X-Dream ‎– Trip To Trancesylvania

While I'm usually not that much of a dedicated X-Dream follower, I must say this album has three tracks which leave me in utter amazament every time!
First of all there is the almost 17 minutes long live version of their early classic, The 5th Dimension, which is so nicely arranged and really develops like a gargantuan science fiction novel. Tiny effects, glimpses of melody, vague percussion and noises coming from outer space - all that dominates the track for slightly under four and a half minutes. It's only then you get snippets of the main lead, which makes a large entrance at 05:30. And what a voyage it is from there on... Especially from 08:40 on when the fast bass line comes in with the drum kicks in full gear. It's a near perfect track, and actually makes me sad I wasn't around at the time to dance my bones off to this one.
The other two tracks I thoroughly enjoy here are both mixes of another one of their old Tunnel classics, Children Of The Last Generation. It's one of those golden tracks where old as Donkey Kong goa trance meets the early Frankfurt hard trance sound. It's a wonderful blend of the two and quite probably the strongest reason why were X-Dream considered amongst the greatest innovators of a genre which was taking its baby steps back then. It starts out with sampled laughs of small children and then steadily moves on with pretty fast percussion and a chopped bass line, with the first lead entering at around the three minute mark. There are tons of tiny acid synths piercing from the background. There's a break with the "children of the last generation sample", followed by awesome, off the wall melodies and plenty wicked 303s. Sweet as an ice cold Coke during a steamin' hot summer afternoon! The triplet mix is a downtempo version of the first track, with no real drum kicks or anything, just smooth and subtle percussion used as a backdrop to really touching trance melodies. Trance as in that old school way where not everything had to be either thought provoking and considered psychedelic or just pump your fist in the air euro trance stuff.
On the down side of things, I find the rest of the album disposable. Thing is, this one will hit very, very hard on your wallet if you really want it. It's old, objectively good, has a high historical value and is regarded as an extremely sought after collector item. Thing is, if you're interested in hearing Children Of The Last Generation, both versions can be found on the 1993 Tunnel Records 12", which should not be too hard to track down. As for the live mix of The 5th Dimension, it's a gorgeous piece of music, but it's your call just how far would you go to own a copy of this one...

One of my all-time favourite psytrance albums. This is X-Dream's release from their golden heydays, back when they actually made amazing and original, melodic electronic music, not just some ultra-repetitive annoying and harsh psytrance they've made beginning with the irritating Irritant album. Beautiful piece of trance music. I love all the tracks, especially Time Begins Tomorrow, an absolutely beautiful ambient-psy track, one of my all-time favourite ambient tunes. This is a very recommended album for all you oldskool psytrance and trance collectors.