Mandala – Australia EP

I didn't care for the first track as it felt a bit too superficial for my tastes, but I did like Meltburn for it's depth and pace and Acidney had a fun vibe without being too cheesy although I doubt I would ever play it. Meltburn though, has some legs and could keep the energy of the dance floor going strong.

The oddly named Astralia is the bomb track to check out here on the legendary Noom Records. Beautiful moody intro before going straight into pumping Hard Trance. Throughout the tune there is a lovely free flowing whistling synth that is really effective. As was the case with Noom at the time, there's a bubbly Acid line which keeps everything going in the right direction. The main synth is an interesting sound in construction and possibly a high pitched Hoover variant. Maybe its the production and engineering, but it sounds good across the track. The middle breakdown is relaxing with a low key didgeridoo, well its called the Australia EP. Overall, this is more amazing German Hard Trance, although I noticed that the Hard Trance tag is missing from this release which is a bit odd.

As an Australian, the name of the EP makes me smile. Mandala seems to know about the Land Of Oz, I wonder if it had anything to do with our growing and vibrant rave scene back in the 90's. Also the B-Side track titles are clever spellings of Australian capital cities: Acidney (Sydney) and Meltburn (Melbourne). More classy music from Commander Tom and Mandala. I like the fact that Noom is Moon backwards and the record design has a computer printout of the Moon's surface!

I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing the intro to this track (Australia) ... top-class. I think Ultra-Sonic even used it in one of their tracks later too. Fantastic breakdown too at the main part.