abasio

Any mix you had in mind? I could probably get some up if you want!

Very nice

The biggest question is probably who is Jikkenteki and Par-2 productions? A bit about ya personal lives and how you formed the label etc would be cool. I'd like to know how you make a 30 minute track remain interesting throughout. Why the name Par-2? How experimental are you?

And only one did I give SUCCESS

My Best Downtempo of 2008

Okay, I'm starting with downtempo, here is a mix of what in my opinion is the best from 2008 (from what I have heard so far). I'll be adding an ambient mix very soon and hopefully a trance mix when I have bought my next shipload from saiko sounds (should be early february ) Downtempo Tracklist 1. Hibernation - Beautiful Sky 2. Abakus - Opal Fountain 3. Lauge - Moving Ocean 4. Pan Electric & Ishq - Being There Parts 1, 2 & 3 5. Orchid Star - The Heart Of Ibu-at (Tripswitch Remix) 6. Eat Static - Valley of the Moon 7. Bluetech - My Dear Friend Kronos 8. Kettel - Kroost Kids 9. Kritical Audio - Yellow Blend 10. Tripswitch - Lyra 11. Hol Baumann - Endless Park 12. I Awake - Reflective Impulses 13. Evan Marc + Steve Hillage - Theta Phase 14. Distant System - Equidistant 15. Aes Dana - Lysistrata 16. Solar Fields - Feelings 17. Solar Fields - Jeezlh 18. Distant System - Astromech Starport 19. James Murray - Empty Spaces Link enjoy

this

Tight as a gnat's chuff?

damn

Damn, this is some good news

Solar Fields - Dust

I paid around $100 for both Blue Planet Corporation - Blue Planet and KURO - Revolution Too much I know but I have never regretted it and the overtime I did to pay for these was incredibly easy and involved me hitting on hot girls

I fing Rock Bitch Mafia to be timeless. 12 years on I still find it fresh & thoroughly enjoyable

