 

Favorite tracks: 1!,2,3!,4,5!,6!!,8!!,7,9!!,10!!

 

10/10 and #1 album IMO.

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  • 4 months later...

Very good album, sounds much older than it is. In fact, its the oldest sounding album in my collection, older than early Eat Static, Indoor etc. First time I heard this I thought it was ripped off of an old tape from the 80's. Very good though, its goodness is only surpassed by how old it sounds. I think I've made my point now.

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Very good album, sounds much older than it is. In fact, its the oldest sounding album in my collection, older than early Eat Static, Indoor etc. First time I heard this I thought it was ripped off of an old tape from the 80's. Very good though, its goodness is only surpassed by how old it sounds. I think I've made my point now.

 

You weren't kidding, this album sounds like really, really bad quality, a re-mastered version would be brilliant to have. *nods to suntrip*
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  • 1 year later...
  • 8 years later...

Not too often I praise the ending downtempo track (actually here it's totally beatless), but Wavespell is a special track. Beautiful stuff.  

By the way it was remastered in 2012. Still even the remastered version sounds old, because the music itself sounds very old school. Nice work even though the cross-fading between the tracks is very sloppy.

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  • 6 months later...

First of all I can't fathom how I managed to miss out on this album before. This is really the bee's knees right here, a really enjoyable album to listen to from start to finish. I really like the oriental motifs on this Album, stylistically it sounds like a blend of Dimension 5-Transdimensional and Ra-To Sirius. It has the hectic cosmic brilliance of the D5 sound palette, imbued with a sweet oriental sensation akin to that of Ra. It's a more shiny and solar expression, than the one found on Transdimensional. I suppose the idea behind the concept of this album was to make something which allude to the Maya mythology. And it's perhaps not too easy to know what the music of the Mayan people sounded like. Nor the music of the ancient egyptians ⎯ as in the case of Ra-To Sirius, which this album has touch points with ⎯ and since goa trance is oriental in nature, this album sounds oriental/egyptian. Rather than however a Mayan influenced goa track would sound like. :) Or perhaps it's more conceptually influenced by the New Age Mayanism which is mentioned on the wikipedia about the Mayan Hunab-Ku.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunab_Ku

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayanism

That the Hunab Ku -Magik Universe album shares style cues with Ra-To Sirius and Dimension 5-Transdimensional is of course not a mere coincident, as the Hunab Ku project shared some members with both Ra and Dimension 5 of that era. So it is indeed part of the same goa trance pantheon.

The album starts off with the track Phoenix, which fittingly for an intro track has a very lenghty and lush intro. I was listening to it while the sun blessed me with some well needed sunlight, which made me appreciate the uplifting sun-drenched qualities of this music even more. Listening to the track Radiance, makes me wonder if perhaps this is where Mindsphere found some inspiration for the bass and kick style on his track Molecular Restrictive and some other tracks of him. It's almost a carbon copy. :) As well as the  high/pass or band-pass filtered synth sounds that swirl in the background. The lush intro to Radiance as well sounds a lot like the intro to Perception by Mindsphere. Radiance is a very cool track indeed, and it sounds very different to other goa tracks of the era. Clearly this album plays in a league of its own.

Fractal Harmonic is not a bad track, it's just not as memorable as the other tracks I've listened to so far on the album, and it's a tad bit repetitive. Dominion picks up the pace, this is the most Transdimensionalesque track so far of the bunch, a real dancefloor/forest stormer. Fallen Angel continues in the high-octane pace set by the previous track, it's more emotional to my ears then Dominion, it's has a veritable sense of storytelling and variation, as it twists and turns to keeps you engaged. It manages to convey a flying sensation, an emotional rush, towards the next destination, which is the track Dreamstar. This track manages to be even more emotional than Fallen Angel, it has beautiful key changes which we don't hear too often in goa trance. Here we are luxuriantly blessed with them. Dreamstar has an angelic, divine quality to it. The euphoric aspects of this track are of the highest degree, and I envision myself flying through a neverending stream of light, as if flying through a star cluster at a very high velocity.

Evolution goes back to the more classic D5-sound we all know and love. This track could easily have been on a Dimension 5 EP or album. It's darker and more moody than previous tracks, but for this albums style I prefer the more uplifting emotional rollercoasters that the other tracks provided. This is however a clever gradual build of the album. It adds variation and balance, some lighter tracks complemented by the subtle darker qualities of Evolution. I can appreciate that this track has lots of potential, but I think a remaster of this album would bring out more details in this and other tracks. It has some lovely background sounds that are somewhat masked by a not so stellar mastering. The details are there, but they would really benefit from a 2020 remastering polishing, to really make all the details pop. :)

Magic Mirror is a bit more trippy and hypnotic in style. The main leads and harmonic progression unfortunately are not as memorable to me, as those found in Fallen Angel, Dreamstar and Matrix. The emotional impact thus becomes somewhat lackluster in comparison.

The track Matrix, to me sounds like something out of the dream trance genre, from the mid 90's. Mainly due to the key changes in the bass pattern. A weird choice is that they opted to put an auto-pan effect on the bassline. So it rotates around in the stereo field. I could have lived without that. But the track makes up for it with its sheer majestic beauty, by creating an ornate melodic landscape which surrounds the bassline. The pads and arpeggiated melodies reminds me a bit of Doof Or Hallucinogen. Not as trippy as Hallucinogen, but equally entrancing. This track is a nostalgic, euphoric masterpiece. It has a distinct summery shimmer over it. And my guess would be that it's inspired by MDMA rather than the stuff which influenced Hallucinogen's tracks. It's also quite similar in tonality to California Sunshine-Green Sky. The change in tone and atmosphere during the break at around 6 minutes is mesmerizing.

Wavespell takes all the stellar aspects of this album and distills them into a grand slowed down departure. Plenty of arpeggiated spirally melodic layers are served, and if this is the desert, I want more! I'll just put the album on repeat, because this was a really magical album, which I plan to listen to a lot during the spring and summer months.

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