Well, there's a lot to say about this album. Right now it's my favorite album of 2011. Not only is this a remainder of why so many people love the Ultimae label so dearly (I most definitely among them), but it's easily better than the first and last Fahrenheit Projects.

Ultimae's overall quality is so extremely high and they've released *so* many mind-blowing, expectation-scorching albums, it's a little difficult to place this in its context, but its in the upper echelon.

What's particularly remarkable about this release is that it's plumbing almost entirely new musical sources for Ultimae. Cell, Astropilot, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Solar Fields, and H.U.V.A. Network are nowhere to be found! You get an actual new Aes Dana track, not a remix! So where is all this wonderful new music coming from?

The year is 2011 and the world may be buzzing over the Greek financial crisis, but if this compilation is any indication, there is no crisis over quality space/chill/ambient music from that country. The majority of the players on this release are little-known artists associated with Greece. But the music, man! Does it hold up to the Nothern Europe dominated comps we've been listening to?

Yeah, it does. There's not a bad track among them and some very good/great(!) ones. It starts out with Max Million and Gusk with "Sub Strata" a very dramatic track that sounds like it would fit in nicely on the first CBL album, very good. The next track is great, it's everything that's so good about deep space ambient with great beats. It's in the vein of something you'd hear off Solar Fields' Movements, or the Solar Fields track "Jeezhl." The name "Light Tails" is properly evocative of the kind of music you're going to be hearing, like seeing the tail of a comet streaking across a dark sky. The next track, if you want a thick, funky sound used as a refrain perfectly complementing a downtempo beat heavy piece of lush ambience, you've got it... first time I listened through this album I underestimated this track. It comes to a pause and changes tempo, there are some light, spectral female vocalizations in the background and it picks up... when was the last time an album started out with 3 tracks this strong?

With the 4th track we're back on familiar terms with Aes Dana, except this is something that sounds like it could come off their Season 5 album... if you were listening to this album with no idea on the tracks you could pick this out as the Aes Dana track and not only that, I like it better than anything off Perimeters and it's as good as the best tracks on Leylines. But people who love old-skool Aes Dana are going to love this track.

5th track is "Homo Imperceptibilis" which starts out with a bit more uptempo but still retaining the space ambient downtempo feel throughout the whole album, a bit of piano to start, some psy sounds, hypnotic beats, a shimmering melody... a vocal sample and it dives in deeper. So it's great, right? We're done? No, the beats and the melody are still there but we've got some funkier acid type sounds, then, an epic ambient sweep with strings kicks in! Is this all still one track? Where can I find an entire album that sounds like this? And that beautiful melody is still there. This is some kind of work of beauty. The beats get a little harder and crunchier toward the end. Wow. Good headphones, high volume, and blast off. Whew.

Okay, well, we had to come down off that high and the next track "Sun Ritual" is my least favorite of the album. It's got some nice sounds for certain but compared to the careful constructions of all the previous tracks, this one seems a little less disciplined and just less memorable. I may have underestimated this one though, listening to it again and it sounds better than I remembered. It's still like a 7 stacked up against all the 9s and 10s that came before it.

Now, Track 7, "Hyades." This is really good stuff. It *vaguely* brings to mine Solar Fields' "Leaving Home" album, which is one of my five favorite albums of all time. It's got a dark and sinister vibe to it with melodies and beats layered sublimely all over the place. Great sounds. Almost a menacing melody that runs underneath the beats and the lighter counter-melody that's over it. This really does feel like a sinister "Leaving Home."

The next track... Asura! One of Ultimae's biggest draws. Starts out sort of IDM/glitchy with some of the old-skool Asura new-agey/world music voices. It's actually a neat effect and something new for Asura. Then it's drawn out into an absolutely gorgeous musical voyage with a big, dramatic hook to it. I love it. You thought the track was going one direction and then it does this! Pure loveliness.

The album lets you down easy for the last two tracks after those ever-ascending heights. "Why" is nice and laid back but now that I'm listening it through again this may be my least favorite track. It's fine but it's sure no V.A.N.T.A. or Hyades.

The last track brings us back to MikTek. This is called "Ominous Ride" and in the beginning it sounds ominous, good and desolate space ambient. It evolves though, turning into a drifting ambient lullaby. Very nice closing track.

So that's it. So far, my album of the year. If I have to rank the tracks right this second I'll go: 5, 8, 7, 2, then 1, 10, 3, 4, then the "lowest" tier 6 and 9.

