System 7 - Seventh Wave

I don't agree with ANY of the above. Up to "Power Of 7", Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy were producing an interesting, sometimes even fascinating, combination of techno, trance and house... the primary stand-out facet of which being Steve's lovely gliss-guitar work.

There is very little of that here. Unless you count the looped guitar sample on "7'O-Clock" which is actually taken from one of his 70s albums! Fancy that, sampling yourself instead of bothering to actually pick up one of your many guitars and PLAYING them. Oh alright, there's the odd bit of soloing and gliss work dotted around, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

Why do I despise this album so? Firstly, it's obvious that Steve and Miquette have decided to delve well and truely into the realms of trance. Full-on, 'progressive' trance. Some of you will probably be jumping up and down with glee and heading towards that "add to cart" button on Amazon just because I've mentioned the word progressive... look you can probably find much better trance in this style elsewhere (I'd much rather L.S.G., personally), because tracks like "Manik Shamanik", "High Plains Drifter" and "Varkala" are just mindless, highly repetitive dancefloor pieces which don't really go anywhere or do anything interesting. Yes of course they build and fall, elements added and removed here and there... but it's all 'by-the-numbers' trance sounds and programming. What guitar work there is, is limited to criminally small amounts of soloing, and that rhythm gliss sound Steve keeps using. I love it, even to this day, but on a track like "Cyberboogie" or "Sirenes" he would play a crafted MELODY. Here it's just the same old overused arpeggios.

Then it gets worse. Yes worse. NEW AGE PIANO! On songs like "Sal Del Mar" (a hint to its shiteness in the Italian title. Not that I dislike Italians or Italy, mind you, just that you would have thought Steve would have taken the hint from all those classic rock groups that dabbled in foreign titles - usually during the eighties - and ending up with tracks that are just as pathetic. e.g. the entire Moody Blues LP "Sur La Mer"), and the abysmal "Soft Rain" (eighties! eighties!!): cheesy sampled strings intermingle with pathetic, simplistic piano chords and rudimentary piano soloing, backed with a purely average breakbeat loop, lame big beat rhythms, or yet more mindless trance noodling. "The Abyss" has lots of watery piano wank AND steals a preset from the Orb sideproject FFWD, and "7'O-Clock" has samples of whalesong. Yes.

Have I convinced you yet? Okay so I didn't enjoy "Golden Section" much either, but that at least had some tracks that stood out ("Ring of Fire"!); there are none here. You can bet Steve and Miquette will quickly become tired of all the stoned, glow-stick waving punters in the audience next time they tour... Best track = The all-to-brief and undermixed soloing in "High Plains Drifter", but really everything here sucks.

I don't agree with all of the above. This sounds much fresher and better produced than their previous work. 'High Plains Drifter' is indeed a techno track, but a very powerful one with strong bassline and beat. Also available in the 'Voyager remix' which sounds nothing like the original, but is also a floor filler.
'Varkala' sounds like an old Goa track and is therefor very unneccessary (not the same as 'bad'). 'Manik Shamanik' also has some Psy influences and sounds a lot more powerful, but is faded out in the end (SO not-done in 21rst century dance music!). The downtempotracks are very good and this album is generally recommendable to anyone who loves IDM, Techno, Ambient and Trance.

I generally prefer System 7's earlier work but the final three tracks on this album are noteworthy - Varkala has a good drivin' proper psy-trance 4-beat and bassline while The Abyss and Chiringuito are both really nice chill-out tunes. The third track, High Plains Drifter, shares its title with a 1973 western starring (and directed by) Clint Eastwood but the tune doesn't sound much like a western to me! It's more sort of uneventful techno-trance; then again, I've not seen the movie so for all I know it sums it up nicely. :)