Disc 1 (Gaia 7) can be labelled as the Goa/Trance side. The opener “Everything's Going Fine” is one of the first tracks by Johann Bley, originally released by this label in 1994 and licensed to TIP Records for their first compilation Yellow a year after. The version on the TIP compilation is shorter though, so CD speaking this wonderful track appears only in full length on Gaia 7 + 8. Track 2 is by Japanese artist X-Tron and is again very nice. Boris Blenn gives us track 4, a wonderful melodic track very reminiscent of the style he became famous for later in 1995. The track is short but the melodic build-up is instant. Track 5 is by a one-time collaboration between X-Dream and DJ Cosmix. This is one of my favourite old Goa tracks; maybe because I had this on tape though. “Are We Alone” is a very dreamy tune, hence the name maybe. This track is very much unknown since it didn’t make it on more easily accessible CD’s. Track 6 is a Hard-trance tune. It’s rough when compared to the rest, but still fits perfectly in-between. It’s 1994 after all, back then we didn’t make much distinction between styles. Being it Techno, Trance, Goa, Acid or Hard-Trance, it was all one big family of music unless you dropped the Prodigy in-between ;) Brainman gives us track 7. “Spiral Energy” would be the first appearance by this artist who would later release for TIP Records. Like most of his later material, this is no big track. German Trance legend Olivier Lieb is behind track 9, another great old Trance song. The end track by Cybersnack has a long intro until a beat drops after several minutes and has the famous “Turn on, tune in, drop out” sample.

Disc 2 is very different from disc 1. Gaia 8 could be labelled the Techno/Acid side. It’s starts off with Robert Leiner’s hypnotic tune, followed by the minimalistic and repetitive Techno tune by Guillaume La Tortue. Contributing are also classic artists like Voov and Thomas P. Heckmann, the latter’s track is a weird breakbeat/acidic trippy experiment.

The sound lacks a lot, even when considering it’s 1994, it’s really poor. Most tracks sound extremely dated and poorly produced but there are still gems deserved to be listened here.

This is far from an essential release, it’s more of a collectors item IMO.