So I hate the phrase, but this is a *must* listen. Ultimae just kicked everything's ass again, the mastering is great, the sound is great, kudos to Fishimself and the artists, you just made 2011 music history in my book.

There's a difference between "in the tradition of artists like Astral Projection" and "this sounds exactly like Astral Projection." This album falls into the latter category. In a bad track sequencing choice, the opening track sounds like one of the biggest AP clones, so for the rest of the album that's mostly what you're likely to hear. AP homage can be done better than this, I think, especially since we're talking some 15 years later (has it been that long?). It even looks like an Astral Projection CD dover; then I saw the cover art was done by DJ Zen, and most all of DJ Zen's cover art looks like Astral Projection's.

There is good news though. The last two tracks "Deep Descent" and "If There Is Nothing" are really nice downtempo chill trance. In particularly the last track. It doesn't re-invent the wheel or anything, but it's high quality in this style of music.

If you haven't heard any AP or can't get enough of the AP formula then you'll like this album a lot more than I did, I would think.

Well. This is flat-out beautiful ambient music. I would describe the music generally as being like H.U.V.A. Network in particular, or a little less like Aes Dana. It's spacey ambient with a stronger IDM feel than the previous artists. Sounds like a great combination to me, and yes, the music lives up to such a billing, it's blissful and beautiful. Another example of the kind of music this is similar to is a more stripped down, IDM Solar Carbon Based Lifeforms. As I said, the best way to describe it: spacey ambient IDM with quality songcrafting and legitimate hooks that grab you.

Some of the tracks are a little on the short side, and the samples on "Collapse" kind of detract from the nice aural experience going on, but this quibbles barely register. This is an easy 5/5 release. My favorite track is the gorgeous opener "Anisotropy" - the bad news is the rest of the album can't quite live up to that mind-opening pinnacle. Other highlight tracks include "Ping," "Never to Be Found," "When the Day Breaks;" "Apognosis" and "My End, My Beginning" are double-highlighted (I just made that up) and the closer, "Inner Meditation" is sublime. Throughout the whole album you've got modest ambient washes, pads, great beats and some strings that round out and add a character and fullness to the music not seen with many other artists.

Great job. I highly advise checking this out. While this release is not found on archive.org, other works by MikTek are - I also highly recommend checking those out, though this release is my favorite MikTek.

It's a shame this release hasn't garnered more attention. Fans of The Peaking Goddess Collective, Slackbaba, and Androcell would be well-served to give this album a listen. This music is really chilled downtempo dub that's less chaotic and/or noisy than say, The Peaking Goddess Collective. It lends itself more to relaxation. It's not as experimental as, say, Ott, but it is experimentive in terms of the framework of the music - downtempo psydub with a muted world music type of flavor and more of a heavy ambient feel.

I think it's quite good. The opening track is really heavy chilled dub and probably my favorite on the album. Track 5 has a really sensual groove to it. All the tracks are good actually, there's no real filler - track 4 is probably my least favorite. The stand-out tracks in my opinion are 1, 2, 5, and 8.

I feel as though I should apologize for enjoying this kind of music - it's not the type that's been fashionable for quite some time now. But indeed, this is music I enjoy if the songs stand out enough, and they do on this release. I dare say I will be keeping an eye out for this artist's next release.

The root for this kind of music comes from the mid to late 90s psy (goa, progressive) trance with a slower beat and a chillier vibe. There was a lot of music put out that sounded in this vein from 1995-2004 or so, then, other artists took the sound but couldn't make memorable songs, or even songs with a real impact, with a few notable exceptions like Asura. Most of the artists practicing in this style have been featured on Altar Records at some point in time.

In essence, this sounds like sort of a lesser Asura from the "Lost Eden" era. I thought this album was surprisingly good as earlier some of the offerings from Altar Records like Astral Waves were sometimes not the best.

Take a listen to Track 4, "Psychedelic Dream." I mean, that's a good track! I even like "Low Red Moon" which sounds like all those old last tracks on Liquid Sound Design albums (the whole album would be psy/goa and the last track would be chill/downtempo psy, goa).

This album does not break any boundaries of originality whatsoever. It is not fantastic. It is good though, and it's just giving fans of this kind of music quality output to enjoy. Listen to the melody break in halfway through "Sun Trap." Nice. There are some filler-y tracks (Like track 7) but all in all this is one to consider if you are a fan of the genre. I consider this a B+ type of release, the plus coming from my opinion that the artist has managed to take a sound that lends itself to some very generic sounding music but manages to make some keepers.

