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Artist: Etnica Title: Equator Label: Spirit Zone Recordings Date: March, 1999 01. 10'03" Be On Go 02. 05'39" Patricia ... Our Happy 03. 06'49" Mad Crickets 04. 06'00" Trip In Transkei 05. 10'13" History 06. 11'29" Vibra 07. 08'40" Resistance 08. 08'59" Funkadelia 09. 06'48" Baraka "My God...they're really from another world." I think we can all agree that this project is legendary and may very well be from another world. Their album Alien Protein is one of the greatest goa trance albums of all time. Flawless, screaming goa trance. You know it and I know it. This is their second (technically third if you count Juggeling Alchemists) album and when it came out in 1999 the melodic days of Protein were in the rearview. Gone, but not forgotten as they still used their goa mastery while exploring different areas of psychedelia. Be On Go is a thumping downtempo goa opener that is filled with layers. Patricia isn't their best, but it's a pure tribal track with great percussion work. Mad Crickets has a saunter and also shows how samples can be used effectively to enhance the groove. Indicative of the time there is a techno influence in Trip In Transkeii which reminded me of the material in the FLA album Flavour of the Weak. History took a little bit to get going, but to my ears sounded like M-run. Good movement that doesn't stop. Vibra gets on some serious Cydonia atmosphere with the eerie lead and industrial chunkiness. Resistance continues the industrial atmosphere, but unlike Jon I don't feel this really goes anywhere. The music at 5'36" just stops and any momentum it had (I was a tad bored by then) vanished. Look, if you're naked with someone sitting backward on your head screaming "Woot woot!" while trying to push a shopping cart full of pharmaceutical sludge uphill on an inclined tile floor, any momentum you had will vanish. Don't believe me? Well, this track never recovers. Funkadelia is a breakbeat journey with tribal elements as well as some goa flair. I really liked the percussion in this one and the samples from Independence Day added a futuristic touch. Baraka is eerie and mysterious downtempo with chopped vocals and more tribal percussion. The beat was funky and had me wanting more. If you are looking for Alien Protein II you're gonna start breaking sh*t. This is entirely different yet still deep and moving. This album is full of styles while continuing to keep the goa spirit alive. I'll defend this album as my third favorite Etnica release due to its sound and variability. Since I don't go to festivals I don't know how this would work on a dance floor, but I can tell you that it's great for home listening. You wanna sh*t all over Chrome, I'm right there with you, but this one is worth the time.

ETNICA - EQUATOR 1999 SPIRIT ZONE RECORDS Track list: 01. 10'03" Be On Go 02. 05'39" Patricia ... Our Happy 03. 06'49" Mad Crickets 04. 06'00" Trip In Transkei 05. 10'13" History 06. 11'29" Vibra 07. 08'40" Resistance 08. 08'59" Funkadelia 09. 06'48" Baraka Equator was my first or second Etnica album and it will always be special to me. This is Etnica's departure from the Goa-Trance style that made them famous with Juggeling Alchemist Under the Black Light and Alien Protein. However it isn't a departure from Goa entirely which is one of the main reasons why I enjoy it so much. The melodies. Equator is very Indian/Ethnic, and World influenced. There are also more voice bits, chants, and samples than any Etnica album I've heard to date. For the most part they're utilized very well. 01. Be On Go is one of my favorite tracks by Etnica. Can a song get any more pimp?! My God. This is the type of song you push back the seats in your mobile, sink into the driver seat, start up the album, crank up the sound, roll down the windows, and blast it while slowly driving down a hot nightclub strip at 11pm. This isn't psytrance but a cross between psy, techno, and maybe even chilled tech-trance with Goa? Big beats and the bassline roll up like a tornado slowly collecting dust. The overall sound, rhythm, and beat together is like a slow rush of adrenaline but not fast enough to get your heart beating. This is a powerful chilled trance song bound to seek peoples attention. This is one of the strongest opening tracks I've heard since Chemical Brothers opening hit techno song "Come With Us" on one of their post 21st albums. This is a strong and smooth, comfortable, and chilled beat track unlike any I've ever heard. A- 02. Patricia ... Our Happy is the first real ethnic influenced track on Equator which is heavily Indian/Ethnic-influenced. Imagine tribal trance without a strong beat and voices continuously present and that's this. Initially I thought it was one of the worst tracks Etnica ever produced, especially on listen after such a strong opening. I don't think it's bad however but it is one of their weaker tracks. I like the sound generated by the voices throughout and the drums. As someone pointed out on one of these pages...it's a concept track. Either way I can't help but feel like somethings missing. One of my favorite groups is Juno Reactor. This is definitely one of the most weak songs on the album. It just doesn't seem like it belongs here. I'm honestly between finding this track tolerable and not feeling so sure. Never have I heard a song like this by them. Difference and taking chances is how we innovate and move forward. But similar ingredients to Juno Reactor is employed here with inferior results. I'm glad they placed this before the dance tracks or we'd be in trouble. C / C+ 03. Mad Crickets is the first real dance song on the album. It isn't that psychedelic or ethnic influenced (voices) as the previous track. It's a pretty good psytrance song which gets down a fairly appealing rhythm throughout. But I think many people enjoy this more after the uneentful previous song. To me the best dance songs are yet to come on here. If you enjoyed this you're really going to appreciate some of the others. B- 04. Trip In Transkei is Etnica's first real attempt to combine the ethnic voice concept of track 2 with the dance friendly concept of track 3 and here you have the best track on the album since the opening. Again it isn't that psychedelic but those skipping female voices work wonders; they create a melody all their own around the beat. There are tribal drums. There are catchy psy/goa-esque melodies. A strong kickdrum is present througout. The skippng voices disappear around halfway through