This is a brilliant album! If I had to pick 1 album to sum up and represent "goa trance", Phenomena would be it. But I don't think it's a good album to introduce someone to goa trance with unless they're used to hard and intense music, they'll probably get a headache.
It's not revolutionary, but it's definitely a distinctive style and perfectly executed, there's not one weak track here. Miranda's style is thick, heavy and juicy. It's almost verging on psytrance yet so far from it. The amount of layers and melodies in this music is incredible for 1996. And I should also mention that in many of her tracks, perhaps most clearly Subtropical Forest, Miranda comes up with a great bassline that absolutely rocks the entire track.
Steps To The Stars is a half-chilled opening track that slowly builds up from nothing and draws us in to the album. After that we get pounded and twisted all the way to Weightless, which is a beatless ambient track to cool us right down after the peak madness of the preceding Phenomena. Finally Concorde brings it to a close goa style but not too twisted or intense, relative to some other tracks on the album of course. ;)
I can't praise this album enough. It's in the top 3 or at least top 5 goa trance albums for me, and I've heard hundreds of them so I have a fairly good idea where it should rank.
It's not revolutionary, but it's definitely a distinctive style and perfectly executed, there's not one weak track here. Miranda's style is thick, heavy and juicy. It's almost verging on psytrance yet so far from it. The amount of layers and melodies in this music is incredible for 1996. And I should also mention that in many of her tracks, perhaps most clearly Subtropical Forest, Miranda comes up with a great bassline that absolutely rocks the entire track.
Steps To The Stars is a half-chilled opening track that slowly builds up from nothing and draws us in to the album. After that we get pounded and twisted all the way to Weightless, which is a beatless ambient track to cool us right down after the peak madness of the preceding Phenomena. Finally Concorde brings it to a close goa style but not too twisted or intense, relative to some other tracks on the album of course. ;)
I can't praise this album enough. It's in the top 3 or at least top 5 goa trance albums for me, and I've heard hundreds of them so I have a fairly good idea where it should rank.