Abakus We Share The Same Dreams Modus Records 7 Nov 2008 Housey Summer Downbeat Tracklist 1 We Share The Same Dreams (0:57) 2 Sliding Sh (8:42) 3 Daybreak (6:11) 4 Angel Dust (3:56) 5 Understated (5:38) 6 Culture Is Not Your Friend (4:13) 7 Excession (5:12) 8 Deun Deu (4:49) 9 The Only Life We've Known (6:00) 10 Lost In The Woods (4:12) 11 Crystal Vision (4:33) 12 Opal Fountain (4:44) 13 How Does It Feel To Be Real? (3:52) Abakus' debut album That Much Closer To The Sun was in my opinion the greatest summer album ever made. It was summer in a can, that you could just put into your CD player and it would warm you up no matter how cold. The follow up to such a great album was always going to be difficult and I almost didn't get it when I heard people talking about it as too clubby and not chilled anough. I wanted to see for myself though & I am glad I did, it is very nice follow up album, it's very summery and for the most part pretty chilled. 1 We Share The Same Dreams (0:57) A nice soft ambient intro draws us into the album, it's soft and warm just as it should be. 2 Sliding Sh (8:42) Comparing this to the first album I'd say the beats are a little more steady 4-4 but other than that there is not much to pick out. It has a nice warm sound, summery melodies, nice little plops like drops in the ocean and soft atmospheric drones like a light sea breeze in the background. 3 Daybreak (6:11) Once again this is very summery. This feels like a day at the beach, the bass and the melody jump along with a lot of energy like a one year old dog at the beach chasing after a ball. The sounds halfway through though lift me up above the beach, over the ocean and high up in the clouds where I can feel safe in the bright blue summer sky. Great stuff, feels halfway between floating and flying. 4 Angel Dust (3:56) A nice tight little bassline in this like a day at the beach with bikini clad beauties all around. Put you towel on the sand, lay down and observe all the summer activities. People surfing, beach volleyball or just soaking up the sun. The meldoy is pretty high pitched but soft enough to be very enjoyable, the background noises remind me of people playing, chatting and having fun in the sun. 5 Understated (5:38) This is very much a beach track, but instead of lying down and observing this feels more like being actively involved. This could be used on a TV advert for rollerblades or to introduce beach volleyball at the olympics. This could be the opening credits of a movie where everyone basically sits around the beach all day doing nothing important. The bassline carries the track like a melody and has little melodic sounds accompany it. This changes halfway though as the melody that was being played by the bass kicks in as a chiming melody like distant ringing. 6 Culture Is Not Your Friend (4:13) This for me is summer in California. This sounds very much like the first album. The intense summer feel, the McKenna sounding sample "Culture Is Not Your Friend!" The melodies are perfect for summer and I feel as I write this on a cold winter's night that I am being wrapped up in a blanket of summer warmth. It's laid back, sunny and cool. Everything I'd associate with California. 7 Excession (5:12) Picking up the energy a little bit here with some faster beats and weird techy noises at the start but this odd glitch is soon replaced by a very warm summery sound. This reminds me of Balearic morning trance mixed with chillout. Think Cafe Del Mar but a little more energetic and not as cheesy. There are more intricate sounds, it's more psychedelic so to say. I can just picture myself after a night partying sat on a cliff top watching the early morning sun bring his light to us while listening to this track. 8 Deun Deu (4:49) Another track that seems to be bridging that gap between the chillout and more clubby tracks. This again is not club oriented yet but it has a more steady beat and could be classed as danceable chillout. The melody reminds me of my hometown, for some reason I get the memory of standing outside the bank, then meeting friends on the grassy slopes and drinking while carnival floats come by. Everyone is happy as they eat and drink out in the sunshine. Good times, good melodies, good track. 9 The Only Life We've Known (6:00) Abakus has upped the pace now with a track that is more in fitting with a house dancefloor not just in it's pace but also in it's lack of anything interesting. Sure it has sounds, melodies and beats but they just feel like sounds, not music. I have always thought of modern house music as psychedelic music with all the psychedelic elements taken out and that's what I feel here.bThe attempts at something interesting just end up sounding like some dorky 80's virgin synth pop fanboy with a vocoder. Dull. 10 Lost In The Woods (4:12) Another club oriented track, a little more interesting than the last, but not much. It's a little colder and seems out of place on the album. There is childish space fantasy like everything is sleek and cool but overly cute. I see some correlation here, as Abakus' music gets more upbeat, I like it less. 11 Crystal Vision (4:33) The correlation is proved here as the tempo is dropped and I like the tracka whole lot more. Squelchy sythns splat hard against the windshield of my ears, melodies fall down like a summer rain and the rushes of the drones in the background raise me up like I'm floating up through static rain but it still feels like the glimmering light is falling all around me. A great track back to form after the disappointment of the previous two. 12 Opal Fountain (4:44) This is my favourite track on the album, it is a perfect example of summer in music form. The melodies are so warm it's like being in a meadow on a summer's day with the grass between your toes. The beats are a nice chilled out break beat and there are the sounds of birds and someone calling from far off in the distance. Great stuff, it gets a little darker at times with a dark oppressive bass sound creeping in but non more so than at the end when all other sounds leave apart from the drone and the birds. 13 How Does It Feel To Be Real? (3:52) A perfect end to the album, much more chilled again and just not as summery as the rest. It's like the sun that set on our summer in the end of Opal Fountain has left us in twilight, it's still warm and bright enough to see far into the distance but somehow it's just not right. I am very happy to have gotten this album. It is a great summer CD and I know that come May I will be playing this a lot. Even now in January when I listen to it it feels like it is summer already. Don't be put off by people talking about this album as if it is some clubby nightmare from Ibiza. Only 2 tracks even come to close to that description and they are not that bad, just a bit dull or out of place. The rest are beautifully chilled out summery tracks that I'm sure most people who enjoyed the first album would enjoy. Expect it to be a little more upbeat, not quite as amazing but still like summer in a bowl

1. Hibernation - Beautiful Sky 2. Abakus - Opal Fountain 3. Lauge - Moving Ocean 4. Pan Electric & Ishq - Being There Parts 1, 2 & 3 5. Orchid Star - The Heart Of Ibu-at (Tripswitch Remix) 6. Eat Static - Valley of the Moon 7. Bluetech - My Dear Friend Kronos 8. Kettel - Kroost Kids 9. Kritical Audio - Yellow Blend 10. Tripswitch - Lyra 11. Hol Baumann - Endless Park 12. I Awake - Reflective Impulses 13. Evan Marc + Steve Hillage - Theta Phase 14. Distant System - Equidistant 15. Aes Dana - Lysistrata 16. Solar Fields - Feelings 17. Solar Fields - Jeezlh 18. Distant System - Astromech Starport 19. James Murray - Empty Spaces

