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ANIMIST FUTURISM David Tingsgard has created one of the only albums, apart from E-Mantra’s Arcana, to rival the greats of the golden age of Goa trance in this latest record Songs From a Forgotten Memory. I really love what Battle of the Future Buddhas is doing on this and the previous album Light Behind the Sun. Quite slowish, spacey Goa with deep beats and wonderful melodies. In both albums, Tingsgard returns to the roots of Goa trance in the early sound of 94-96, which tended to be slower and more mellow than the later years which got more and more intense. Perhaps the first thing to note is that the title suggests that this is a back to the future kind of project. Is this just a nostalgia project then? Perhaps, but I go on to argue that this project involves reanimating the virtues of the past, but also updating those virtues so that they speak to the present. I call this animist futurism because it features a number of alien animal sounds. It is worth noting that both albums feature superlative production with all sounds clear, distinct, and textured against a velvety black background, but avoiding brightness or an analytical edge. One of the things I really like about both albums is that BotFB shows restraint. He does not go straight for maximum velocity from the outset. The tracks and album as a whole can thus build, and build they do. Take "Collidoscope" for instance - at the 5.35 mark the track breaks into huge pillars of rising and falling modulations - this really takes the listener on a disorientating psychedelic trip because it has not been constant throughout the track which builds up to this peak gradually. This is the mark of a mature and talented artist who understands that drama comes from restraint, not throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the listener all at once. Moreover, by avoiding manic layerism and the straitjacket of 16th note galloping horse bass and drums, when he decides to use a sawtooth or a flutter effect, it is effective. Not constant fluttering, which has little effect but to put you in a flutter. Lots of his melodies do have this fractalised or fluttering effect, but because he doesn't do this all the time it is not tiresome. Effective, like I said. Another thing worth pointing out about the whole album is that a great deal of attention is paid to background atmosphere and ambience. There are a lot of subtle background ambient sounds, a bit like distant landscape in a painting. These are sometimes innovative, as in the drones in "Mugwump". Moreover, this is not just arbitrary spacey ambience, conjuring some nondescript outer space. Space here is not empty. It is inhabited. There be creatures. We might go into cold interstellar space, but this is no colonial "myth of the virgin empty land" - this is a kind of Star Wars vision of space with lots of alien creatures. Alien creature sounds abound, primarily in squiggly forest-style melodies, either major ones or minor ambient noises. Hence I think of this album as animist futurism. "Collidoscope" is a highly rhythmic track with a really slapping kick. Alien keening sounds kick in at about the 4 minute mark and there are Prana style rising and falling 303 arpeggios arranged in circular patterns till the end. A collidoscopic track indeed. "Go Gently into Space" (obviously a riff on Dylan Thomas' famous "do not go gently into that good night/rage, rage against the dying of the light") is a space hymn to the "future space travellers" (thanks to Miranda and Prana for that phrase). It starts off with a spoken manifesto to all future space travellers, the kind of thing that you might hear in Starship Troopers: “It’s really the next stage in the evolution of mankind, out here amongst the stars lies the destiny of mankind”. Hehe, c'mon Goaheads, let's send this track to Elon Musk; he can make it his anthem. It also features great deep bass and one of the best snare sounds I've heard, and placed with pitch perfect accuracy. The track goes all Astral Projection at the end with sugary melody. This really is a space anthem if ever I've heard one. And without going over the top. Everything in total control, but without becoming predictable or zombie automaton. There’s not even a hint of the dreaded shiny plastic sound that psytrance has become. AWESOME!!! "Pitchbend (Into the Light Remix)" does exactly what it says on the tin: it starts with heavy bass 303 judders which shudder throughout, but gradually builds and ends with incredibly positive, life-affirming, sunny vibes that also happen to be delightfully psychedelic. Starting off pretty intense, this ends up being a lighter track than many on the album, but just as excellent. "The God Particle" makes it clear that this is a scifi themed album. There's such an awesome bass warble at the start of this track - honestly, this is totally addictive. Imagine holding a big sheet of roofing zinc and being able to shake it like a blanket - a metallic wap sound not far from a didge is what you'll get - and this sound goes on throughout. Infected Mushroom wish they could create just one sound as cool as this across their entire discography. A special shout to the snapping snares on this track too; faster than a cobra, as insouciant as a saddhu. As for the super trippy little alien elf melody at the end... I'm actually at a loss for superlatives. Could this be the best track on the album? "From Nothing"?? Nothing comes from nothing, so they say. Is this track describing the radical dissociation of a strong trip? Is it just a hymn to "empty" space? I don't know. But from the start this one goes heavier (I said the album builds not so?). At 4.52 there comes that unique little BotfB melody that sounds like the weird siren song of an alien at the window of your spaceship, luring you off track to the Triangulum constellation when you were supposed to be flying to Ganymede. Who needs Startrek when you have Goa trance like this? From nothing we find ourselves "In Heaven". This is the most classically Goa track on the album, featuring Indian singing, and it could an Astral Projection song. Utter bliss, with some of the most textured riffs you'll ever hear. This is clearly the spiritual heart of the album. Om mani padme hum. Om namaya Shiva. Bom Shankar! The comedown commences with "Mugwump". