The Bright Side Of The Moog

Three years ago Swiss downbeat juggler, DJ and label persona Master Margherita (Moreno Antognini) embarked on a journey to create his debut album. Moreno already has an impressive roster of chill-out projects and other musical explorations under his belt, but in the psytrance scene he is best known as Peak Record’s chill maestro and as a member of the Peaking Goddess Collective… Everything I’ve heard from Moreno has been top drawer downbeat and judging by the very impressive list of guest artists, Mastura looks like a very interesting acquaintance. Let’s find out.

Confined within a framework of electronic downbeat, Master Margherita’s Mastura album is a pretty versatile collection of both dreamy ambient, mellow downbeat, percussion-driven ethno-tribal chill-out and upbeat world music – and everything in between. There are no bad tracks here, but a couple of the tracks seemed a little too bleak for my taste – or at least I have to be in a certain mood to fully appreciate them. But hey, luckily there’s a hand-full of really nice choons here – and a couple of surprises. Nicey nice.

There’s no doubt that Moreno is a very skilled producer and his talent stretches into several genres. The mastering of this album is also spot-on and the artwork by Punkadelik is gorgeous. Despite all the good things I have to say about this album, it could have used a couple more stand-outs. So in that sense, this is not an essential album. It is however, a quality downbeat album that I’m sure will go down well with hardened chillers and fans of eclectic music in general. Enjoy.

Favourites: 1, 3, 4(!!), 7(!!), 8