Various - Levitation

Candyflip Records is rapidly becoming one of my favourite labels and Levitation is a sweet compilation of catchy progressive tunes that will appeal to any Iboga/Digital Structures fan. It's not that I hear many stand out tracks here, but the cd flows nice and smooth from beginning to finish without a single filler. At home it's sheer pleasure, and at a party this is stuff I personally would like to hear at the chill-out stage just around the time when it's getting dark. It won't necessarily send you into orbit, but still there's plenty of dancing energy here preparing you for another night of madness.

And I'm sure track 6 The First Ride Of The Dragon with its creepy opening sample will make the occasional high flyer raise an eyebrow or two! Spooky ...!

Candyflip Records in Greece is back with a new progressive trance compilation, this time called Levitation, featuring some big names within the progressive trance style.

First out is Neo Logic (Micha Yossef) from Israel, which is the more progressive side of Echotek. He has released a Neo Logic album (Groovelogic) on candyflip last year. This track builds up slowly with breaks, floating vibes and a female voice telling us something. Pretty nice and different track from what I had expected. Track 2 is by progressive house/trance artist Parrket (Mladen Glavinic) from Croatia. He has been releasing some strong tracks on Tribal Vision and Pukka Music lately. Here he gives us a quite slow, groovy progressive house track. Pretty dark one too. Something for early evening. Track 3 goes a more happy, summer direction, with light melodies and happier sounds. This one is made by a collaboration between Motion (Vincent Courcot) and Side-A (Olivier Cambier) from France. Both have previously released tracks on several progressive compilations on various labels. The track they give us here should fit perfect for dancing in the sun. Track 4 is by a new project called Flame On Fire (Tasos Dimomeletis) from Greece, who has two tracks on this compilation. Here we get a stumping, progressive track. Groovy beats and some rough, dark sounds.

Track 5 is by Ryan Halifax from Germany, who allready has a pretty good reputation in the progressive trance scene. The track we get here gives us some real electro influences. Quite pumping track that should fit well for a progressive house audience. Then we get the other track from Flame On Fire. This one starts with some voice samples and scary vibes, before we get thrown into my favourite track on this compilation. A pumping monster with some rough sounds and a trippy, uplifting vibes. Great track! One of the better progressive tracks I have heard lately. Track 7 is the Time Line track originally made by Wizzy Noise from Greece, but here we get a remix done by Swedish Vibrasphere. This track is actually released on the Time Line CD single in 2004. Don’t know why they release the same track again, but it is for sure a good one. Typical trippy Vibrasphere sound, with a totally atmospheric vibe. Good one for sure. Track 8 is not a new track either. This is a track made by 12 Moons (Michael Andersen) from Sweden, and this track was originally released on his album Solid State on Candyflip in 2004. It’s a good track, with an atmospheric, dreamy sound picture, but again, I don’t think they need to release it twice. The last track on this compilation is a fantastic classic originally made by Blue Planet Corporation (Gabriel Masurel) from France, but here we get a remix by Wizzy Noise. They add a little bit more full on sound to it. Not bad, but I prefer the original version for sure.

Candyflip releases a pretty strong progressive compilation here with some really nice tracks. The down side is that they have allready released a couple of these tracks before, but if you haven’t got the tracks allready, be sure to check them out.

Progressive morning choons – Candyflip style!

Candyflip Records from Greece is out with their 15th release – and the third compilation… This time it’s a ‘morning psy progressive compilation’ featuring a handful of well-known artists + a couple of tracks from a newbie… What strikes me as kinda odd when looking at the tracklist, is the inclusion of three tracks that were already released!? … Ah well, they are all good tracks, so let’s hope the new stuff is just as good…

I’m generally against labels re-issuing tracks… I mean, there is so much good music out there, why release the same stuff twice? That being said, when recycling is done with such good tracks as these, I can’t really complain… Both the recycled tracks + the new tracks are all good… There are no bad tracks here, and that’s pretty rare for a compilation… Obviously this compilation consists mainly of progressive tracks – with a couple of uplifting, melodic pieces thrown in the heighten enjoyment… And enjoyment is exactly what I’m getting from this compilation. It’s pretty damn good!

The liner notes lists 2004 as release year which is obviously wrong… That and the recycling are the only flaws I can find here – everything else is sweet… Fans of smooth, progressive trance with a hint of morning should definitely check this out… It’s well worth it! Enjoy!

Favourites: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7(!!), 8(!)