Jikkenteki

I'm so busy with general "life" stuff that for me the hardest part is simply turning the computer on and sitting down in front of it. Once I can do that I generally find the music making process itself inspiring enough that I don't have to worry so much about it.

I've been cursed to live in some very un-trance friendly areas most of my life so I've seen almost none of the big acts and only a handful of smaller ones (and most of those only because I've played with them at the same event). Seen: Juno Reactor Suzuki Tsuyoshi Domino Raja Ram Lucas Played with: Uni Vihtahousu Hydraglyph Optokoppler Symphonics 11 Slum Chromatone Sharaku (6D Soundz) 01-N Next Month Mr. Peculiar and Hyperception can get added to the list, but that's about it to date...... Oh yeah, I guess I've seen Jikkenteki live too

Hux Flux - Division By Zer0

Penta - Horn Please Not my usual flavor of the psy-pie, but pretty good regardless...

Today's order just arrived... Hydraglyph - Euphonics Arkanoyds - Type One D-Tek - Broken Disk Hux Flux - Division By Zero Gus Till - Best Of The Rhino Years Vol. 1 Androcell - Emotivision Penta - Horn Please Logic Bomb - Sonic Algebra Tea Chairs - Tea Chairs

Yeah there was some good stuff made in the minimal period too. One thing I have never really been able to understand about trance scene (and some other genres as well) is this idea of total abandonment of previous sounds (I'm talking in generalizations here, I know there are exceptions). It's like there is a law against making music in a style that was popular, say, 4 years earlier. There was a lot of crappy minimal made, but there was a good deal of excellent stuff as well. But then again, there was a lot of crap goa made, but a lot of excellent stuff as well... on the other hand there was a lot of crappy full on made, but there was a good deal of excellent stuff as well... as for progressive, well there sure was a lot of crappy progressive made... but then again, there was some excellent stuff as well.... (am I starting to sense a pattern here?).... I say use the best of everything to make good music and who cares about when stuff was made. When were most of the classic rock albums made that people still listen to these days?

Those book style cd cases where you slide the cd in and out can and do scratch the CD, regardless of how careful you are with them. Some are better than others but you are still sliding the CD surface directly around on a surface so it will happen eventually. I'm very careful with my CDs but during the heat of the moment in DJ sets often then disc care factor gets dropped down a notch simply because you MUST keep the music going and not waste any time. After a few years of wrestling with the issue, I decided that I now only play out with cdr copies of my original CDs. The damage during the gig factor isn't such an issue then, plus I have seen one too many DJs get thier cd case stolen as over the years. As for the issue at hand, I personally prefer the look of digipaks and that they take up a hair less space, but dislike them for all the other reasons listed above. When I moved from the US to Japan, it was great being to take out all my CDs and artwork and just throw the jewel cases away and buy new ones when I got settled in here. It freed up an insane amount of room on my move, and indeed one of my bigger packing issues was what to do with all the damn digipaks.

This isn't directed directly at you Oopie, I'm just using one of your comments to bring up a point that's been on my mind recently. I've never quite understood all the Etnica worship. Yes they have made some amazing tracks, but I find a lot of there older "goa" era stuff to be rather average at best and often weak. I over-looked Etnica for a lot of years mostly due to the fact that most of the tracks I heard from them I thought were pretty weak (and I am talking about pre-Nitrox, goa era stuff here). It wasn't until I discovered the Pleiadians stuff (again later than most) that I bothered to dig back into the Etnica back catalog deeper and found out they did indeed have a lot of good tracks. However, at the risk of being lynched here, I think they have released more than their fair share of filler too. What does all this babble prove? That taste is taste and different strokes for different folks. A lot of people seem to think that if they can just explain themselves better somehow everyone else will agree with them. But many people seem to somehow not be willing or able to understand that other people can in fact see someone else's point, understand where they are coming from completely and still simply not agree.

Yes it is. The version I bought in Tower Record's has Billy Cosmosis' comments on all the tracks translated into Japanese without the original English comments. I can read them fine, but I want to read his actually comments too, so I'll probably order another copy from next time I make an order.

