Pleiadians – I.F.O. (Identified Flying Object)

Ah... IFO. A difficult album for me to deal with. I thought about keeping my thoughts to myself, but sometimes it's good to voice a different opinion in a discussion. I'm prepared for the replies already.

The world of psychedelic trance is my favorite music scene: from new beat, to early and later goa, millennium psy like psy-breaks, psy-tech, some full-on, and completely experimental stuff. I tend to enjoy things in all corners of the genre. And, out of the hundreds of albums I've heard, Etnica's Alien Protein is a contender for my favorite trance album of all time. On the other hand, I.F.O.--while not an offensive release--I think is probably the single most overrated album in goa trance.

What happened? Alien Protein is an incredibly refined and delicate work of art. Intricate arrangements and compositions that work modes (as in scales) to a powerful extent. I liken it to the chamber music of Vivaldi or Bach. It personally makes for highly memorable tracks that took me many listens to fully appreciate; as such, it is an album that can fit a diverse amount of moods and has high replay value.

Now, it's not like I require goa trance to be heady, cerebral, and theoretically challenging, but it's what Etnica was good at... for Alien Protein. And they kind of run away from this strength on I.F.O. They use similar scales, but in predictable ways that often don't say much. Furthermore, there's not a lot of nuance in the form of counterpoint, harmony, and arrangement. Take the opener, Maia, for example--it's one big changeup after another for 11 minutes, with none of these distinct sections really communicating with each other.

The next issue I have is the production. Etnica/Pleiadians was always decently produced, or maybe I'll say "above average", but it is not and never was their absolute strong suit. They are not an "engineering first" outfit. So this album isn't exactly brought to incredible heights by mindblowing production either. There are tons of saw riffs in your face, big boomy midrange kicks that suffocate the mix, all kinds of leads are way too up front, basic and ambiguous bass lines that are just kind of there. Compare this to Astral Projection, who could actually fit audibly groovy basslines next to their boomy kicks, and can also center their saw riffing (top and bottom, side to side, front and back) much better in their mixes. Or Pigs In Space which has more daring sound design, variation, and stratified drums patterns/synth lines that make for a much more intense and thorough listen.

I'm not writing this to make enemies, but provide my honest thoughts on why this album has never resonated with me. This is not a terrible album, I don't hate it, and I respect all of these guys for making one of my favorite albums ever in Alien Protein, but I have never ever understood the hype here or regarding any other Etnica/Pleiadians stuff outside of Alien Protein. To this day I have no idea what changed so drastically between that album and everything else, sometimes I hypothesize that Andrea Rizzo (with the classical education) was the secret weapon.

Like lighting your ears on fire with rocket fuel. Nothing else goes this hard, in any genre.

A trip out in a flying saucer! Goa and psy definitely was at its best between 1995 and 1999

It`s the best of the best album ever! It`s all about music! Big Thanks, Pleadians!

Well this is one of those albums, at least for some it takes multi plays to get it completely. One might ponder on... what are all these high praises and reviews about, until the discovery is made. A creation many people just stopped shot of rating as the greatest ever, at that time (1997) as Master pieces were raining down during the golden age of Goa. Now it has not only stood the test of time but strengthened itself and highlights the standards kept during the golden age of Goa.
You may hear many things, some very positive / great and some not very positive, about this album. That's because the album is so complex, vivid and intelligent yet so highly mature that, grasping it completely is a kind of a discovery. In case you don't "get it" right away, Never Mind just hold on, you will be grateful you put in the effort if you are into trance and especially GOA .

IMHO, this is one of those creations, which might prove very difficult to better. After all its the highest rated release on Discogs on the entire psy genre.
3 CD's inside the 4 fold pack, with a cover sleeve on the Project showcasing some promotional posters and party photos of the golden days of the band.
Its all about cosmic Journey and there are 7 tracks in total to drive you, with 6 of them on higher bpm's and the last down-tempo track Celaeno rightly placed to help us come down after the amazing high energy cosmic travel awaiting.

Maia- The gem which starts it after all, awesome acid line synths to begin with and the keyboard melodies starts to rock after few moments, directing us to the cosmos. Its pretty soon very evident the myriad melodic layers and mixing is mesmerizing. That roaring vocal chorus towards the end is just amazing and something special. The restart at 9.15 wow. In terms of the journey speed, the sound barrier has just been broken and 'that feeling', that a high velocity travel is awaiting us starts to sink in.

