Meller - Rockable

Tribal Vision Records has become one of my favourite progressive trance labels in a short time, releasing pretty high quality all the way, including a fat booklet with informative text and nice cover arts. This time we get the second album by Meller (Marco Scherer & DJ Mel). It is almost a compilation, because the other half of the compilation are the same tracks remixed by other artists.

The first half of the album are new tracks by Meller. Quite massive, drifting progressive trance tracks, with some tribal influences here and there. My favourite of these is track 2 (Fatboy). A pumping track with some interesting use of vocals. Track 5 (Aurora) is also pretty nice, with some floating melodic parts, perfect for the morning. Quite fluffy, but not too much. Nasa (Mikkel Rasmussen) has remixed the Rockable track. He gives us some atmospheric vibes and drifting progressive vibes. Rinkadink from South-Africa is known for a more full on style. Here he gives us a remix of the Fatboy track. A massive full on version, with quite rough sound. Not exactly my cup of tea, so I prefer the original here. Tegma (Omar Chelly & Jason Orfanidis) from Sweden gives us a remix of My Favourite Man. This one goes quite massive, somewhere between progressive and full on. A little bit harder than usual from Tegma. Another strong Swedish progressive trance group, Etnoscope, has remixed the Phase Nacht track. They give us their typical style of tribal progressive trance, with tribal drums etc. Stumping track with floating vibes above. Builds up slowly. Vibrasphere, also from Sweden, finishes this album with a remix of the Aurora track. One of my favourite tracks on this album. I like the way Vibrasphere deliver a beautiful, still trippy and groovy style in their tracks.

This album is quite interesting with those remixes by some top artists in the progressive scene. Not everything here fits my taste too well, but we sure get some strong progressive tracks here anyway.

Tribalism ^ Tribalism Remixed

Tribal Vision Records from the Czech Republic are out with the second album from German duo Meller… Marco Scherer & Dirk Herrmann (DJ Mel) released their debut album Solar Drums on AP Records in 2004… I haven’t heard that one, so I don’t really know what to expect here… But it’s Tribal Vision – a label that has yet to let me down, and the roster of remix artists are nothing short of impressive… So my hopes are up!

Remarkable is about the best damn label I can give this CD… I really, really like it. The original Meller tracks have some really cool vocal experiments going on… Usually I’d quickly grow tired of repeated samples, but for the most part they work really well in this context… The remix concept is pretty damn cool and for the most part, all tracks are good here… There are no bad tracks at all – and it’s not like the remixes outshine the originals… Not at all – they are equally good! I also like the subtle mix of styles here… This ranges from fluffy commercial beach-trance to banging, electro-ridden psytrance… With everything in between!

The woody artwork is neat, and again Tribal Vision Records treat us to a fat, informative booklet with info on all participating artist – and the usual handy, easy-rip DJ slip is still there… Quality all the way! I strongly recommend this album to fans of progressive trance with rich tribal-, full-on and groove-crossover potential! It’s pretty fucking solid! Enjoy!

Favourites: 2(!), 3(!), 4, 6, 7, 8(!), 9(!)