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Artist: Lectro Spektral Daze Title: Infinitely Intricate Unfolding Kaleidoscope Label: Neogoa Records Release: Feb 23 2018 Tracklist: 1. Experiences And Encounters 2. Acid Feels 3. Observing From All Around 4. Matter Into Energy 5. Seen Something 6. Thoughts They are Like Flames 7. Yellow And Green And Blue Patterns 8. Wave After Wave I gotta say at first i was confused. Lectro Spektral Daze does some great stuff, some of my favourites, his use of breaks is intelligent, the builds keep me guessing and the fun just jumps from all his tracks. The confusion however came from my first few listens on my car speakers and a pair of little in ear phones. The highs and Lectro’s use of sweeps caused me to wince in pain. For example in Acid Feel at the 4 minute mark the washed out sweep made me pull my earphones out and turn the volume down. At 6 min the highs build to a similar discomfort I went through some of his older tracks and heard similar sweeps and highs that didn’t cause me the same discomfort. Then Neogoa were all ‘lets review this bad boy aye’. So i thought, it must just be me, the team themselves couldn’t have messed mastering up that badly (I'll always believe in you Neogoa). And so I should, on proper speakers everything changed. 'When you face animosity you don't give up, you turn the biggest loudest rig you have access to on and hit play' 1. Experiences and Encounters - Nice little intro, and a cool kick and bassline, very Lectro Spektral styled. The progressive influences come through in the beginning and it doesn't take long before the track (Almost explodes into energy), if those leads were just a little louder, if they just roared a little more. Regardless the melody doesn't get old and we soon come to the first big break, it’s a good one too, then the track really blasts off, i love that lead that comes in around 6:20 coulda listened to that for the rest of the track really. 2. Acid Feels - A warm acid filled track, that doesn't take long to draw you into a deep trance. Overall a pretty positive track. The pain from the washy sweeps is gone and the high builds teetered on the edge of painful without actually crossing the line. 3. Observing From all Around - Starts without much messing around, cool knob turning and big drums lead us into our first melody. The use of one off sound effects and connected samples is pretty sweet. It really takes off at the halfway point. And that break at 6 min! Thats what im here for, This really where Lectro stands out from the crowd, the change of direction is awesome. A great track and favourite of mine. 4. Matter into Energy - Another short intro, very educational all the same, and we are met by warm full-on sounding pads.A floaty sense of funk surrounds fills this track. As the promo track to the album this didn't really grab me, after a few more listens I’m turnt right up. Another great break, this time more intense. Instead of over-layering with melodies other sounds and fx are used to keep your interest. 5. Seen Something - A light star spangled first act leads us into another cool melody which takes center stage. I would’ve liked the leads after the first melody to roar at me a bit more, instead they are placed deeper into the track drawing me in. The broken beats around 5 min are sweat and another LSD trademark i appreciate. This is one track however where we coulda dressed the kick drum up in a little tree costume and sent it to the backstage to offer the rest of the song more room to move. 6. Thoughts They are Like Fire - They do don't they? Who'd have thought. We get some cool loops and wacky sounds drawing us into the track before the melody takes over, not overly complex but lasts longer than the other melodies we have heard so far. 7. Yellow And Green And Blue Patterns - Goa trance can be a little bit like a game of rugby. Sometimes the Full Back has the ball and takes center stage, other times they just sit there to support the rest of the team. Sometimes the Wing gets the ball and takes center stage, they get some help from the others but it's really all them going for it. For the first half of this song i would have liked more focus on the ball carriers. So much coolness happening but not a lot taking focus...It deep tho. That being said, this was without a doubt my favourite track, Why? You guessed it, that break is beautiful. Tear inducing, uplifting, beauty. This is what i came here for. The purity of the second half of this track is unreal. 8. Wave After Wave - Who is that lady? Is that the weird girl from American idol, i gotta find her . . . - Mary roach, My God Lectro, did you get Mary to talk about acid on your track? My lord, has she changed her name to Guilbeaux yet? The rest of the track is too hot to trot, another favourite of mine, the chopped up melody and broken beats take over and make me to jump around. The voices in the back are a great addition. Lektro’s strong focus on breaks, nice use of builds and jump inducing fast paced changes have been mixed into a deeper style of trance. While at any point he could have brought parts of his track into stronger focus, what we get instead is balanced deep listening journey. I agree with the label when they say “...putting the listener into a unique state of deep trance led by trademark LSD melodies and pulsating drum-kicks…”. I enjoyed all tracks and loved three. I think Lectro has real talent, the album isn’t crawling with influence from other artists which tells me this amigo has his shit together. The work also shows that Neogoa is willing to release something a little bit different and unique. That being said I think the album could have gone a different direction into masterpiece territory, it’s art no doubt, good art too. Random snippets of sound, good melodies and awesome changing flow, more focus could have gone into bringing out some of the ‘bigger’ sounds, This may have taken away from the deep trance state induced rhythm of LSD, but it could have paid off big as well. Don’t get me wrong, the work is incredible and i was happy to purchase it, but i feel LSD has the potential to release the Magnum Opus. I read somewhere that what really separates the great originals from the rest is sheer volume of work. From art to engineering, more albums means more greats. If you catch my drift. https://neogoarecords.bandcamp.com/album/infinitely-intricate-unfolding-kaleidoscope

I don't understand how the intention of the artist can define whether something is commercial or not. For a start, we can't fully know the intentions of the artist. Some become commercially successfully without meaning to. I think it's qualities of the music itself that define whether something is commercial: such things as unchallenging rhythms, cliched melodies, overproduction, etc.

I think good full-on is something like this. 142-147 bpm, intense and energetic, with good catchy melodies. Unfortunately stuff like that is hard to find, most full-on released now hardly contains anything resembling a melody. Dacru was focused on full-on in late 00's now they release both full-on and prog.

Nice ones. These might be called psychedelic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibirth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dies_at_the_End_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existenz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasm_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begotten_(film)

I see it like this: When artists create their music because they know beforehand that style will appeal to the big crowd and only want to do it because of that reason, then it is commercial. When artists create a track because they feel it might induce a trance state to certain listeners, then it is not commercial. If the latter appeals to most listeners just because it is decent and musical, and the artist ends up making a lot of money from it, it is still not "commercial" for me.

Forestdelic is a good label, but their sound is closer to UK psytrance than Forest IMO. Some fantastic pure Forest labels: Stoneage: Defunct, but one of the best early forest labels Treetrolla: For the authentic scandinavian forest sound Sanaton: One of the best forest labels Parvati: They started as darkpsy, but now they are almost exclusively forest Schlabbaduerst: For the classic melodic forest style Chronicle Of Mystery: Similar style to Schlabbaduerst

Hope I don't stray too far from you original request but as Redo gave you a great list of forest essentials I thought I'd point you to another interesting genre under the forest spectrum: forest-goa! Especially since you listen to Goa mainly. Usually based in the goa sounds but darker and more chaotic, with maddening melodies and the moody, quirky vibe associated with forest. Ka-sol - Fairytale, Gorm Höller - Böller and Kiriyama - Reach Escape Velocity is probably a great introduction. Also Chronicle of Mystery recs (VA Chronicle of Schlabbaduerst is amazing goa-madness), and ofc Schlabbaduerst rekkords.