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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 cant 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 Hoedhs "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 Hoedhs 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
Theres 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 dont go anywhere or do anything -- lame! Nothing like the old "goambient"...

Shakatura is one of the few chillout artists that doesnt doesnt seem to suffer from this. The tracks here actually build up and have strong rhythms and melodies! They have a structure! Sounds dont 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 Cells debut album in 2005 but I Shakaturas use was way better. A slightly modified shorter version of this track is also used as the opening track on Shakaturas second album.

Unfortunately tracks 6 & 7 cant 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! Its no surprise they were cut from Shakaturas second album, which reused most of the other tracks.

Track 8 is another pretty nice track, but its also not that strong either. Telemetry, the closing track, is my personal favorite. Its an 8 minute rhythmic beast with nice progression. Its probably not as interesting as some of the others but Im 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 doesnt make good music. 3/4 of the tracks here are 5x better than cbls "mos 6581" on their own. I strongly recommend this album before any other chillout album even though its 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 artists 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 its 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 its only available on this compilation. You can hear a typical Har-El Prussky sound to it, but its much better designed than most of his tracks, which arent 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 arent necessarily bad, I just dont 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 Im concerned.

Its the first of its kind. Theres nothing "unoriginal" here. Even though there have been hundreds of dark psytrance albums that followed it, this one is still one of the best Ive ever heard. Its got a lot of depth and dark melodies and rhythms all over the place -- it isnt just hard and noisy sounding like lots of more recent stuff. Thats basically why its classified as "goa trance" rather than "psytrance". Theres 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, its dark the whole way through. There is nothing cheery or cheesy here. Its not overly emotional, but its 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. Its really a beautiful experience.

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