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Artist: Merr0w Title: Odysseus Label: Global Sect Release: December 12, 2019 Tracklist: 1 - Lost in the Triangle 2 - Lunar Tides 3 - Odysseus 4 - Trippy Jellyfish 5 - Their Own Light 6 - Sea Wolf Howling 7 - Fractal Octopus 8 - Last Breath On Seashore ~ Under the sea, under the Sea, Darling it's better, down where it's wetter Global Sect entered the scene committed to providing rare and focused styles of the Goa trance genre. For most of their existence so far this has been cosmic themed Goa that takes you as far into the depths of space as you can go. I even began to think that this theme would be carried through for eternity. With the release of Merr0w's newest album we see that it is not the theme that matters but that there is a theme. And what better artist to show us this than the guy who really does seem to love all the magic of the deep water myths and kingdoms. Brice Fruyt is all about the sea. Don't believe me? Merrow comes from Gaelic that stands for a Mermaid or a Chimera, so like a water chimera, so like a Taor. Just look at that cover art, that's some straight up cool work, and the merch available along side this release is outstanding too. Life under the water is fantastical, but it's also slow, you can tell from listening to these tracks that a lot of time and attention has been given to them. You can't just whip up a 17 minute track like Trippy Jellyfish, that comes from somewhere special, somewhere deep inside, more mysterious than the unknown depths. Well Lost In The Triangle sure does kick it off nicely. A fine tuned super duper producer type track. Bubbles and mysterious storms of electro goodness rush around you while the maelstrom spins you down into the depths. The melody shoots at you like the stream from a TFL-B54270-Aluminum-Alloy-Water-Jet-Thruster-Pump. Merr0w knows we need a little chill time before we deal with the next onslaught from the depths. You have exactly 3 minutes until the bulging Lunar Tide comes to clear away the wreckage from the first track. At full moon we never stood a chance, the final act of Lunar Tides is like a opening a giant clam to find:- Or This Life under the sea can be lonely, you might take either. Odysseus, King of the island of Ithica, battler of mystical beasts and subject of the gods Wrath, this guy really pissed Poseidon off. Merr0w creates an epic tale that slaps harder than a giant squids tentacular club. Fast and loud, the melody and background noises develop and morph, shift, ebb & flow. A groover that comes at you harder than Charybdis from that damn Vortex. Like the 8 long years spent with Calypso the nymph (The nymphs from the myths not the internet) on the island of Ogygia Triple Jellyfish is here for a long time. Wait. You're telling me Odysseus spent 10 years trying to get home but for 8 of those he was gettin' some on a Mediterranean island? Sounds better than going home to mumma and pappa if you ask me. If those 8 years were anything as good as the 17 minutes and 12 seconds of pure inspiration coming from Triple Jellyfish then I can't blame the guy. Like streams of power coming from the Neptune's magical trident this track blasts you into another dimension. Only ever letting up to shock you with another tsunami of energy Trippy Jellyfish is one heck of a journey that makes hits you by surprise every time you think things might be calming down. A song sung by The Sirens themselves, a lure of symphonies that traps you in a scaly grasp. The sound of Triton's Conch Shell Trumpet begins tooting overhead and now we are in the thick, there is no way to go but right through Their Own Light. A treasure greater than anything found at the depths of the Bermuda, just listen to that damned production quality. Melodies that morph faster than the Agulhas current are just the cherry on top but by no means the whole meal. The howls of a wolf through the trees are horrifying enough, but one from this guy:- No thanks. Good thing nothing but good luck is meant to come from the sighting of this thing. And after the first howls in Sea Wolf Howling that good luck brings itself to you in the form of one of the best Merr0w compositions you have heard. The Akkorokamui shoot their tentacles of raw rusted synths and melody through the darkness and wrap them around your body. This is one monster you don't want to fight but give yourself in to. Maybe the terrifying bastard is benevolent. Urchins, Lobsters, Poseidon and Odysseus all come together for one glorious moment of fractalised unity. Like a storm crafted by Aeolus Fractal Octopus is wild, fast, loud and exciting. it's been 10 long years but the journey has come to an end with one last piece to guide us home, and one Last Breath on Seashore. Merr0w get's to really bring the ocean into this track with enigmatic atmospheres you really do start to feel like you are in a lost world. A beautiful way to finish this adventure of deep sea myths and monsters. ~ I think everyone here will agree that this has got to be Merr0w's best work to date. The theme is carried along completely from start to finish, the melodies are great, the atmospheres are bubbly and deep, the production and composition of sounds dance around one another like sinking treasures. It's Merr0w but unlike you have heard him, perhaps unlike we will hear him again. Well done to Global Sect and Merr0w for this fantastic release, special shout out to Andrei Verner who has nailed the artwork. https://globalsect.bandcamp.com/album/merrow-odysseus

Welcome to the Lazerdrome of empathetic radiance. A different vibe, warm, mellower and trance inducing. Kick and bass made with extra chunky lumps for your listening pleasure.

