damion
Pound Shop Alex Petridis
Various
Imagi:Nations Part 2: Day
Tipworld (UK)
Hypersonic’s The Beginning Of A Story is far and away the best of his tunes I’ve heard under this moniker. Opening with moody, Clapton-unplugged-like guitars, it’s got epic written all over it. A clean, bouncy groove picks up pace and energy as it glides cleanly to an enormous electro break. At which point, we will see two camps of people emerge – you’ll either like this or you’ll hate it. It depends really, on whether you think that psytrance’s ‘borrowing’ of sounds from other styles of contemporary dance is an abhorrently anti-hippy, throw-nag-champa-at-it travesty or whether you think it’s just a bit of fun that puts a different slant in a track and makes the post-break section all the more interesting and exciting for bouncy chase-the-sun bopping. A huge guitar solo brings it to a close, and again its like-it-or-hate-it stuff but whatever, you should do it a favour and check it out as one of the most original tunes of the year. Star-X’s Different is as smooth as you’d expect, though erring more into conventional fullon than Eran’s earlier stuff. It’s got a sort of dubby, dirty, twisty-yet-somehow-80s synth melody driving it along, with an easy-breezy midsection before it flies off into the cosmos with a pinch more of an 80s feel to it. Personally I think this is the bees knees, and I’ve tried *very* hard to pick holes in it. Logic Bomb’s Drop Target gets the remix treatment, and much like their Marauder on Imagi:Nations Night, you’ve got to love it for the combination of their styles – the smooth production, the suggestion of the eerie, fluffy topends and unquestionable manipulation of energy – which comes into its own in the last minute of this track, some of the best music I’ve ever heard from these boys. Phonic Request & Terraformers’ Red Planet sounds a million miles away from their contribution to the Night CD: a sublime, unforced psychemelodic romp that drags you right into its heart with smooth melodies and a breezy groove. There’s a suggestion of more twisty, cod-churning psychedelia bubbling under the surface, but for this one the boys have settled for pure, unadulterated morning trance which works a charm. Eat Static’s Perverted Science is a little more like their very early output with a sort of sci-fi sheen to it (alien UFO on the front cover, anyone?). The 4-4 sections plug on nicely, but it’s when it drops into breaks that it really works – all that energy, all those gnarly noises, all that production finesse, all works incredibly well over a breakbeat, and it’s almost as though the 4-4 compromises it all when it takes over again. Man With No Name takes a considerable amount of cake from this reporter, his Critical Mass being one of the standouts here. It’s a cascade, a seriously killer cascade, that squeezes out evidence of his older sounds, but gets them updated with an angrier, more beefy underside. In other words, you can tall it’s the same dude who wrote Sugar Rush, but since then he’s been on the scotch, listening to JJ Cale, splitting up with many wives and buying a Harley. Four Carry Nuts’ Convergence isn’t anything like I would have expected from them. Intro-free, its straight in with some massive, massive guitars which would normally turn me off if not for three things: one, the guitars are very massive and sound neat; two, they’re written right into the tune as opposed to sounding like just another riff; and three, the tune itself is different, quirky, and banging. Oh, and did I mention it’s taking the piss? I can see how people would hate this, and I can also see how people would love it… but expect a lot of dust to be kicked up if this is played anywhere in Australia :p Mindelight’s La Granja is a funny little fellow, it’s sort of psytrance-blues with (you guessed it) more guitar and a shuffled feel that doesn’t all quite work as well as Cosmosis’ Down At The Crossroads, the nearest musical cousin I can think of. The guitar is clever here, but I’m not sure I get the joke. Finally Total Eclipse’s Cool Man is far from their best, it’s messy and sounds unfinished but we can let that go – for my money the CD peaked with Manwithnoname anyway. So what have we got then. Some utterly stunning tracks here, and not one that doesn’t impress in terms of one or more of flow, energy, quirk or originality. But the trick is, to treat this and Imagi:Nations Part1: Night as one package. On their own, each stands up as a good compilation (with Night edging into the lead); but slapped together they’re fun, exciting and original collections of psytrance suggesting that Tip have put back the thought, the bravery, and the envelope-pushing that’s been so sorely missing the last few years. Reclaim your shiva hoody from the dog’s basket – Tip are cool again.
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