Darshan - Spectra

antic, Sep 07, 2006

This here is one of the more underestimated psytrance albums ever IMO. Why? I think its because of peoples expectations after their debut album Awakening released a year before.

Most of reviewers thought the new one will be similar, with lots of layered acid lines, high tempo and sci-fi samples. Well, they were wrong. And I think it is a good choice for Darshan to change their music, because - to some extent - most of the tracks from Awakening sounded similar, and if they would do another album like it, then it would just be too much. Spectra is more chilled (though not slow at all), more focused on atmosphere, background sounds and effects rather than on leads. While Awakening was full of hits you could play in a DJ-set, this one should be listened and considered as one, 76-minutes long tune.

The album starts with a very strange, heavily distorted, slow techno-like track, that speeds up in the middle to over 160BPMs. Excursion & Phased Transition are both similar - theyre based around steady kick, deep bassline and complicated drum loops, sent through all possible effects one could imagine. Theres no melody there, just some chords and atmospheric pads in the background, with occasional short acid-lines here and there.

Spectra is a down-tempo, melodic, mysterious tune with incredible sounding break, wicked drum work and some fine tweaks along the way. With Nexus Plexus we come back to faster music - first part is very similar to tracks 2 & 3, with straight rhythm, detailed drums & acid tweaks, but the second part is completely different - the track slows down and a beautiful, melancholic melody appears.

The Irrelevant Elephant (what a title!) is a very fast, drumloop-driven tune, that evolves into a dark, acid-laden monster in the second half. The last two tracks 1 Ohm & 0g are similar to 2, 3 & 5, but a bit more melodic and crazy, with some cool ideas and transitions.

To sum this up - its not amongst the cream of psy-trance albums, but its definitely worth having.

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