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...since I just came home from one of the most epic "metal nights" ever - yes, ever - I confess, that, reading this, right here, right now, is the best it can get ... for me. Thanks. I am humbled Oh and ...yes, I am listening to Fatboy Slim - Right Here Right Now. Thanks for asking SCNR oh and NHJO

Lost my attention in modern Goa Trance and im speaking from producers perspective... and it's gonna be long but worth of read imo. Today Goa is one of most limited Trance styles, even more than that Offbeat Prog most of us can't stand. There are so much rules these days which you have to follow just to get released, to play somewhere? Even worse. Sometimes I wonder if we as producers even have a freedom to do what we like or think we do and that people will actually support that. Expectations and personal tastes of few will eventualy kill Goa scene, not 'bad' producers themselves. We are small scene struggling to survive but all we do is bitching around and killing wish of new or producers that already gave a lot on scene. Those that we still praise from 90s, well 99% of them don't give a thing for last 20 years and didn't contribute to scene at all while you have new guys doing and putting everything they can so this scene could go on and so they could really enjoy in life as an artists and all fun it brings. If you are not like Etnica, you sucks, If you are not like Tim Schuldt its too boring, it's not dark enough. If you have modern bassline you are Fullon. It's not 90s Goa ripoff, well it sucks. You see problem now? Every single style in Psychedelic Trance genre have been developing since it's beggining, every couple of years style changed itself and most of them for better. And people there actually accept that because they understand 2005 Full on is 15 years old and it was good for that period, now is different and good for today. Progressive from early 00s was also good, but Ace Ventura is killing it now and killing it big for 2020 and people fucking love that. Remember Twisted System back in 2004? Fucking best Twilight ever. Well Ajja is king now sorry. Goa trance, 95 MWNN and Etnica, 2005 crazy Filipe Santos, 2010 Filteria, today... who knows? Every music was good for its period, some survived for 20-30 years, some not. But everyone moved on, new music, new generations, everyones having fun big time, parties and festivals bigger than ever, more music than ever for each and everyone but not for us Goa people. To us nothing is ever good enough specialy when you don't want to ripoff music from 25 years ago doing over and over same things, we just want same music, same style, same group of artist playing here and there. As an artist you are forced to do what others (label, promoters, scene?) want just to get released and get some attention from people so you can feel welcome on scene. So you make what they want which is maybe musicaly better but technicaly it's crap and everyone knows it but it's ok because it sounds like 90s. Maybe you got lucky to get booked on them few Goa Trance festivals and play for a bit bigger crowd so you get bigger and better promotion. Then you want more and more, why not to play for even more and even more often but oh wait you can't. Nobody want too book you, all promoters booked you already, so you are not interesting to them anymore, lets try others but nobody ever fucking heard of you. You would like to play on Boom or Ozora, all of us want but wait they never heard of you because marketing in Goa scene is one worse ever because they are not daring to invest at least 50euros in their digital promotions of your releases for which you are obviously not payed enough or not payed at all. Second thing, remember that you sounds like 90s, technicaly/production wise it's crap so is your music to 99% people out there because you couldn't use damn boring 'fullon bassline' or 'fullon kick' and now your music sounds ears bleeding on big systems and who da fuck want to put this guy on stage in front of 50000 people? I personaly would never, only if he doesn't brings me tons of money. 50000 people won't hear Goa Trance just that few days, where are tons of other big parties and festivals? If labels and agencies know what people really want today, why they don't force artists corectly and invest in them? You know that 50k on artist pages means a lot to get booking? Make his artist page on facebook get 50k likes! People like fancy produced videos of artists playing, doing interviews or studio sessions? You are fucking manager, so fucking make that happen! Is it really that hard? People on dancefloor love modern sound, so fucking force your artists to have production quality of Astrix instead of forcing them to boycott fucking EQ in their projects. And last thing but most important we forget if we want to survive is because we don't know how to sell product (read music). Literally we are worst there. You release something but 90% of scene don't have a clue that release is out. Are we doing business because this artist-label-parties-scene stuff is business after all, or we just satisfing our personal taste and personal frustrations? Are we as people, giving enough and fucking DECENT support to guys doing this music? Hell no! Even worse is that their damn labels don't give them decent support, just opportunity to get more money or promotion for their own name. I am here with you for 11 full years, 2500 posts, active for so many years. Meet some of you and become good friends in real life. You know my alter ego but some of you know me as a person. We have some history here right? Let me take a personal example so I don't target any other artist... My latest release 'Imba - Liberation EP' was released 2 and half months ago, to be exact 73 days and yet not a single review on it. How and why? Not that it's most important thing to artist but to most of us it has value. We came here because we value some thing here and some words can inspire us to keep doing it. I would really love to read some words from some respected members in scene, good or bad but I would love just to discuss and see. - Is it possible that nobody heard it yet for 73 days? Hard to believe that. - Is it possible that nobody could spare 10-20 mins to write it for 73 days? Hard to believe that. - Is it really that terrible that nobody wan't even to think about it? Even harded to believe that not because is mine but because I saw/heard it on dancefloor. Even in promo post only 2 people left some comment... This example is just one small thing of many, not most essential for survival of Goa music but to some people could mean a lot. How often you sent supportive msg to artist, new or older just to thank him and make him feel right and happy for doing this? How often have you shared artists music or party videos on your social media just as support? I haven't recieved msg here in ages and just simple Thank You would mean a lot to me or someone... Artist is not producing music just for themselves, not this type of music as you can't live from it. If they don't feel connected with people they will stop, one by one. I asked myself many times why? Yeah I am enjoying, I love this music and love the lifestyle, traveling, playing and fun but for who? Morphic Resonance who is very much loved here or in scene generaly, who gets lots of attention... got same questions on our last meeting. Many guys does... And here we are back to beggining, the people for whom we are doing all of this. First of all is: can you say that you as listener/party goer/Goa Trance lover doing enough for Goa Trance so it can survive and be good? Are we artists only guilty because scene is like this and you lost attention? We are too lazy to comment, talk, support someone which takes just couple of minutes but we are always ready to bitch artist who lost months or even years on some release just because he is not Etnica and he is not 90s. This is not 'Mom got me a toy I didn't want', it's far more important than personal expectations and taste. If you want scene to survive ofcourse... I didn't want to offend anyone with this post and I hope nobody found offended. Just pointing some main problems and I hope that you will think about...