Total Eclipse – Access Denied

Any album that samples Art Bell has got to be classic (XXL Files).
And this release by TE took a lot of balls and probably disappointed a lot of people.
Kudos to TE.

I still remember when I saw this CD in the record shop the first time, late December 2000. I had the habit of previewing each CD at the store before buying, even though I already knew the style. Total Eclipse are the authors of my favourite Goa track of all time, “Waiting For A New Life”, and when I saw this album on the shelves I snatched it immediately and without previewing it I paid and ran home excited to hear (I thought) the trance content. I said, with Total Eclipse and Blue Room it can’t be otherwise.

The CD starts off with breakbeat. I thought this is just an intro and let’s get ready for track 2. To my amazement though the following track is a drum & bass track. Track after track the album swayed between drum & bass, breakbeat and the like. I even checked the writers on the cover to make sure it’s the Total Eclipse I knew. But I wasn’t disappointed by the album. First because I always liked drum & bass. Second, I found the CD quite appealing and the music hooked me up instantly. Maybe I was biased to some extent by the fact that it’s Total Eclipse and Blue Room but the musical content outweighed this.

As other reviewers pointed out, you can’t expect an artist to do always the same kind of music you are used to. There’s not a trance riff on this album, rather it’s an eclectic mix of drum & bass and chilly stuff which by 1999 wasn’t much popular I think, at least not by your favourite Goa Trance artists. Respect to the Bordeaux trio for delving into a totally different musical style already then.

I know few people like this album much, yet for me it was a turning point in Psy/Prog trance. It had honest attempts to fuse this genre, which I feel was stuck in a rut for some time, with outside impulses. It did not go down well and Total Eclipse went back into the in-bread psy-trance sound after this, which for me marked the end of psy-trance (note: there are exceptions) as a musical genre of interest.

Access Denined is disapoiting album?
You can't except an artist to do what U like. I think that at the time this album was release, Goa-Psy-Trance music became very cheap, and the Total Eclips crew just prove that they can do some other styles of quality music, and not repeat themselves again, and again, like many others.

This album is interesting as the others. So open your mind, and don't "get stucked" on only one style of music, because there is many others!!!

very dissapointed album..i have no idea what happened or what they were thinking when they produce this album.. i heard other music by this total eclipse guys..but in this one they try to expirement with non sense ambient sounds with some kind of jazzy beats..none of the tracks sound danceable or hypnotic ..(which the blueroom records is known for) some tracks are the chill out type ..but i can just call it experimental trash and thas it..very bad album!