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a mugwump is a person who remains aloof and undecided, especially it seems on political matters. And there I was thinking it was a grumpy old Goahead who goes around muttering "old is gold". This track has a cool wurlitzer fairground horror melody that again seems to come from some creature. I love this forest elf twisty weirdo black metal goblin animism. We don't see enough of this tokolosh spiritualism in Goa or psytrance even though we have subgenres like forest and twilight. Sheesh, BotFB practically invented forest twilight. Clearly BotFB is winding back from the hypnotic bliss of "In Heaven" and we go a bit darker and more foresty here. “Interstellar” is a more mellow track starting with a techno beat and tweaky noises, but soon accompanied by a whimsical and simple melody that repeats. Another one of those charmingly simple but minor key little melodies that BotfB specialises in. A little drop of unaccountably strange and otherworldly stardust. Though not as befuddling as the weird ohm moan at 3.39 - another example of alien noises in the album. At the 5.45 point we enter another world with bigger riffs that are nevertheless restrained and subtle; nothing too loud here, but pulling you in with texture and intrigue. This is some beguiling shit! Finally, we come down to earth with “Blurred, Calm, Warm, Hazy”, just how you feel after a good toke. This is a fully ambient track, so of course there are some sitar sounds, Asian scales, along with tabla, and wailing melodies. This is quite a hazey track in which nothing much happens, but it does create a nebulous alien ambience. We are left with strange feelings that are hard to put into words... I feel that individual track ratings are redundant here as each track is close to flawless in its own way and, more importantly perhaps, the album flows as a whole, unified, singular journey. I didn't at any point in several complete listenings want to skip a track or back off the volume or feel that it was becoming too intense or too dull. Am I saying that it is perfect? Well, equally, I would like to avoid such hyperbole. Once or twice I wanted a more cinematic or orchestral intro/outro, or felt a bit more analogue atmosphere might have added something. David Tingsgard, take a bow bro. I will probably never meet you as you live on the opposite side of the globe from me, but I wish I could shake your hand. In my opinion, you've created one of the all-time great Goa albums. I thought "The Light Behind the Sun" was good. Well, you've upped the game with this 10/10 record. You've shown Etnica, Pleaidians, Miranda, Transwave, Simon Posford, et al, that Goa is a genre capable of more than we dreamed. Technically it seems better than many of the classics, yet it is true to the apparently simple sounds of early Goa. Imaginatively it is really out there, mixing Asian spirituality, science fiction, and a kind of northern forest paganism (if I may call it that) in creating a kind of animist futurism with some strange alien noises. But this album is also just so mellow, so musical, such delightful fun, as well as being dark, serious, and prophetic. If spiritual = balance and could be bottled, this is it. So, for me, this record takes the virtues of a nearly forgotten past and updates them for the present, making the genre more surprising than ever. Goa has always burrowed into the deep roots to reach towards the future, but now that appears more real in this tougher, darker, more scifi, yet still melodic, updated version. Goa goes animist futurism. This is a critical, useful kind of nostalgia, if it is even nostalgia at all. Finally, this is very much a BotFB album; no one else could have made it. It has a unique peaceful calm understatement combined with crazy Loki inventiveness. By stepping back from the intensity and some of the darkness of the earlier work, BotFB seem to have achieved their potential. The dust has long settled on the dirt roads of Anjuna. If you avoid the tourist areas you will only hear the lowing of sacred cows and temple bells at night walking near Chapora fort. The insects are loud in bamboo forest and the rice paddies glower in the gloom. But decades later, one who kept the faith has left behind a relic as valuable as anything made at the time. I feel privileged to discover it. Goa trance album of the year! This is deep trance plateau music - if you're a Goa fan, this is a must. It is begging for a vinyl release! Anoebis, do you hear me? Do not delay - crowdfund if you must, but do the best possible vinyl mastering and pressing of this classic album. I would be surprised if this album is not selling for thousands in decades to come! ~*~

I have no idea if you're trolling, or if this is just some elaborate inside joke XD

@Agneton Cool to read:) .. Is this also, Nitzho..? https://kaliearth.bandcamp.com/album/perversion-and-insanity

Thanks so much for the This Morn Omina recommendation RTP - I love it! If you like Wardruna, then Heilung are an absolute must (maybe even better than Wardruna and very well recorded) and Nytt Land are pretty good too for pagan tribal.

Donno if this goes for Deezer and Tidal as well, to mention some competition. But Spotify has since a few months now dropped the commercials for Free users. So now you can enjoy KER music on it without interruptions *yey*. So for you Free loaders that use Spotify can now enjoy music better .. Only thing is that you have to play in Random Shuffle mode (atleast on the phone App), and you have an X amount of skips. If you enjoyed this bullitin, plz Follow this Playlist anyway PS. On Tidal, or Deezer.. if not both.. You can search Record labels.. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1VD4uswQKBFtRsmYVDlzLl and no, the Goagilde V/A is by choice still not on Spotify ..