Juno Reactor – Beyond The Infinite

A very up for it almost aggressive album, one can sense the New Wave/Punk roots of Ben Watkins as Samurai is built around A Forest by The Cure. I also dig how they make the bass move in the mix by applying key changes, so often trance tunes just pump the same key all the way through, which I find very boring.

While im more partial to their ambient house debut Transmissions, I will still graciously give this the title of their peak album of the 90's. Such a colorful release. Waiting on the day for an LP reissue along with the rest of their back catalogue.

At various times I've thought, "I would have done this slightly differently", but overall a terrific series of adventures. No one has yet mentioned the powerful "Silver", but it's one of my faves. When That Part kicks in, I'm entranced. Where am I? What year is it? Am I mortal or a deity? Maybe I've just consumed an excess of LSD, but I find the instrumentation totally captivating. Play loud.

Here is another of my favorite albums of goa trance. In this legendary album, Juno Reactor has demonstrated the most unique style I had the opportunity to hear. Each song is unique and shows that the arrangement of the more unusual sounds may give rise to real masterpieces. Several songs include excessively pleasurable moments to listen and it's a great satisfaction to my ears. All the songs on this album are excellent, but I have a slight penchant for Mars, Magnetic, Ice Cube and Razorback, which are more pleasant to listen to. The masterpiece of the album is certainly Rotorblade, which is a real journey to another world.

Legendary Tracks:
Rotorblade, Magnetic, Mars, Ice Cube.

Looking back on Juno Reactor's influential discography, I consider Beyond The Infinite to be the strongest album from start to finish. While it may not have the same revolutionary impact Transmissions had on the trance & goa scenes, nor the mainstream appeal and accomplished production of Bible Of Dreams, nonetheless, we have in my opinion the most epic, creative, detailed and rich work from mastermind Ben Watkins. There is so much going on in these tracks sometimes that you forget you are listening to basically one guy with a bunch of machines. Yet, it doesn't suffer from that "over produced" sound that much psytrance fell prey to in the 90s. Instead of looping a rezzy 303 for an entire track or using the dreaded "blip" kick drums, Watkins instead relies on his studio wizardry and songwriting ability to produce an album that anyone would consider "complete." It's refreshing even in 2009 to hear trance like this, and the level of depth hasn't been matched very often, by Watkins himself or his peers. Not the groundbreaking release that Transmissions was, but a powerful step forward into a more diverse sound, and a sign of things to come for his future experimentation with dance music.

A great contribution to the trance scene, but IMHO it suffers slightly from being to 'samey' - the pieces blend into eachother and often get lost in more repeats with no substantial new themes or instruments being added for variety. Still, it's an important release and the above criticism shouldn't deter you from a thorough enjoying!