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A good accompaniment to reading Edgar Allan Poe on perversion and Howard Philips Lovecraft on hermeneutic uncertainty and alien horror. Poe's theory of perversion was prophetic and only now are we beginning as a species to grasp its full import as we begin to reap the cruel crop of our bad seeds and benighted sowings. Far from patent leather and whips, Poe basically said that we all have the potential for perverse self-destructiveness, often planted in us in childhood by the constant "no" we heard and had to hear from our parents and peers (you know, kids want to probe everything and stick everything up their orifices...). Plain old ornery self-destructiveness shades into perversion when we go so far into it that the only way to achieve redemption is via full self-slaughter of some variety. That dark turning point is when our addictions, gamblings, lies, cheats, thievings, evasions, procrastinations, etc begin to seriously harm others. No way out but forward go into self-annihilation you might say is Poe's theory. But here comes the kicker: Poe theorised that this dark turning point is programmed into us by the desire of all matter to return to undifferentiation in his proto-science disquisition Eureka! - a work of genius in which he conjoined science and emotional psychology. Once we have messed up our karma, so to speak, by harming others, our body requires cleansing and expiation and the only way to achieve this is by returning to undifferentiation, ie God, ie the whole, which our bodies remember. We need to dismember ourselves to remember unity, and this operates at a subconscious, preconscious, physical level. In other words, it is our bodies which judge us - a classic inversion of our usual cranial narcissism. If we consider rightly of this remarkable and unique deconstruction of our narcissism, we can see that Poe has given us the tool to understand the repeatedly dumbfoundingly inexplicably stupid self-destructiveness of humans - from the mundane level of tail-gating on the highway when it is clearly foolhardy, or procrastinating on that term essay, to spending all our family's savings on gambling, or unleashing appalling orgies of xenophic mass slaughter via weapons of mass destruction. Very few such tools exist in the world and I hail you Edgar Allan Poe for being honest and clever enough to provide us with one. This tool is a key for self-liberation at the deepest level; as another literary genius, Oscar Wilde, put it: "learning to love yourself is the beginning of a life-long romance". If you've managed to read this far, I'm sure you will be glad to hear that I will not be embarking on an exhaustive disquisition about and analysis of H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic materialism, suffice it to say that Lovecraft was influenced by Poe and that reading him is required if you are to explore the full horror of what Proxeeus unleashes on the listener here. If you're a sick puppy like me, you will also need to become intimately acquainted with the scribblings of possessed demons like Clarke Ashton Smith, Aleister Crowley and so on, not to mention the black metal abominations of bands like The Great Old Ones and countless others. Leaving aside the background reading and listening that any researcher into arcane horrors needs to undertake in order to fully understand this latest Proxeeus album, I am left with an aesthetic question by this inheritor of Xenomorph's dark legacy: is this intense darkpsy album more grimly effective than the Goan horrortrance of At the Mountains of Madness or the black psydub of Celephais? To ask the same question another way, is Proxeeus a multiply talented multigenre artist, or is his true metier in one of the genres? For sure he leaves both psydub and Goa behind on this latest more full on album, which has galloping horse and machine gun basslines (the weakest aspect of the album to my ears). Which of these genres is he best at? I leave you with that question. ~*~ PS - My favourite Proxeeus albums by far are At the Mountains of Madness and Celephais. The other albums lose some of the spirit in going a bit too busy.

Humble apologies for raining on anyone's parade, but Equilibrium is a compilation of previously released tracks: Tracks 1,2, 3 & 7 were originally released on "Transparent" on CD and vinyl on Plusquam Records in 2001 Tracks 4 & 5 were originally released on vinyl on Spirit Zone Recordings in 2002 Tracks 6 & 8 were originally released on vinyl on Spiral Trax International in 2001 Remastered and compiled in 2020 All tracks © and ℗ Steve Good 2020 The good news is that I have all these tracks on vinyl and I can attest to their phenomenal quality. I still rate Double Dragon's first album Continuum as Steve Good's best album (it is for sure the most psychedelic and most Goan), but Transparent is also great, albeit more on the progressive tip. One of the remarkable things about this second album is the superb production and recording quality, something which also stands out in the equally fine "Tin Drum" and "Cabin Fever" eps from that same time. Seriously good quality releases these - favourites for me for many years and sounding unbelievably good on a quality hifi. ~*~

Happy new year!!! Wir schicken dich ins all is awesome. Here, have two more, old as the street. =))

