One of the best things ever happened to progressive trance genre is Peter Martin's "Perfect Wave". Peter Martin produced several tracks before and after this, sticking mainly to progressive trance/house vein, but nothing ever came close to this gem from mysterious 2004, that's so praised within trance community as a year of, arguably, the pinnacle of progressive trance (if some might think, "Coldharbour" is the least that happened then).

Thank you Peter. This is your flawless victory.

10/10

No words will describe how powerful Melodica is. I prefer original and ambient mixes and personally reckon that these two would be sufficient for a timeless release called "Leama - Melodica", because the rest two (basically two, because 'space mix' from Leama fits here well, too) mixes from Humate and Northface in a way break the flow and depth of this release, bringing more superficial vibe (probably word 'superficial' is not exactly explanatory, but if you heard this release, you will get what I mean).
In all, this release is all about original and ambient mixes. First one is a masterpiece of progressive trance genre; second is a masterpiece of ambient genre. Thank you Leama.

This is probably the best true psyprog album I heard in the past year, or maybe even my favourite album in the genre ever released to date.

Ironically, sometimes we are forced to observe not very pleasant situation, when album draws good impression after one or two listens. Listener gets hooked on one of two tracks and only over time his vision becomes clearer enough to see what this music is all about in particular. Every track on this album stands on its own. There's no need to seek through the pile of uncertain arbitrary tracks in order to discover unhidden gems as it tends happen quite often. This is absolutely appropriate, proper progressive release as it has formally been declared. This is true progressive psytrance, without all that cheesiness (Tegma, Neelix, Kino Oko) and other arbitrary semi-commercial rubbish that is called progressive these days. Several words can sum up what this album is all about: deep, hypnotic, rich and atmospheric progressive trance. In other words, exactly what scene is utterly missing nowadays. And undoubtedly, it will perfectly meet needs of those who lack for intelligent progressive music.

In all, absolutely outstanding music if judged by today's trends and - which is the saddest thing - definitely an underrated artist.

Keep an eye!

Pretty weak album.
This is no darkpsy which is dark and trippy as supposed, this is merely a humble attempt to make something like that. Most tracks are very boring and tedious, without any atmosphere, without imagination and mostly without any perceptible direction as such. There's no a single track that can be considered above average in terms of originality and unique idea.
The only good thing about this music perhaps is that it can be recommended for those about to get into dark psychedelic trance. But if you consider yourself to be an advanced darkpsy head and looking for a dark trip to chaos blackholes with dark and twisted atmospheres from parallel dimensions, I'd decidedly advise you to look further.

Some of you liked very much to talk about "the most underrated, the most unseen, the most underground goa trance project of “that” era", etc. I suppose this is apparently your time to exult, as you obviously got by the right address – Worm, full-fledged oldschool goa trance project, which, unlike most of your ordinary expectations, is not a project with a couple of random tracks spread through similarly random compilations, which was the reason of its total obscurity, neither did it suffer a label bankrupt issue or anything as similar and dire as that. Surprisingly – none of that. Let's take glance into the eyes of truth, what's actually up and what really happened?
We deal with a project that released an album called "Agogo" on a more or less renowned Belgian label called Nova Zembla. The biggest highlight about this label particularly for a goahead would be most definitely another goa project, called Elysium with an album Monzoon, cited to be one of those good underrated albums. And it's indeed a good album if you ask me. However, apart from that, I'm afraid, there would be pretty much nothing else worth mentioning.

Now let's get back to Agogo. What's wrong with it? It was the first question that sparked on my mind after I played it for the first 10 minutes. Basically, I could sit down on the couch and make a full detailed analysis of every track; however, I won't do it because it's not the case when it's required. And here's the reason. All the tracks on the album are very similar. And all of them have very similar drawback - occasionally dull and superficial melody, so much not peculiar to goa. The best track of the album is perhaps Euphoria, which is the track that brings all the confusion, basically because it straightly makes you expect something at least in the same vein and you seem to swallow all the drawbacks of the next tracks, figuring that things will certainly get better with from next track on. However, they don't; on the contrary, they get even worse and leave you even more saddened and disappointed. The peak is "Valhalla", the pre-last track of the album, which simply kills everything good that was before; it like opens your eyes and makes you realize that, perhaps, nothing was simulated neither went wrong that decade ago when the album was released, so the obscurity has actually been "pretty much" justified.

It's rarely, almost never, that I respond negatively in regards to goa trance astists. But sadly, this is the case. One of the better things to mention, perhaps, is that it's still goa, not anything else. Moreover, I shall add that I have never met plainly bad goa trance music in my life, and even this is not the case. Agogo has it's good moments and there would be even more if not those cheesy melodies... Still, an interesting discovery.

