Josko - Vajra

After a brief period of inactivity in terms of releases since the debut album "Phonic Peace" by French act Cell aka Alex Scheffer, Italian based Indica Music run by DJ Edoardo who is also well known in the psytrance scene with Neurobiotic Records have come out with a spanking new Chillout release featuring mostly globally well known artists and a few new and fresh acts who are on the Indica rooster. Compiled by Josko who is also the Chillout DJ for Indica "Vajra" is a release that cannot go wrong with its massively chilled lineup .

Opening track "Lunar Patchouli" by dub and world music mastero "Gaudi" as the name suggests has a spacy feel with a Earthly dubby vibe, a perfect way to start the trip. Next comes Cell with "Idea Spiral", this one has a phat tribal dub groove to it with generous doses of ethnic chants. "Tripswitch" whose album "Circuit Breaker" had everyone gasping for more gives us a epic piece of downtempo electronica with sharp blips and bleeps progressing into a 4x4 structure keeping the tribal groove intact, the break on this one is simply breathtaking with all the elements of the track popping up randomly along with a soft piano solo. Maurizio Liguori with his project "Mauxuam" is the best thing that could have happened to the chillout scene in
recent times, "Sounds a lot" takes the BPM a litle higher treating us to a highly psychedelic ride, undoubtedly one of the best tracks ive heard this year!!!!

We get a change in direction into tracey 4x4 chillout territories by Vincent Villuis aka AES Dana who is even one half of H.U.V.A Network and a regular on Ultimae Records, I can visualize "Opalin (Sonica Edit)" doing some serious mind elevation tricks on listeners if played at the right time, once again we get a highly psychedelic track. Next is Indica's in house artist "Scene" with a psyfx splattered track full of jazzy and funky twists and turns, keep a look out for his debut album on Indica that should hopefully be released sometime this year. We seamlessly flow into the next tarck by Brazilian artist "Trotter" serving us a upbeat dub track with a very funky structure, another highlight which i have personally tested on the chill floor.

Nearing the end we are greeted by "Le Bonne Etoile" by "Tikal" who is a well established act in the trance as well as the chillout scene, the track dosnt quite grab my attention but has a very melancholic vibe with loads of vocal samples ranging from ethnic chants, movie smaples and a lady singing in what seems to me as French or Italian along a breakbeatish tune. Closing the compilation is the fresh Portuguese act "chilled c’quence" who released their highly anticipated debut album "Magic Sense" this year, a good track with excellent use of funk guitaring but nothing too groundbreaking.

As mentioned earlier "Vajra" has something for everyone and would go well with seasoned chillout listeners as well as the occasional ones. A must for every chillout DJ.

Favourites - 2,3,4,5,7