I read the posts in question before they were all hidden and there was nothing that would count as libel in them. People expressing their opinions on someone's personality, yes. People saying they wouldn't support that persons PUBLIC efforts because of their personality, yes. But anything resembling libel? No way, no how from the point of view of the law as viewed in the US as I understand it.

Yesterday I picked up... Cosmosis - Psychedelic Melodica Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos

Its a long shot but whenever I have gotten this error, its almost always been because of a plug in not wanting to play with the other kids correctly. One of the older Steinberg plug ins that always gives me that error is Karlette, the tape delay plug in, which always kills my (legit) copy of SX3. I can use it fine, render it it to wave fine, but as soon as I try to save it, BAM, I get that error and the file I was saving to become worthless and I have to go back to the previous version I saved and recreate anything I did before (one reason to use ctrl + alt + s ALOT).

Just bought three tracks from Cytopia.org Atropa - Onova Atropa - Creamy After The Drift - Liquid Satan Onova in particular is a nice piece of progressive work. The Liquid Satan track is some dark stuff that grabbed my attention so why not.

Mr. Peculiar - Infinite Evolution

Just about everything Mr. Peculiar has made is quality.

I dunno, I thought melodies have been back for a good three or four years, although I might agree with the comment that the quality seems to have taken something of a jump in the last year. Possibly the guys that started making more "full-on" (in the original sense of the word), harmonically interesting trance in reaction to the minimal years around 2000-2001 or so have finally gotten fairly skilled at making melodies and that has started to show in the last couple years' releases. I personally don't see so much melody in dark psy, but that's probably because I see a lot of dark psy as a reaction against the more melodic popular stuff focusing on more noise and rhythm coupled with a full on bass line. Actually my, probably unpopular, opinion is that most dark-psy is just minimal spend up with more layers of nasty dirty stuff with a touch of full-on structure. This is no way means I'm saying its bad as I do like some of it. However, while I can totally and completely get into good rhythm and texture (Nerve - Nervous anyone?), I generally prefer good rhythms and textures with a solid melodic layer on top of it. Anyway, I guess my point was I don't think there has been a massive sudden reappearance of melody this year, per se I just think that the trend of the last few years has kind of come to a head and the total percentage of quality melodic trance has probably just increased a bit. Jikkenteki ... talking lots, ain't saying nothing.

Mr Peculiar - Elements

The only rule... if it sounds good, it is good....

I love my Eventide Ultra-Harmonizer H3000 D/SX and my Lexicon MPX1!!! I also love my Nord Lead 1 and my Virus B, but those are obvious choices.... My Korg Electribe EA-1 is still an old favorite as is my Juno Alpha 1. That's about all the hardware I use at the moment, although I'm still debating whether to sell my T.C. Electronic M-One or put it back in the rack as I used its reverbs a lot on the Nord.

As long as the track is good, then whatever. However I find these super fast tracks to be tricky on the dance floor because, in Japan anyways, which is in something of a dark boom, they generally wear the crowd out too quickly and clear the dance floor. The other option is to dance at half the tempo(usually to the snare thwacks), so you end up dancing at about 80-85bpm, but then this can be a bit slow and hard to find a solid pulse to stomp to (at least for me). Like anything, if done well, its good, but as someone else said, at those extreme speeds it tends to become a different experience and, in my experience, not one the majoirty of people can keep up with for extended periods of time.

There's some nice stuff on this. Worth checking out if you are into the South African side of things.

Yes it is. One of my personal top 5 progressive (in the older usage of the word) trance tracks.

Rush - Snakes And Arrows .... for about the millionth time since I bought it last week.

Listening to one of my promo copies of this that just arrived. http://www.saikosounds.com/english/display...ase.asp?id=6415

Ahhh, outside source vindication at last. I've known the label owner, Sharaku, for years and we have often gotten into heated online arguments because I think most of 6D Soundz stuff is very old school, but he thinks its the most cutting edge modern stuff out there and he gets kind of pissed if you tell him it sounds old school. Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, its just been a humourous point of contention between use, with me calling his stuff old school and him calling my stuff old school (which for him is an insult...)