Well, this album should cause more people to sit up and take notice. For example, this year (2011), the much-respected and vaunted artist Ott has released "Mir" - an album that has won over listeners. That's a great album and this album deserves some recognition as well.

"Langbortistan" by Lauge and Baba Gnohm has some similarities but they are not *that* closely aligned musically. The first I ever heard of Lauge and Baba Gnohm was the track "The Perfect Stranger" released on one of the Goa Beach compilations; I still really like that track, it's like psy-lounge or something beautiful. Then the EPs came, of which, Monolith was the better and left fans wanting more. Back to the Ott reference, "Langbortistan" is a lot less dubby and experimental. Nonetheless, this is an album people are going to like - if they get around to listening to it. I have no reservations about giving it a 5 out of 5. My favorite track by far is the first one - expounding on the sound is not easy in this case, L&BG produce gentle downtempo with some beautifully accompanying psy melodies. This isn't a drone album to me, it actually reminds me a little bit of Ishq's Orchid album, which you may recall was simply an outstanding masterpiece. This isn't as good but it is very good. Other favorite tracks of mine are 2,3,6, and 7 with 5 probably being my least favorite - if the drone tag applies to any track it's 5.

Anyway, if you like downtempo and chill and like releases from labels like Interchill and Ultimae I'd suggest grabbing this album.

Available for free and legal download at the label DataObscura's website.

I'm surprised this doesn't have a higher rating. Really, very good dark ambient in the less minimal variety, like Visions, Inade, Yen Pox etc. The tracks run the gammut during run time from a quieter, sinister approach to a more full-on noisy enveloping darkness. The second and third tracks in particular stand out to me. I look at the 5 albums showing under recommendations and it occurs to me I like this one more than any of those.

This album is also a little bit more daring in its collection of sounds - the vocal samples are less intrusive and almost like barely noticeable whispers. Give it a try if you like dark ambient, it's a good find.

There's not a lot of middle ground when it comes to people with this type of music. You're either a fan who gets excited over higher-quality releases like this or you dislike this genre and feel nothing much has been done since Lustmord in the early 90s. I'm hearing a lot of dislike for dark ambient lately. It's fine to have differing opinions, but to me, some of the "dark ambient is done" talk is the equivalent of saying "Aphex Twin and Autechre closed the book on IDM, nothing has been worth listening to since."

On one hand, if you don't want to hear any more dark ambient in the Visions (Summoning the Void et al) vein, this is probably not the album for you. Then again, Malignant Records is probably not the label for you either.

What gives Rasalhague's "Rage Inside the Window" a leg up is its more brutal, industrial sound combined with the hellish space drones. The first track sounds like it could be by Visions, or Collapsar but it's quite a bit harder and more industrial - all without compromising the ambience.

Track 2, "Squalor Prison" is pretty nice. If you follow the labels Cyclic Law and Loki Foundation, you're going to like this track. It's less industrial than the first but I do like it better because it uses some harsh sounds a few snarls to spice things up. Track 3, "Mother is the Disaster" is slightly less inspired. Track 4 is similar but gets a little more interesting towards the end.

Track 5 - "Communication Depravity" is really deep and really dark. Get yourself the headphones and lie back for this one, this is a very good dark ambient track although it might not jump out at people at first. It's got the leisurely pace of Lustmord's "Dark Places of the Earth" release cross-pollinated with the unrelentingly grim subterrestrial drones from Visions. This track doesn't have the industrial flair that the others have had, but it's a standout regardless (or because of)?

Track 6 - Well well well. This just sends chills everywhere. I'm not sure how to describe this track properly. It's the best on the album, for sure. This track is deeper and still yet more grim than the above, but there are some reassuringly less fatalistic melodies in the works as well. I like the darker, more sinister first half rather than the "lighter" second half, but no two ways about it, you can put this one on your 2011 dark ambient playlists.

All in all, this album isn't going to change out the territory music lovers on both sides of the aisle have staked out - however, it will remind people who follow Inade, Lustmord, False Mirror, Blood Box, Tholen, and Visions with zest and joy why they love this kind of music. Very nice work.

This release is tagged industrial, but I'd say there is nothing industrial in it. It's very minimal dark ambient. For similar works I would suggest Thomas Köner's "Daikan" although that album is quite a bit better than this one. Really it's just a matter of nothing standing out. I also think "Black Eden" is a better album as well.