Centavra Project - Antigravity

[Tsotsi]

Artist: Centavra Project
Title: Antigravity
Label:  Globel Sect
Date: July 1, 2022

Tracklist:
1. Antigravity
2. Strange Objects Part 2
3. Dark Abyss
4. Alien Presence
5. Pulsar
6. Back In Space
7. Long Way
8. Starry Sky of Sakhalin
9. Interstellar

 

I love Russians.

Is that ok to say?

Let me be more specific, I love Russian people.... mmmm, I love Russian men? There we go, getting closer, I love Russian men who make trance

Not specific enough?

I love Russian men who make Goa Trance. There. We got there.

It’s Goa Trance baby and Centavra Project and Global Sect are here to deliver it to us.

Centavra is the man of the hour. It’s Dmitry Gutsu, a Russian gentleman who has been creating Beautiful tunes since at least 2007. And he didn’t just wake up one day and say I’m gonna start making Goa Trance. No no no, he must have listened to it for years before that and been in love with it for just as long.

Before this release it was kind of up in the air what the future of this label would be as it was going through all of the bullshit of the war situation that humans are and have always been responsible for. Just people, making bad decisions. It’ll never end. And thankfully Global Sect decided that their mission for this music shouldn't end either. So they found a way to release more if it.

Well done space-fuckers and let me just say that is was a good choice to put precedence on Goa Trance rather than the never ending turmoil of our species. Because let’s be honest. Goa is the best thing this bunch of self-assured incompetent primates have ever created

A style that’s hard to beat, a style that draws you deeper into it’s soundscapes as you search for every bit of the track, and as it sucks you in you start to lose yourself as your enthralled by the gases of the nebulae of this style

Music of the past few years has become louder, more bombastic and has a certain edge to it that has felt like it has tried to assert itself into the universe. I’ve enjoyed every second of it. But it’s been a while since we got to delve deep into the deepness of the lulling attractiveness of deep cosmic Goa Trance.

 

Oooooh I’ve missed this kind of music.

 

The album is deep in every sense of the word and devoid of a single negative emotion. No aggression, no pain, no judgement, no message other than the glory of the cosmos and every wonder of this universe that we get to experience for a painstakingly short period of time.

Sure we could figure it all out as species and find a way to prolong our existence, but not this current iteration of us. This iteration is fucked and has absolutely nothing figured out.

But don’t fear, because there are people like Dmitry out there, people who kind of have figured things out. People who understand what’s important in this world. This music right here, the right to enjoy our lives. Which is exactly what he was doing during Alien Presence until the dreaded key change fucked me up (You people and your key changes).

But even that didn’t stop me from basking in the glory of this track…..Well until the next key change that hit even harder. (What the fuck is going in with that)? At first it was 2 too many, but as I've listened to this track over the months it has become one of my favourite tracks.

I mean it’s unbelievable.

The relentless golden shocks and groove and rhythm that pound down on you making the thought of doing anything other than moving your self around is amazing. The second half is psychedelically psychotic and considerably astronautic.

And the more I listen, the less I care about the abrupt shift in direction brought on by key changes and the more I find myself wrapped up in it. It's close to a favourite. 

 

Oh yea, we in the review now.

 

The track before it Dark Abyss gave us an equivalent explosion of gentle hydrogen gases of the universe and it did it with less but less is more, so he really did it with more. More boldness and danger, some extroversion, and a little bit of confidence. What a well rounded character to find in a song.

And the opening track, yes, lets go to the opening track: Antigravity

We float we soar, we fly and we charge into the stars and the nebulas and the moons and the weird planets along with unidentified life of every sort. It has that patient Global Sect deepness to it that doesn't come out roaring or flip a switch into a nightmare of explosions. It is soft, thoughtful, gentle and smooth. It's a precursor to the rest of the album (Spoilers alert) with it's satisfying build of euphoria, sparkling final break and illustrious sounds.

Speaking of unidentified objects, lets talk about the second track Strange Objects Part 2.............. If you insist

Centavra Project ends each segment of the track with it leading into a distant explosion which births something new and more intense than the last. Each melody is euphoric, each act is gripping, impossible to look away from and each moment is full of the beautiful sparkling bubbles of space. The drive is harder and more pounding than the opening track with a bit more intensity brought into the mids with layering and all of the symbol clashes up above. Still each sound is smooth and silky and easy to fall back into.

We've been through track 3 and 4 (Alien Presence & Dark Abyss) so let's just move along to Pulsar.

Pulsar was one of the early release tracks. I tried not to listen to it to much leading up to the full release, but naturally, just like the human desire to create boring problems, I couldn’t help myself.

None of those listens changed a thing, this was a cool track then and it a cool track now. He has created a whole bunch of sounds and used them strategically to spearhead themselves into drops and melodies and new acts of progression in the storyline.

This song is built exactly like some of the best tracks of this genre in the way that it already had everything it needed to be a great track, but then goes ahead an adds another layer of power over it all along with a stellar final act to drive it home. Honestly when I hear a track like this I wish for more of them, but let's be real, a full album of this would be overwhelming and take away from the greatness of this track. If every track was über-charged then no tracks would be über-charged right?

It's a favourite from the album and quite possibly the year of 2023.

I’m still lost in the fog of the last track by the time im a few minutes into Back in Space which is opportune as the artist is probably aware of the effect of his power, so good thing Back To Space gently propels us forward back into the cosmos. The last track was just a stop over and it’s time to continue.