Hibernation Somethings Never Change Aleph Zero 2008 Downtempo Tracklist 1 Melt (5:25) 2 Trickle (7:23) 3 Lazy Radio (3:58) 4 Empty Cities (5:50) 5 Glitch Police (5:10) 6 Are You Sure? (5:25) 7 Reflect (2:11) 8 Beautiful Sky (5:33) 9 Seven Steps (5:37) 10 Some Things Never Change (6:45) 11 The Littlest Computer (2:18) 12 Reflected (5:35) 13 The Art Of Living & Dying (7:46) 14 Colours (6:12) Seb Taylor the man who brought us great projects such as Shakta, Digitalis and Kaya Project is out with an new chilled album on Aleph Zero Records, a great label in my opinion with a quality filter, bringing us only the most quality music that comes their way. Aleph Zero seem of late to be discovering new routes to take with their music and this album is like nothing I have heard so far from them. It's very ecclectic and more loungey than previous releases, the sort of album that at first seems to be a mix of weird and cheesy but which manages to grow into a deep enjoyable ride. 1. Melt The opening track, Melt is a very soft track made for lounging around the city I'm sure. The feel is very urban and even the more ethereal female vocal that wails throughout seems like she's standing right on the opposite pavement as cars rush by momentarily obscuring her from view then revealing her once more. Take that, put a sofa on your side and collapse into it, relax and watch the busy world go by and that's how this track makes me feel. It's so relaxed yet many of the elements seem busy and rushed, the rhythmic plops and the rush in the background being the prime examples. 2. Trickle If the opening track melted city life before us then this one lets it trickle back, more upbeat with a stronger bass and more of a kick to it. The brief pieces of melody on what sounds like a harp, the subtle synths adding some nice glitch and the plops & pings in the background give me another nice urban feel but this time I'm walking among it, smoothly gliding through the throng of people on the high street. Again the woman is on the pavement across the street even more elusive this time. 3. Lazy Radio Here we go a little darker and more glitchy, an oppressive drone dominates the intro but is dissipated when the bassline and melody come in. With that it feels more like a 70's detective movie when the cop is first introduced in all is amazingness, either that or bad 70's porn. Either way there is a very funky retro feel to it that almost breaks into some jazz but manages to resist and stays good. 4. Empty Cities From the urban feel of the first few tracks we go a little more sci-fi here with melodies that glimmer like polished chrome and muttered samples giving it a futuristic feel. The atmosphere lives up the title, giving images of deserted city streets with decay & neglect all around. Amidst all of if this though is the bright hope of something green. I am somehow reminded of Wall-E and the green plant growing in the trash heap of Earth. The jazzy melody towards the end is quite haunting and very well fitting with the mood. 5. Glitch Police More in line with the 70's detective feel of Lazy Radio than a follow up from the last track. Jazzy melodies and glitchy beats with traffic noise in the background most obviously the police sirens. It's all very random yet coherent enough to fill my head with images. When the jazz lady comes in doing the talentless jazz singing (doodadeedoopuda) I can only picture New York basement lounges portrayed in the movies, filled with gangsters and police a like. A weird track, horribly enjoyable. 6. Are You Sure? Another loungey track filled with glitchy beats, much more glitchy that the last track. Imagine the last setting I imagined and make it much more of a fairy tale, that's what I get from this track. An urban loungey fairy tale. The bass strings and the flute I think are the main reasons for this sounding very olde worlde in style but blended in the the glitchy mayhem of the rest of the music. The meldoy that kicks of the second half of the track sees it go into 3D with the sound, similar to the first half with more of a gloss and more energy. 7. Reflect A Short track halfway through the album which kind of acts as an intermission or a chance to cross over. The piano sounds like a glitchy IDM track while the atmosphere is deep yet stuttered. It feels like it should be smooth but someone has crinkled and even ripped the music. A decent bridge from the urban feel of the first 6 tracks and what is still to come. 8. Beautiful Sky A Japanese sample talking about how beautiful the sky is after a shower made just for me starts us off and leads us into a nice breakbeat track. Think Digitalis but slower and more relaxed. A much more focused and driven track than those before, more musical, melodic and rhythmical and less about atmosphere and images. It's a very nice track but not so visual. I do get a summery vibe from it which is very nice, could be enjoyable in a meadow on a hot summers morning. 9. Seven Steps A more beat orientated track here, a bit slower than the last one but just as involved and a little heavier, leaning more to the symbols than the kicks. There are soft female samples I can't decipher and brief bits of melody that try to take the music somewhere but can't drag it out of the beat it has laid down. A little lacking in direction but not random enough to reach the glitchy heights of the start of the album. It's neither one thing or the other and leaves me a little cold. 10. Some Things Never Change The title track does what the previous track failed to do and that is to combine the glitch of the first tracks with melody and musical direction that the album is obviously trying to take at this time. The piano and the female vocals are blended nicely with the glitchy sci-fi bleeps and scratchy background. The beats are steady and there is a little sub beat like a worm that is squirming around the main beats. A great track worthy to be the title track. 11. The Littlest Computer I never get why artists do this to me. This track is basically just a monologue detailing the life and times of a computer as if it had feelings and was brougfht up in society by evil owners and who had dreams of being something more. It's fairly nice to listen to but after a few listens to the album it's one to skip. Too lengthy spoken samples just get boring I think & I don't have much love for them. 12. Reflected Back to the music now with a melancholic piece with fast glithcy beats and haunting melodic sounds. The samples and sci-fi like sounds fight with the retro accoustic sounds and out of date technology making a track that sounds like the inside of an A-track cassette player. It's all futuristic but backwards like yesterday's tomorrow. The melodies towards the end while remaining haunting are quite uplifting and probably the best on the album. 13. The Art Of Living & Dying Another melancholic track, of which you could probaly guess from the title. The piano sounds quite sad and the atmospheric violin is a long drawn out sorrow. There are little rhythmical droplets of sound and some samples that are cut up & twisted nicely giving this track the feeling of a distorted reel to reel message. The beats come in around the halfway mark quite heavily and they do make the track a lot more interesting. They take it from a track verging on boring to a cool intricate track with some cool style. 14. Colours A very vocal track with a load of spoken samples merged together into a non vocal musical sound. Sounds like something the Orb would do but in a totally different style. This is dub like it has just had a morphine shot. It's sluggish and trippy in a "I can't remember what I just saw or heard" sort of way. It's pretty nice and although ridden with samples it manages to stay enjoyable and doesn't get annoying. A good end to a good album All in all then we have here a very ecclectic album and while each track is different from the rest they all fit in nicely with each other. You are never left with a feeling of "what the hell is that track doing here". As with all albums this varied, some tracks are not as good as others but most are above average and some are great and they go together to make a very nice album that is definitely worth checking out, it's not the best album out there but it's a good solid album.

