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Buyer Rating: 100.0% positive (9 ratings)

eiko's groups (4)

• Ambient and Experimental
• Goa / Psy-Trance
• Goa / Psy-Trance Track IDs
• When Trance Was Good

Hoedh - Universum - 08-Apr-09 05:38 PM
This is dark, colorful, emotional music. While listening to it the pictures running through mind involve graveyards late at night, death, spiritual presences, dreary funeral processions, hymns and ever-droning church bells. The first track is the most powerful and I can't help but imagine it depicts the dark moments that started it all. Then follows unrest and mourning and eventually some form of redemption. Gradually the music gets lighter and finally at the end warmth and hope is restored in it.

The style of the music here is in a similar vein as Hoedh's "Hymnvs" from 1993, but darker and more interesting. The album flows beautifully together telling a story. Given the circumstances of this release, compiled postmortem by Thorn Hoedh's partner Paul Hostia (together they were Moksha, DLS and OCT), it feels extremely personal. In my opinion this release is a great tribute to Thorn Hoedh. He has gone to join the Universum and left behind this inspiring music in his memory.

Shakatura - Shakatura - 03-Apr-09 11:03 PM
There's something lacking in most of this "psychill" genre... Ultimae, Twisted Records, etc. What happened? Most of that music is light floating sounds that have no progression, often with dubby sounds and ethnic chanting that don't go anywhere or do anything -- lame! Nothing like the old "goambient"...

Shakatura is one of the few chillout artists that doesn't doesn't seem to suffer from this. The tracks here actually build up and have strong rhythms and melodies! They have a structure! Sounds don't just float in and out of the track aimlessly! What a novelty!

The first 5 tracks here are all awesome. They are similar sounding so they flow nicely, but each has some totally unique touch that will grab your attention and interest and hold it whole way through. Tracks 3 and 4 have some purely masterful and awe inspiring parts! Track 2 is the only one that has any chanting/singing in it (thank god!). Coincidentally the same sample used in this track was also used on Cell's debut album in 2005 but I Shakatura's use was way better. A slightly modified shorter version of this track is also used as the opening track on Shakatura's second album.

Unfortunately tracks 6 & 7 can't match up with the first 5 tracks. They have the basis, but nothing that really distinguishes them. They are the weakest part of the album, but they are still not bad tracks by a long shot! It's no surprise they were cut from Shakatura's second album, which reused most of the other tracks.

Track 8 is another pretty nice track, but it's also not that strong either. Telemetry, the closing track, is my personal favorite. It's an 8 minute rhythmic beast with nice progression. It's probably not as interesting as some of the others but I'm a sucker for the rhythm.

This album does not have lots of superfluous extra birds chirping quietly in the background or waterfalls and stuff, but the structure it has is infinitely more important. Sequencing a lot of background sounds on top of each other doesn't make good music. 3/4 of the tracks here are 5x better than cbl's "mos 6581" on their own. I strongly recommend this album before any other chillout album even though it's not perfect by any means, especially if you appreciate good goa/psy trance.

SynSUN - Zelur Project - 09-Mar-09 11:05 AM
This whole release seems to be a mess. Supposedly the artist sent WAVs that were transcoded from MP3s to the label and the label neglected to check the quality before releasing them.

At any rate, the source files for the CD-R were MP3s and this album was already distributed for free 10 years ago in MP3 quality on the artist's website. While it is true the tracks were mastered for this CD-R, they sound basically the same as the original MP3s. No lost quality can be "gained" or "regained" via mastering.

While this is a wonderful album with a mix of thicker goa trance music and some nitzhonot tracks -- all really good music -- there is not much point in buying the release to support a manipulative move by SynSUN and/or Phototropic Records.

Various - Destination Goa - The Ninth Chapter- DG9 - 23-Feb-09 04:50 PM
This compilation has some really nice tracks!

1-01. Mystica - Ashes To Ashes is one of the best goa trance tracks. Everyone definitely needs either "Age Of Innocence" or this compilation just to hear that track!

1-02. I also quite like XV Kilist - Gummi. Though his guy it is a minimalist producer and this track is only borderline goa trance, I think it's the only track from him I find interesting and quite enjoy.

1-07. BSF - Elemental 7 is quite a nice chilled out goa track IMO and it's only available on this compilation. You can hear a typical Har-El Prussky sound to it, but it's much better designed than most of his tracks, which aren't very good.

2-07. This is surely one of the best tracks from Chi-AD, which is saying a lot! Biocandy is definitely a must have and again this track is only released on this compilation and a quite rare vinyl.

I would recommend this compilation for those tracks. The others aren't necessarily bad, I just don't remember anything in particular to say about them.

UX - Ultimate Experience - 28-Jan-09 03:26 PM
This is one of THE GREAT goa trance albums as far as I'm concerned.

It's the first of it's kind. There's nothing "unoriginal" here. Even though there have been hundreds of dark psytrance albums that followed it, this one is still one of the best I've ever heard. It's got a lot of depth and dark melodies and rhythms all over the place -- it isn't just hard and noisy sounding like lots of more recent stuff. That's basically why it's classified as "goa trance" rather than "psytrance". There's something unique about every track and they are all excellent on their own. Furthermore they flow together perfectly to create a really strong experience as a whole.

As someone else said, it's dark the whole way through. There is nothing cheery or cheesy here. It's not overly emotional, but it's highly intelligent and powerful.

The best tracks are actually all of them. When I first heard this album I only really liked Master Of The Universe, which is generally regarded as the hit track, but all the others have grown on me through many listens. The opening and closing sections are ambient and Chrysalis is a downtempo track which has a special place with me. It's really a beautiful experience.

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