2001’s "This Is Not in Fashion" was a long time ago, and back then I remember loving it and wondering quite how most Psytrance could call itself psychedelic with a straight face. But maybe this is psychedelic in the same way that Emerson Lake and Palmer is; or something. Live instruments combine with midi, possibly inside a washing machine… you can’t tell, it’s that sort of album.

We Are Not Intelligent is a creeping, slomo stomp knee-deep in paranoid electro. It puts me in mind of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, although with more elves than zombies. Baltic Sea is a fucking corker – sounding like Kraftwerk on Finnish mushrooms. The production is pure 80s, sheeny shiney psychedelic music. It’s just gorgeous, and one I intend to play out whenever I have an excuse to do so. Rightto edges it to a more conventional psy pattern, but still maintaining this glorious electro sheen that sounds very, very good right now. Kashahum sounds like it was lifted from Jean Michelle Jarre’s subconscious while he was asleep after having a bit of a heavy K session. The sounds are just off the scale here, seriously.
It sounds like the theme tune to one of those morbidly utopian post-Tron films in the 80s. Staggering. Rauma is a more stuttered approach; as though the soundtrack to Warriors was being recreated by R2D2 and his mates (they play the Mos Isely Cantina every second Thursday, 8pm till 10.) Nopsakka is unbelievable, I can’t even think of anything to liken it to. Think the digitally downloaded brains of The Prodigy and The B52’s, collaborating to make music that bits of old computers can breakdance to.
Then, it turns into the love theme from Bladerunner as retold by Speak N’ Spell and BigTrak. None of which quite prepares you for the somewhat unsettling Creatures. Twisted vocal spouts twisted words, while a persistent bottomend pumps along. Screams and whistles and funk wash in over the top… its ker-wality, but one hopes Mr Reipas doesn’t have any children. Nature of Reipas Part III is in a similar vein… think young Gamma Goblins on a school trip to Chessington World of Adventures. The music shifts from quirky laugh-along-a-reipas to a sort of “house piano riff with special needs”, all gleefully sounding, like the first album did, a bit like the music on the Rainbow Road level on Mario Kart. Why Does It Always Have to Be New? sounds like fin-de-cycle, closing time music… or the end of a rather bizarre film in which Pingu and Mr Bean join the Finnish football team to thrash Brazil 16-1 in the final of the World Cup.
And then things go weirder still, with the 168,000-BPM Midnight Valssi, another shockingly shocking tune that has no regard for your wellbeing, no regard for your sanity, and no regard for your Auntie, which it recently defecated on after a date went wrong. Despite this, you like it for being a manically psychedelic tune with a muted trumpet lead, a scando-folk-waltz midsection, not forgetting the thrash metal stab at the end. Syntikkaihme sounds like Finland hosting the Winter Olympics and the Reipas man in the house providing the soundtrack to some ghastly opening ceremony, meanwhile my neighbours think I’ve finally gone fully bonkers with this Clannad-on-DMT coming out my windows. With Return at the end starting out Tangerine Dream and then morphing eerily into a full-throttle electrofunk workout, you feel that something of a milestone has been reached.

Gneuinely psychedelic, genuinely fresh, genuinely essential. And I had fun reviewing it.


• Favorites: 3(!), 6, 8(!!), 10(!), 12(!!)
• Rating: 10/10

James Reipas is a group from Finland who has previously released an album on Australian Demon Tea Recordings (This Is Not In Fashion). Now they are out with a second album, this time on the Finnish label Freakdance Records, which usually release pure crazy forest trance from Finland and other weird stuff.

This album is actually one of the weirdest albums I have heard from 2005. Even the home made cover art is totally strange. Most of the tracks we get here seems to have no boundaries in music style. It’s not trance, but more like synth pop without vocals, mixing in many different styles, such as polka and acoustic stuff. Most of the tracks sounds pretty simple and ”home made” to me, still many of them are quite pleasant to listen to. Pretty refreshing ideas, that could fit well on a childrens TV show, in some cartoons or maybe at a crazy vodka party in a sauna in Finland? Anyway, I had a lot of fun with this album. Simple, but funny melodies that makes you smile.

You should probably be pretty openminded to enjoy this album. Personally, I find it really fun to listen to. So, if you don’t care of musical quality, want some russian vodkapolka vibes and just want some fun music for your party at home, check out this and have fun to 80’s synth melodies and weird soundpictures.

James Reipas's sound is unique, why? Because it's a mix of live acoustic instruments & hardware synths with Midi system, furthermore musically the tracks are electic in a bald, even strongly bald style which is truely atypic for the psytrance scene. By the way when i'm saying unique sound, i'm the first convinced it won't match everybody's taste due to the bald dimension.
However, let's come back to the electic side of the album, inside Uwaga you'll be able to find electro (tracks 1,2,5,9), rock (T 3,4,7), classical music (T 10), cold (T 1,7,8) & pop (T 2,4,5,9,11) influences.
About the 2 last tunes missing: Nopsakka is the straightest suomi sound with, like overall the album, a live rythmic played & Return starts like a climatic ambient tune then evolves into more suomi dancefloor sound with soft 303 loops.

Full on's Djs & hardcore lovers pass your way.
Favorites:2,4,5,6,8,9,10