Taygeta- Layers and Layers which are so melodic, wild and intense! High energy base lines with all the complex multi layers, melodies and mixing this is a total masterpiece. Not to miss the quality of arrangment put across. The visual representations and interpretations it develops on the mind propelling us into deep cosmos combined with high energy melodies, is so pleasurable and is a rare combination. That out of earth melody introduced at 4.03 pushes us more and more, we are practically now at speeds more than Mach 4.

Merope- Very deep and powerful bass lines with powerful melodies and energy tailored to perfection. The intricately layered lower bpm phase in middle of the track leads to magical places before the take off at 6.00. Another crushing melody from 7.10, getting into prominence from 8.07. Cruising now at Supersonic speeds greater than Mach 20's. :-). We can realize this journey is something which we always knew about, but never experienced, unraveling itself from the hidden deep troves of the mind. Craftiness in arrangement is to that level to evoke such responses from the mind.

Aclyone- Well just while we start summarizing up that it couldn't be any better, Aclyone steps in with a screaming acid line and that boiling up beat effects. Not much time is required to comprehend on where this is taking us now. It is game on. The accelerator is stepped on at 1.30 and we keep to gain on speed. Sonic Layers and its complex orchestration starts at 2.10. Moving on we have now officially passed over the heliopause and that 'Shock center crossing' experience at 3.55, simply amazing. By around 5.13, its all clear and we start to actualize that this entire album is on a totally different level. From 7.13 it just super sonic cruising in some space craft, at Mach 40+ speeds... Asteroids, comets and planets seems to fly past in micro seconds.

Electra- The Emperor & The Heavy weight champ of the entire genre. Audacious Intense Beautiful Powerful Awesome. No drop in speed or intricacy here, just pushes and pushes to unimaginable fastness. Layers are intelligently and beautifully woven over and over, setting us up for the fantastic climax. High energy bass kick set in immediately & The gears are shifted at 1.30. We slowly realize we are approaching Light speeds at 2.04. What follows has to be just experienced.

At 5.32 we are traversing the cosmos at light speeds and preparing ourselves for that unprecedented climax. But then just when you think you can’t take more of this intense energy, standby for classical climax Mayhem which starts at 7.35. Oh! What an energy. Ears are burning. I have seen people unable to move by now, on dance floor for the sheer intensity.

Asterope- While we all try to figure out where we have reached after that high energy travel, 'Asterope' is just the track to guide us, by slowing us down just a little. Post that Alien breaths at the beginning and the picture starts to clear before us, revealing the amazing place we have been taken to. Beautiful melodies build and build over one another, and guide us deeper and deeper and at 9.25 its pure bliss. Long track.

Celaeno - Just one beautiful musical piece of blissful melodies carefully detailed and rightly placed into the end, to help us to someway reach back and touch down on to ground. Amazing level of intricately composed down-tempo layers. But most of us by now would be pondering what has just happened before this & trying hard to get ourselves grounded somewhere to make a sense of it all.

The complex layers, melodies, synths, energy and more importantly the intelligence and ideas embedded is just on the different level in this epic piece of musical history. It does so in an extremely audacious, provocative, classy and highly intelligent way.
Something must have got into Carlo's mind while he begun writing these songs, while one of his hand was broken in 96. Well he was unassumingly writing in golden letters on to the History of Music. That unusual X factor under the guidance of Max and combined with effort from Maurizio & Rizzo is what has ultimately paved the way to this "Undisputed Heavyweight Champion" of Goa Trance to emerge.
20+ years of its release, it just continues to stand and deliver.
Just praying if they could regroup together somehow and create more.
A+

... the magic in this music will be found when you hear these tracks as a journey - live on a real pa ... it blows you away - just my opinion - experienced this way

For me this album certainly became way too overrated. It undoubtedly is excellent but praising it as the best Goa trance album ever is over-exaggeration. In my personal humble opinion, this is not even the best Etnica/ Pleiadians album, losing to Alien Protein and Live in Athens 1st CD which are a lot more diverse and well-produced. This one is just so much psychedelia that at some point it starts to feel a bit over the top. As other reviewers pointed out, the tracks here sound samey and, Alcyone apart, they are not even the best the group, let alone the genre, has offered to us. I believe that the remix of BPC's Antidote, Time Dilation, Meter and Zeta Reticuli, for example, are better tracks than 80% of the ones here. I think it is certainly not worth spending ridiculous amount of money on this album.

For me thats the best Album Ever!!! idn how many times i listen this one!!i think max get help from outa spaceee!!!

Probably the best trance album ever made!!! still haven't decided yet which track more powerful and mind-cosmic "Electra" or "Alcyone"?...each track with a space story behind, music for ages and light years of life.

Does anyone else have a label misprint copy? Mine has all four labels on the wrong sides.