Koxbox ‎– The Great Unknown

Album of the millennium. This is a concept thing that builds from deep minimalist techno to excellent psychedelic. Recomended.

This album is, to me, the definition of psychedelic trance. It's a breathtaking and incredibly inspired journey through… I'm not even sure what! There is indeed an essence of some "great unknown" present throughout the album. It can be a challenging listen at first, but ultimately I find it is very rewarding experience.

"Statement" is 40 seconds of a robotic voice gradually reducing the sentence "my country is a state of mind" to a mere "om". The down-tempo, slightly dubby "Go Fly A Kite" comes next, featuring some weird singing and bubbly, trippy synths. The title track picks up the pace, delivering a diverse ten-minute blast of funky psychedelia that at times exhibits a delightful touch of silliness and never lets go of the listener.

"6 Cells" follows in a similar vein, though more progressive and not quite as far out as its forerunner. Shuffled beats and synths dominate here, reinforcing the funky aspect of Koxbox's sound. "Crunchy Moles" begins with a speech sample from what sounds like an Australian anti-piracy campaign. A trancey bottom-end under more trademark Koxbox funkiness leads us to a climax that is both beautiful and amusing — a vocoded voice singing "crunchy moles"? What the hell? I love it.

"DJ Traveller" is a short interlude with an odd airport announcement, ending with a chill-inducing "we wish you a very nice flight… into space!". This is where "Geomancer" takes over and presents to us the more sinister side of the album. The funk is still here, but the overall tone is now more serious.

Continuing the darker sound comes the epic "Lunar Bin", a twisting and turning ride through space. At six minutes in, the beat is broken and you know something major is about to happen. Koxbox do not disappoint, and the following three-minute finale of the track is a dazzling burst of deep psychedelia.

"Doppelgänger" resumes directly where the previous track ended, gradually slowing down and destroying the sound. We then get a speech sequence, backed by pads whose sound I can only describe as shining bright light. The ending feels like waking up from a fever dream, and with "King of Jazz" we're standing on Earth again. It's an experimental but safe-feeling jazz-psy-breaks piece with some echoes from previous tracks — "6 Cells" in particular — that nicely wraps up the album. It's so varied it's hard to believe it lasts for almost ten minutes.

I must have listened to this CD about 60 times now, and it never gets old. It's amazing that it was released ten years ago — the production is on a par with what you'd expect from an album created today.

Absolutely recommended for anyone who enjoys the slightly more experimental side of psytrance.

Nice new and refreshing sounds here, the style is pretty versatile, I find that the album ranges from ambient chillout to full on psytrance, still leaving room for slower groovy and sophisticated tracks. Why the album is labelled Kox Box I dont know, first we saw the tracks appear in various DJ charts as Saikopod, rumours flurished about this name change, later it was released on Liquid Audio Sounds(Novatekk), using the Kox Box name – Well, its Frank E and Ian Ion who made the music, they usually use the name Psychopod when releasig stuff, whereas Kox Box used to be Frank E and Peter Candy + Ian Ion.

Tracks 2-6 are all slow bpm wise, and demonstrate different moods and grooves, without loosing the psychedelic edge Kox Box/Psychopod/Saikopod are know for. Very trancy and relaxing, but still danceable, I find them pretty good for relaxing after a party.. When arriving at track No 7 all this changes though, the beat gets faster, and the music more driving toward psytrance, preparing us for some faster and meaner stuff, track 8 kicks in, "Lunar Bin" is absolutely one cool track, dark, driving, aggresive, psychedelic and long, a crazy killer track, 08.00 minuttes into the track it transforms into exactly what I like best – something that gives me the chillsJ The album says goodbye with the breaky "King Of Jazz" track, which theme is pretty jazzy, as the name indicates, some nice sounds here also...

This is the most experimental album from Koxbox. It's one of the first goa/psytrance cd's I ever bought, I didn't realy like it at that time because I thought it was to freaky while under influence of mushrooms, but now it's still the most inovative and experimental cd's in my collection. After the short intro the cd begins with a very slow track with very deep sounds and relaxing vocals. After that it goes on in a faster tempo, but not as fast as you are used to hear from Koxbox. The complete album is like a story you can listen to and it ends with a long track which seems to contain a little bit of all previous tracks. This album is certainly the crown jewel on my psy-collection, toghether with Shpongle's Nothing lasts...