Tracklist looks nice, should be worth a sniff

1. Pentatonik - Catalonia 2. Alien Mutation vs Indigo Egg - Sea Of Tranquility 3. Scanner - Arc 4. The Unlimited Dream Company - Up In Dub Heaven 5. Chicane - Offshore 6. Crystal Moon - Butterfly 7. Fluid - The Man With Three Heads 8. Re-Count - Oasi 9. Loop Guru - Extended Trapezium Mix 10. Josh Abrahams - Star Song 11. Impedance - Woodstock 12. D.J. Freshtrax - The Proximity :posford:

There are some decent tracks on it, a few that grabbed us straight away and some that I thought sounded a little too much like his previous work. Time should open it up nicely like his other albums though. np

It would be cool if they did! I like green oms too

It was an attempt to limit the shit written in all the review threads but it was a total failure. Just look at the solar fields - movement thread, just a day old and it's already completely and totally full of complete shit. Better to delete the entire thing and start again if it wasn't for the initial post that is an actual review. 17 posts and one review is crap even for a review liberal like myself

Sorry but that review thread has been completely destroyed thanks to stupid comments about an straight forward comment by Melancholy Man. He said this was one of the best albums ever. Why the hell should he have to put IMO or my favourite ever? Are people here really so dumb they can't notice a subjective comment? Hell reviews are always subjective, it's your taste you will judge it on. Show me an objective review & I will show you a review I haven't read because it was probably too boring to. If I read that Melancholyman has said this is the best album in history I'm not automatically going to reorder my opinions am I? No I will take it face value that what he is saying is what he thinks, not what I think. Damn I wish people would think for themselves, and those that do I wish they would stop thinking other people are trying to force their own opinions on them. PS this is not really a reply to Buzzman, nothing refers to you, Buzzman was just the last post in the review thread that I think has gotten out of hand. There is only one review and the rest is meaningless bullshit about one comment in the review. I hope a mod cleans that up soon.

James Murray - Gaijin Well, I'm listening to it because it's a great track from a great album and it's a cool mix of styles between atmospheric ambient, modern classical and IDM A nice fitting title too as it has a very alienated feel