Indidginus ‎– Kaleidoscope

Organic goa-trance on a trip to nowhere:

Starting off with what appears to be a heartbeat and turning into an increasingly loud howl from submolecular inner space that evolves into sounds of nature, the first (and longest) track takes the listener back to what might be the very dawn of time.

We witness the birth of nature and an intelligent being that wants to speak. It tinkers with a mélange of "ethnic" (Indian and Arabic) instrumentation, then violently awakens during track #2 where it learns rhythm, percussion, dub and strums a bit of guitar before finally leaning into a deliciously tortured electric guitar solo that, sadly, goes extinct before it has chance to evolve into a higher form.

According to his résumé, Michael "Indidginus" Martin also pays the bills by creating soundtracks for short films and adverts. I cannot claim to have heard/seen any of them but I can very well imagine that he is good at it... very good, in fact.

What we have here is living proof that Mr. Martin is quite adept at creating interesting soundscapes, largely based on his didgeridoo and a patchwork of samples and sounds that this reviewer cannot shake the feeling were not created specifically for this album but rather originate in a reservoir of previous unfinished efforts that lacked a specific direction.

This may or may not also explain the title "Kaleidoscope".

"Myriad", for instance, demonstrates noteworthy drum programming skills (perhaps the influence of ex-stalwart Colin Bennun), and these would be a pleasure to hear more of.

"Spritual Spearmints" could've been another stand-out track if it got to a point: it builds up and up and up, and the expected climax ends with its end and the beginning of the last track that really does sound like a remnant from the MOD/tracker days and the only one that includes proper vocals which are, admittedly, almost angelic and dreamy -- in a positive way. And the journey ends thus.

Still, Mr. Martin does manage to dish up his individual servings with a common flavour -- one which demands a serious sound system and enough pressure to extract those wonderfully low and primordial frequencies out of this smorgasbord of an album.