Gaudium - Nordic Nature

Just like Freq's "Strange Attractors" this album is of such high quality that it seems to lack 1 or 2 stand-out tracks. It's more like a 60-min-song at first & that might put some ppl off.

I just love the percussive details in the tracks, small sounds that don't really surface until you've heard the album over 25 times (I'm well beyond that now) Like the hammering sound in the beginning of Sleepwalker that echoes & fades away in that dubby way.
The rhythmic nuaces that give a tribal-touch to something that started out as a clubby tune.

The vocal-samples might seem easy or commercial to some, but never sound cheap to me... In fact there's 1 track where the sample is repeated like an matra that's not to be understood but who's sole goal is to hypnotise the listener.

I would like to describe Gaudium as a synthesis of some other Spiral Trax-artists. It's subtle like Atmos, epic like Vibraspehere & playful like Human Blue, all at the same time. This might sound like they're ingenious copy-cats, yet they fully manage to craft their own style out of it (imo)

Gaudium also get a thumbs up for not recycling sounds other artists already used (apart from the vocal samples ofcourse) , but creating their own arsenal of sonic equipement.

Anyway, should you buy this & get bored, be sure to put it back in your cd-player after a week or 2. You might end up like me & do it again&again&again&again...

Back on plastix!

Finally Spiral Trax is back with a new artist release… One of my fav’e progressive labels! It’s been more than a year since the release of the Atmos album 2nd Brigade… DJ Anti claims this break from releasing was due to ‘lack of interesting music in the trance scene’ and therefore he focussed on his progressive house label ACDC instead… Anyway, things shaped up and he scouted the talent of Swedish producers Denis Bajramovski & Andreas Wennersköld… Gaudium is the Latin word for ‘satisfaction’ and in the wake of all the hype this album has been getting since the release in July, I’m indeed hoping for some satisfaction…

Lots of people have dubbed this the best progressive album of 2005 so far… I disagree! The Tegma, Jaïa, Phony Orphants and Beat Bizarre albums are all better… But don’t get me wrong – this is good album with some very, very good tracks on it… Unfortunately it also has a couple of mediocre, boring and predictable tracks on it… So, in my book the quality consistency level isn’t up to par with the amount of awesome, funky, butt-shaking tracks here… The funny thing is that if you took most of these tracks out of context, I’m pretty sure they would be stand-out tracks – but on this CD some of them drown in overkill… And that’s sad!

Let me stress once more though, that this isn’t a bad album at all… In fact, there are more good tracks than there are bad tracks… I just like my progressive trance to take more chances – and have greater variation… And you can say a lot of things about this album, but variation isn’t one of them… So, as good as this might be as a DJ tool, it’s not as good for home-listening… The good tracks are indeed good – and the weaker tracks are indeed weak!

The mastering by the Son Kite guys sound flawless as always and I like the clinic ‘cold’ touch of the artwork… It fits the music and the title perfectly… Well done! Fans of the more commercial side of progressive trance will most definitely like this, whereas fans of edgy progressive might easily get bored… But to conclude, this is generally a good album – but not among the best this year… Enjoy!

Favourites: 1, 2(!!), 3, 5, 8