It hits us with perfectly pitched sounds and tuned layers giving us time to dream and float. All before he hits the button for hyperdrive which is purple button for some reason and speeds us into the karmic thunder storm of the universe eating it’s self.

I guess we really are children of the universe huh?

Long Way is the same starry skied, cosmi-fied banger wearing different garb. A silky smooth, Opal encrusted, violet garb. With a little extra sparkle and lustre than the other tracks but the same smoothly textured melodies I can't help but sit back, close my eyes and feel like everything is just right. 

After his little trick at the end of track 3 (Dark Abyss) i was hesitant to believe he was really going to build that last break of Long Way into another act. But the crazy cosmonaut does it making it the coolest moment of the album. One of the great things about this music is feels like artists aim is give you pleasure and enjoyment and when they do something like that, it feels extra nice because it’s like they are saying ~ “No, I am not done giving you pleasure and enjoyment just yet! I’m going to give you more pleasure, pleasure with my mind and my hands."

And I like that goddamned it.

Just like in Pulsar the track could have ended at the 5 & a half minute point, but he gives you a build that sits just under a minute (Time well spent imo) and a final act of glorious melody.

The Starry Sky of Sakhalin comes in to catch us from all of that. It has some cool beat change ups and a sparkly soundscapes, the final melody opens up it’s trench coat to reveal galaxies of gaseous testicles full of all of the beauty of the universe. *Nice vocals too.

The final track Interstellar is a downtempo contemplative track. A track that's good for long walk while you think. About, all of the stuff and the things, the movement and the direction of this world, the force and the motion of this existence, And what the fuck is up with Crypto Currency?

Very dreamy and very nice, reminds me a lot of that Katedra style that is downtempo yet full of energy and movement. 

 

Every track really is written so well. Each break spirals into this kind of sweet oblivion and then drops into a new act that gives each track new life.

Centavra’s Music is weird. It’s loud and very forward yet incredibly deep and hidden.

*Moving on

He also does this thing that i’ve really only consistently noticed in Arronax’s music where it feels like he is drawing back a cosmic arrow on a cosmic bow made out opals from the planet zenon b 352, Which is weird, because their opals are buried six hundred and thirty five thousand and 2 kilometres under the molten surface. How did he get them? Did he force the local population of tribal Marglarks to dedicate their existence to building the infrastructure over generations in order to dig further and further into Zenon b 352 all so he could get some opals? Did he create generations of mythos and worship around the importance of these opals leading the simple Marglarks to focus on their digging above their own families and tribal conflicts?

Did he enslave Marglarks? What did you do Dmitry!

Forget the poor Marglarks for a moment will you? Back to the bow, he draws and charges before letting it go and having it come right at you with this intensity and speed.

It’s cool ...... and cosmic

But Dmitry differs from Arronax in that the incoming attack is less of an attack and more of a happy pill that makes everything feel as if it's in the place it's meant to be. For a moment the world feels whole.

Each track has at least 1 incredibly euphoric and fantastic moment which is all i really ask for. But most tracks are either full of fantastic euphoric moments or just one big fantastic moment all the way through.

What Dmitry and the team over at Global Sect are doing is miraculous. 

I give it 5 out of 5 Super Hadron Colliders

https://globalsect.bandcamp.com/album/centavra-project-antigravity

[GS Concept]

Thank you for your feedback bro, but point is that on this album work 2 russians and 2 ukranians guys (cover art and mixing + mastering) ... we keep our friendship in this madness times

[Tsotsi]

7 hours ago, GS Concept said:

Thank you for your feedback bro, but point is that on this album work 2 russians and 2 ukranians guys (cover art and mixing + mastering) ... we keep our friendship in this madness times

I didn't connect those dots. You all did amazing, I think best solo release in this style since Artifact303's first album. 

[DoktorG]

Haha Tsotsi, you cracked me up with this classic line: "Goa is the best thing this bunch of self-assured incompetent primates have ever created". Nice one geezer!  

Great stuff from Global Sect again, this time on an Astral Projection kind of trip. Lovely dreamy cosmic vibes and production skills that show that the works of Astral Projection were studied in detail; Centavra Project present us with audiophile sound without harshness or screaming leads. The production is quite restrained in a tasteful way, but with plenty of detail and texture. The result is a very good sound with an impressive amount of detail on offer - a sonic scape with endless fractals hovering in multiple dimensions. 

Overall the feeling from the album is quite positive and ecstatic, very different from the drone trance of Katedra on the same label. There is no shying away from minor chords or psychedelia, but this is generally an uplifting album in a spacey kind of way. The space theme is consistent throughout and the melodies reflect that in having a floating or flying quality. 

Let us not forget that the 90s that birthed light-hearted Goa trance was a decade rife with environmental devastation, plague, war, nationalism, authoritarian tyranny, paranoia, media frenzy, and conspiracy theory. Could it be that such appalling contexts create a powerful need for escape and  transcendence. This can lead to a sense of transhuman, transcorporeal, intergalactic belonging. This is what we have seen over and over in our often baleful history. As James Joyce had Stephen Dedalus say in Ulysses, "history is the nightmare from which I am trying to awake".

Welcome Centavra Project to the pantheon of Goa trance! This album deserves to be ranked alongside Artifact 303's Back to Space as a worthy inheritor of the Astral Projection sound. Congratulations to all the artists involved! ~*~ 

 

[DoktorG]

Listened to this again 30/6/2024 - yes, rather derivative, but excellent album.