and reappear during the last minute or two. I like how everything works together although I can't saythe track is great as a whole. It's a good dance song. B 05. History is the third dance song on this album and I'm really starting to like Equator. Finally we have a more accentuated, driving melody. Supporting melodies wiggle around the main one. This is more to my liking than any psytrance dance song on this album so far. The alien-related voice samples are pretty good but it's the slow, steady build as the song progresses that's great. The tempo switches up. Sounds and melodies become increasingly better as the song progresses. I like the echoed main melody, something that's been done over a hundred thousand times probably and it never the less compliments. Following a short female voice sample, this becomes even better around the 7:50 mark. More Goa melodies are introduced around the sweet driving Goa band and rhythm. It's great. A Star Trek sample concludes things nicely. While not what I consider superb, this is one of the best songs on the album. B / B+ 06. Vibra is the dance follow-up to History. It has a decent leading melody and some fine supporting sounds. Overall this track doesn't go anywhere interesting. There are some sublime chimes and a gentle female voice hymn is nice but the song has weak development as it progresses. It becomes more aggressive as swishy sounds and some hard spinning special effects are added in but they do little to interest me. The song isn't all that traveling either as fewer melodies and sounds take place. It's more of a progressive dance song but I can't see this being that fun to dance to. There isn't any strong hook let alone a hook really and yet there's nothing bad about it. This is one of the weaker dance song on Equator. C+ 07. Resistance is the best dance song on the album. I was waiting for something attention arresting and this is interesting. The borg sample from Star Trek instantly makes this song darker. You'd already notice that from it's driving melodies and rhythm. I really like the gritty, strong and drivng melodies, the sustained chimes, notes, ambient, atmosphere, and the altered echoed voice effects. The melody changes up and gets more involved. This song is very dynamic, the melodies rising up from less high melody waves from the 4:45 - 5:30 mark. I'd say that's the peek but the song has more juice in it's engine than initially imagined. Hynotic, chopped up voice samples graze the beats as a slower and somewhat industrial, psytrance stomping beat is established. The vocals add chaos to an already angry machine and it slowly tampers off with twisted, altered voice samples that sound very unfriendly. This is a great, driving psytrance song and one of the top best on Equator. B+ 08. Funkadelia is the second track I initially hated on this album. What the hell happened? I thought we were on a roll after the last several tracks. I don't like the fact that the voice samples from Independence Day, a damn conversation we've all heard before takes place throughout between Bill Pullman's character and the evil alien. The funky beat isn't that catchy. The melodies are weak. The only part or element I like on the whole album is the melody (as if climbing up and down a winding staircase) compiled with the ambient between 4:14 - 4:45. It sounds pleasent compared to all else and they repeat this atleast one or two more times. Why couldn't the song have really lifted off once this nice melody braiding moment took place I have no idea. The song goes right back to it's repeating conversation, Pullman's voice "Can there be peace between us. What do you want us to do?" And the damn songs logs along for several more minutes introducing virtually nothing new. It repeats it's high point melody combination which A), isn't high to begin with and , it's the least they could do in my opinion without getting a worse score from me and I'm sure many of their fans. This track is very unappealing overall. It's potentially decent moments are few and far between. It doesn't make me want to chill. It makes me want to skip to the next song and never look back or forward to hearing this one again. C- 09. 06'48" Baraka sounds like the true follow-up to the opening song. It's a powerful, engaging, intriguing, and memorable chill, down-tempo trance track. Developing a strong, stable, groovy core and sound, this world brings in new satisfying melodies and builds. The skipping voices sound fx compliment as the similar concept did in track 4. And in a atmosphereic dusk of wind the track is over before I knew it. Wow they could have added more layers and melodies and build this thing up to be even stronger, more like a kingdom but at nearly seven minutes I praise it for being great all the way. This is a strong song to a rather fairly good album with several great tracks. B+ In conclusion, I really like Equator overall. I admire and enjoy Etnica's ability in succeeding creating something different and catchy for the most part. It irritates me the several weak songs Etnica decided to throw into the track list. The good outshines the bad enough for Equator to deserve a solid, albeit not great score. For those who generally like ethnic-influenced voices, melodies, and tribal beats in their psytrance but not all the time (a la Juno Reactor relative some some ethnic concepts, tribal drums, etc) you may really enjoy this. It's also the last Etnica album I can honestly say is very well done overall. Nitrox had some good and great tracks too but it was a huge departure from psy and goatrance so let's focus on Equator. This has Goa melodies and some very strong dance songs. I like that alot. It brings the listener closer to the music because of the attractive sounds. Equator has one of the strongest and solid openings and closings as well. Some will remember Alien Protein as their last classic album and others will place Equator as their last great or good album. There are some very well done good and great Psy/Goa-inspired, driven dance songs. What Equator really boils down to is a fusion of Psy, Psytrance, trance, world-influenced electronica, chill, Goa, and Goa-influenced Down-Tempo. I think parts of this album are excellent, several tracks are disappointing, and atleast two-thirds is in the good and above range. Equator is overall a good album and my last favorite one by this once stunning, groundbreaking group. Favorite tracks: 1, 4, 5, 7, 9. B 8/10 Samples: http://www.saikosounds.com/english/display...ease.asp?id=125