Various – Suntrip Classix Vol. 1 - Titan Suntrip Records – SUNCDLP04 Country:Belgium Released:Oct 1, 2022 Tracklist A1 Psylent Buddhi – Moksha Written-By, Producer – Kasper Weensgaard 11:49 A2 Triquetra – Forget About The Earth Written-By, Producer – Elric Reinartz, Jurian Reinart 7:01 B1 Ra – Crossing Planet Written-By, Producer – Christer Borge-Lunde, Lars W. Lind 11:09 B2 Clementz – Spirit Dance Written-By, Producer – Hans Henrik Clementz 6:14 C1 Shakta – It Was Not Human Written-By, Producer – Seb Taylor 7:38 C2 Celestial Intelligence – Celestial Beings Written-By, Producer – Branislav Dimkovski, Dalibor Anastasovski 8:55 D1 Goasia – Love & Peace Written-By, Producer – Balint Tihamer, Vladislav Radulovic 8:16 D2 Mindsphere – Tears Of Goddess Written-By, Producer – Ali Akgun 8:10 A1 Psylent Buddhi – Moksha Quite an intense and busy track with very good production values - sounds stunning on vinyl with pan-potted sounds flying around the room. There is a super rhythmic sensibility in this track and it builds and builds. Decent track that does not stay static for long and has good story telling structure but feels a little short and could have more melodic interest. A2 Triquetra – Forget About The Earth I love Triquetra's old school acid and fun sensibility; very retro and reminds us not to take our genre too siriously. Kinda Eat Static outlook. This track is typical of their style and features an acid bass 303 that sounds very reminiscent of Josh Wink's classic "Higher State of Consciousness" from 1995. Fun, bouncy, silly, delightful, what is not to like? I don't like this track so much when I'm grumpy - it is a bit too repetitive and simplistic in its "aving it" rave attitude, but could kick up some dust on the dancefloors. Not my favourite Triquetra track, but fun all the same. B1 Ra – Crossing Planet Ra is one of my favourite Goa artists and I freely admit that I am not very objective about his work; I love it all! Is there a more floaty artist than Ra, better able to summon up transcendental Kailash feelings? Maybe Martin Cooper aka Asia 2001 (rip )? This track does not deviate from Ra's transcendental vibe and does not disappoint this listener. I read some nit-pickers going on about how Ra's high hats are too linear - pffft! Forget about the nay-sayers, this is pure luxury in aural form. Those delicate psy synths and minor key Eastern melodies - delicious! A 9/10 track for me - I'm only subtracting a point because it stopped when I wanted it to carry on forever. B2 Clementz – Spirit Dance Clementz comes with another floating, bubbling track with uplifting vibe courtesy of Hindu-style vocals. This track has an hypnotic simple bassline that I really like and overall the synth work is super with fairy tale melodies and a gentle feeling. Very, very nice. My only criticism is that it is rather short and could have been further developed. 8 out of 10 from this listener. C1 Shakta – It Was Not Human Shakta breaks the gentle upliftment with his signature breakbeats. Slam dunk da funk - Shakta is another one of my all time favourite artists and he brings the acid funk here full of rattling percussion, gurning attitude, and alien gonzo whackiness. Predictably good stuff, I love it that Shakta has not changed his style at all; this track could easily be from Silicon Trip. C2 Celestial Intelligence – Celestial Beings We return to gentler vibes with Celestial Intelligence and this track meanders along pleasingly, but lacks distinction and memorability. D1 Goasia – Love & Peace Goasia's "Love & Peace" is a bit tougher and features some big ascending arpeggios that uplift us beyond the head-nodding stomping rhythm. Good stuff. D2 Mindsphere – Tears Of Goddess Suntrip saved the best for last - a stunning track from Mindsphere closes out the compilation. "Tears of Goddess" walks the proverbial Razor's Edge between driving rhythm, acidic heaviness and fragile beauty. Spiritual bliss - excellent work. So is this compilation of "Goa Classix" Titanic, or does it sink? Well, needless to say, it hardly ends up at the bottom of the ocean in a hubristic disaster. Nevertheless, for me it is not as successful as the excellent Gamma Draconis because it doesn't have as many great tracks on it. Ra and Mindsphere bring the magic here; Shakta, Clementz and Goasia are good; the other tracks are not quite in the same league. I also have a question about the flow of the album; I'm not sure that the acidic Triquetra and Shakta tracks fit in amongst the more ethereal tracks of the rest of the album, not that I think that a compilation has to be uniform at all. Nevertheless, a worthy compilation that is highly enjoyable and sounds fabulous on vinyl - Tim Schuldt's masterful mastering is as reliable as ever. Chalk up another success to the ever-reliable Suntrip Records. ~*~