DeathPosture, Oct 12, 2004
From the misty mountains of Greece, here’s Mountain High!
Mountain high? Clever little play on words, eh? Nicey nice… Anyway, here’s a bunch of chilled tunes from Greek label Candyflip – compiled by top dog Alex Candy himself. Mastered by Huby & Vincent from Ultimae – which is a quality stamp in my book!
This is supposed to be a journey-compilation. Starting at the bottom of the mountain, and then progressing thru the tracks ‘till the mountain top is reaching with the last track… How nice a concept… Let the journey begin…
#01: The soundtrack to the first steps up the hill is this little wonder, by Solar Fields. Nothing complicated going on here, this is minimal ambient… Beatless grooves and mellow soundscapes… Pure ambient… Magical!
#02: Vibrasphere – The kings of progression! Does it get any better? ;o) This is dub territory folks… Easy going atmospheric soundscapes, deep groovy beats and brilliant little melodies – all very intelligently put together into one amazing work of art!
#03: Ahh, this one is so damn cool… Indidginus nailed it! The perfect chilled, moody ambience is there from the get go, with organic sounds – wind, water, chanting… Accompanied by a gentle keyboard playing a simple melody… And then, a deeeeeeeeep, dubby bass slowly pokes its head out…. How beautiful!
#04: Triac continues in Indidginus’ footpaths, up the mountain. We’re still at the very mellow part of the… ehh… mellow scale! Dubby beats, organic sounds, smooth percussion… Man, I like this part of the mountain! Electro trance melodies chilled to perfection! Nice track!
#05: J.viewz the downbeat alter-ego of Jonathan from critically acclaimed Israeli sensation Violet Vision… And the talent we all know clearly shines through on this experimental piece. Yes, we’ve moved north up the mountain and the focus is slowly going towards more tribal, housey dub… This track has some of the most interesting voice samples… Repetitive, eastern inspired chants cut up and looped… Very intoxicating. Another nice track!
#06: Kick the bong and light some incense! We’re getting even more tribal now… This percussion based track slowly builds into something that could be the soundtrack to some tribal ritual… Characteristic is the use of a minimal acoustic guitar… Or perhaps even a sitar? Can’t tell, but it sounds so good… I’m lighting some incense right now! Very ethnic, very slow, very nice!
#07: “Numbers go on!?” Rrrright, so further up the mountain, we’re getting just a little tranceier now… But just a little. The bass is a little sharper now, and suddenly we have drum loops… This is ethno electro dub, in its purest form… Also this track showcases good use of percussion with all kinds of nice rhythms… However, I feel it kinda lacks a sense of direction. Average track.
#08: Going further up, we encounter a bushman… Wow, jungle-influenced tribal beats alongside distant floating melodies and the random voice sample of a woman thrown in here and there…This is one funky bushman… Though, he tends to be stuck on the same note for a short while…And what’s with the abrupt ending? Decent track
#09: Ahh, things are picking up now… This dubby, electro piece has an instant wiggle-your-toe effect on you… All kinds of percussion are used here… Drums, bongos, claves, etc… Also we’re treated to a simple, yet beautiful melody that occasionally pops up… And again – a short sample of a woman sayin’ something in a foreign language… Very cool track!
#10: Takin’ it down a notch… So we’re going down the mountain now? Second track from J. viewz, though the style is somewhat different here… We’re going dubby again – I’d even go as far as saying heavy dub – With Raja Ram-like flutes… Eventually, the track reaches some kind of peak where we get some well crafted, slow electric-guitar sounds… Decent track!
#11: We’ve reached the top! This is Vincent of former Asura-fame – and man, does he know his shit! This is by far the “darkest” track here… Extremely well-produced dark, ambient here… Immensely psychedelic – trance-inducing in nature… Truly a worthy last track… This is amazing!
This is truly a magical journey. All in all, this is a huge, amazing, eclectic ambient compilation. The production is crystal-clear and the most of the tunes are so very good. Perhaps I would have changed the order of some of the tracks, to ensure a 100% flawless flow, but that’s really nitpicking… Also, despite the beautiful artwork on the cover, my digipack seem to be of low quality as the plastic-bit holding the CD has already detached itself from the actual digipack. That’s a shame ‘cause generally this CD oozes quality all the way through!
This album gain so much with headphones so put them on, close your eyes and climb that misty mountain! It’s a journey you’ll not soon forget. Highly recommended!
4.3/5 (