It's unbelieveable how almost a decade ago they managed to produce such a massive, kick-ass (excuse my bad french), full power banging goa, considering that such music hardly existed back then (well, something from the likes of Shakta or Prana might be a scarce exception). It sounds so tight and full-fledged so it only makes you wonder if the date on the cover was put correctly. And then you look at it, assure that there were no mistakes, and it only enhances your wonder. I'm talking about "Dropz Of Obscure Eclipses" album of course, which, by the way, is not even my favourite.
Virtually, things pertaining to Bypass Unit can be summed up like follows: awesome stuff and one of the most underrated and unfairly unexposed goa groups ever.

Notably, this is not even my favourite kind of goa. Essentially, I prefer more intelligent, more deep and dark sound to those melodic, positive and funky stuff, which probably Bypass Unit could be referred to in a way. However, what they did in due time is something I can openly call "innovative". And it sure deserves some reasonable credit.

Darshan was the pioneering dark goa trance duo started in the middle of nineties, consisting of Grant Collins and Mark Robinson. This is one of the most esoteric, obscure and peculiar goa trance groups ever existed. Unlike most of other goa/psychedelic trance artist of that era, Darshan provide unique dark and spacey vibes, full of energy with their tracks. They released a number of EPs, two albums and were featured on various compilations throughout the years.
Sadly, after the millennium the project started its gradual evanescence and since 2002 has had no more output, so project called "Darshan" has virtually disappeared from the scene.

However, in the early 2008 in some compilation called "Echo" appeared a track called "Darshan and Hopi - Freefall". A revive of good old Darshan, you ask? Well, so to speak. To be fair, it wasn't bad at all, at least if you don't look back to their dark goa past. Or his past... because only Grant Collins was credited on that track, without Mark Robinson. But if you try to compare it with the former work of the guys, you'd possibly be a bit disappointed, even though, as I said above, generally it isn't bad.

But the last and the most interesting thing for all the Darshan fans, who - like me - were guessing as to where this project has actually gone will be glad to hear that the driving force is still there. The place to be is [myspace]/skeinmusic. A new(!) project by Grant Collins and... Loren Warn (according to the myspace page, a pianist and vocalist) called Skein started up. Of course, it's no longer goa, nor even psytrance (and thankfully, not its commercial forms ) - it's progressive breakbeat with peculiar darkish 'Darshan' feel you will certainly recognize; it's absolutely worth checking and hearing, mainly if you respect the man, that has been standing behind Darshan like a decade ago.

To sum things up... Well, quite obviously, Darshan won't make a comeback, but it's in no way about its driving force - Grant Collins. Those ones who respected his work in the past should definitely check out his present work. It really *is* worth checking out. There's just one thing which is sad - there's no any info regarding Mark Robinson, the second half of Darshan. The weird thing perhaps is that he's not even been mentioned on Skein myspace page with mention of Darshan, which was a collaboration project.

It's always pleasant to see what the genre used to be about back in the old days. Encens peak was around 1995-1996. The project indeed reminds the likes of Darshan, Crop Circles, UX and other more or less known darkish oldschool goa acts. Sadly, Encens was forgotten by simple mortals and only elitists preserved the memory for projects like these, although some might want to argue on this matter...

It's always an endless discussion and pointless debate to argue whether certain project was overshadowed and another was overrated. As a result, we are inevitably forced to face straight facts: something we dislike gets public recognition, and something we like more than another gets ditched.

This is a good, in my opinion, a really good oldschool goa release that comes directly from the underground, which perhaps would be more definitely to call "dark goa". Still, despite its relative obscurity, I'm pretty confident, that ten years ago Encens was fairly respectful project in the scene.

For those who value oldschool, this, as well as other Encens releases, are a must.

Another beautiful piece of work from Matt Hillier himself and passed away legend Jake Stephenson…

Jake Stephenson was known for a great deal of electronic music projects, mainly of acid "303" and ambient nature. The biggest contribution he made was, most definitely, to Kinetix label, mainly with projects Optica and Optic Eye – two similar acts I'm a big fan of, both collaborated with another producer, Brian Trower.

Colourform, however, is not the first collaboration between Jake and Matt, apparently, two good friends in the past. Story started off more than ten years ago with establishment of acid-ish ambient project Crystal Moon, which I personally reckon ended up to be quite overshadowed and pretty unseen, not receiving big exposure, even though I consider it to be pretty much worthwhile project.

Taking into account the style adopted in Crystal Moon, one could expect to hear something similar, but will be very pleasantly surprised to meet another, very calm, minimalistic and free of "acid" higher-level sound.

Perhaps, this has to be my absolute favourite project from all so for not very big Virtual family; and maybe even further... As a side note, I've had a big respect for Jake Stephenson (RIP), so having this CD in my collection is somewhat of a honour.

Although any review is always an utterly subjective thing, I'd have to say that this is definitely superior than Ishq and Elve. If you like calm, meditative-oriented, 'celestial' ambient work, you'd most probably make an unexcusable mistake having missed this outstanding release.

10/10.