healium

I do know that Beat Bizarre has released quite a bit of new material over the last few years, and it is excellent.. His albums "Mukharv", "Riot", and "Maunder Minimum" are all excellent - great style, deep and hypnotic - sort of a dark and groovy thing, very unique, I can pick a Beat Bizarre track out easily.. Happily I find today that he just released a new album this year called "Perpetuum Mobile" that I'm looking forward to checking out..

Hey all! While I enjoy some of the new-school goa, it seems that it's all that I see on here anymore - either that or darkpsy.. Both goa and darkpsy are so fast, relentless barrage of sounds and layers - goa is great stuff, but it can't be the only psy I listen to.. Back in the 2000's we had amazing progressive psytrance albums being released - X-Dream, Vibrasphere, Beat Bizarre, Reefer Decree, Atmos, Ticon, Krumelur, etc.. I miss the slower BPM and hypnotic build up of layers that this sort of trance involves.. Can anyone recommend newer releases in this same style?

Yes I think we will have to agree to disagree For me this album creates massive atmospheres, and the timing with the rhythms and other elements is fantastic (very groovy and danceable) - some tracks are also very catchy, which psytrance often lacks - "Entropy" for instance is a massive track, super catchy melodies, deep dark sound.. "Behind the Wall" is absolutely epic in terms of the dark atmosphere and catchy elements.. Yes it is unemotional but that is intentional, and what you call "simplistic" to me is a good quality that I refer to as "minimal" -in fact, back in the early 2000's, before people even used the term "progressive," we had a genre we called "minimal psytrance." Check out Krumelur - "Minimal Animal" for a great example of this style.. I guess what I'm getting at, is that the un-emotional, minimalistic, dark cyber sound is an intentional style that I find quite beautiful - your review makes it seem like they failed somehow because their album sounds like this, when it is an intentional sound - really, to me it seems like you're more just saying "I don't like the sub-genre" or "I don't like this style of progressive psytrance" rather than rating the album for how well it executes the sub-genre..

I don't think that is a fair comparison - Ticon is obviously going for a mechanized, cyber sort of sound here.. Personally I'm loving this album, and find it highly artistic, despite that it isn't breaking new ground in terms of the basic format of progressive psy.. - By the way, please people post more progressive psytrance reviews! This forum is so goa-centric...

He should do another Distant System album - that was a truly unique and memorable work..

Check this album out - by some of the artists that create as "Elea." This is an extraordinary, midtempo psychedelic instrumental, Sufi chanting infused piece of art.. I haven't posted on here in a long time but I had to give publicity to this album - so fresh, so psychedelic, the fattest rhythms.. I have no idea how this album didn't get a bunch of attention.. Here's one of the tracks - first few minutes are instrumental till the beat drops

That is very surprising!

I don't even remember a review for this new Pleiadians double album extravaganza - nor can I find it by search - am I missing something?

This track may be it - total mind-blower, melodic tour de force...

The remixes are awesome!! I like the original a lot as well, but BPC's new version is way better - classic track!

"Blumenkraft" is easily my favorite Ott album ever.. To me that album has the most distinct style - so swanky, groovy, and trippy - very stylish music with lots of depth..

I didn't care much for this compilation - I don't care much for this style of psytrance though so it may just be that. Overall the whole "ghosts-and-goblins carnival" sound lacks depth of emotion - there's no charisma to it or euphoric melodic breakdowns, but it's also not got the heavy hypnotic trance aspects of progressive psy.. I liked the 2nd and 12th tracks on here pretty well though, those seemed to have more depth and charisma..

The sound production on "Dragon Tales" may not have been to today's standards - but the actual sounds they used in that album are way more colorful, creative, and trippy than in 98% of what I hear nowadays - such a diverse sound pallate, and so much creativity. I would imagine that if "Dragon Tales" were simply remastered and otherwise had the production taken up to today's standards, and then released, it would sound more "modern" and groundbreaking than pretty much everything else currently being released.. It's only the production that sounds dated..

Me too!! Bill, man, I love your reviews, but I simply can't wrap my head around how you could put this album here in the same league as "Dragon Tales".. "The Scanner" comes off to me as mindless full-on psytrance with little artistic intrigue. There are some trippy sounds, but it's all strung together in a way that seems devoid of musicality and soul.. Nevermind the headache-inducing baselines that go along with it.. "Dragon Tales" is the sort of album that truly spins a "tale" in each track, the sort of music that you can journey deep on with headphones, one of my favorite psytrance albums ever.. I'm not saying "The Scanner" is a bad album, it has some moments in it, but I predict it will not be remembered as even one of the better albums of this year, let alone on par with classic Koxbox..

Really enjoying this EP - not sure which track is my fav but like them all quite a bit.