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Kino Oko Alphabetically Divided Highway Tribal Vision 26 Aug 2008 Trippy Psychedelic Funk Tracklist 1 Any Kind Of Structure (6:41) 2 Made In Satisfaction (6:30) 3 Body And Mind (6:43) 4 Mother Mature (6:26) 5 Sympathetic Magic Death (7:06) 6 Story Of Forgotten Notes (6:55) 7 Stand By Me (6:19) 8 Pure Irony (7:20) 9 Remedy Express (6:52) 10 Messiah Formula (8:43) 11 Through The Round Window (7:46) Forget the trippy as hell cover, forget the fact that this has been released on Tribal Vision, a much more clubby label than you'd expect to be releasing Kino Oko after the great first album Lost Entertainment which was to be honest a trippy masterpiece of sound. Dripping with acidic beats & melodies. Vocals added to the psychedelic feeling rather than detracted. Alphabetically Divided Highway picks up where the first album left off but also takes it much much further. Definitely one of the picks of the year. 1, Any Kind Of Structure This track sounds broken, and a bit dirty. The opening is like a cracked open chill track with sporadic beats & melodic sounds. The beat kicks in as a slow driving one which gets more breaky. All the samples, sounds & melodies are trippy weird "non sci fi" sci fi. Like driving down a countryside road on a clear night, a perfect night for UFOs without any of it happening. An odd track that makes me wonder why I like it but like it I do, very funky. 2. Made In Satisfaction A scratchy metallic intro leads into a nice relaxed beat & some cool melodies. The lead melody goes up and then sounds like it's falling down the stairs. The sub melodies are light & spacey adding a kind of ambience heightened after the breakdown & kick back in. Like the first track it's very funky and though it's definitely a modern track it has a kick back retro feeling like the 1980's. This retro feeling is completed with the vocal that sounds right out of some 80's synth pop. Cool. 3. Body & Mind Feeling a little quicker now, a track more dancefloor worthy but no less interesting for home listening. Carrying on the mood of the last track with it's 1980's synth pop feel accentuated by the vocals. They sound similar to Made In Satisfaction but darker and more gravely. Even though both sets of vocals are put through effects it still has that feel. The melodies are more in the back of this track & it has more rhythm & glitch. I like. 4. Mother Nature I feel the album really gets going with this track. It just manages to get so much energy out of the melodic elements. The synths are very tuneful and the on different levels play 3 different melodies conjoining each other. The feeling of modern retro synth funk is great. What I really love is that there is this slight higher pitch melody playing underneath everything that threatens to materialise into something big & after listening to the album many times I always think it's about to but never does. What a tease. 5. Sympathetic Magic Death This track has a lush ambient intro & then just kicks into the main track with a really disjointed feeling. But it does it in a way that manges to sound well done and not a mistake. Adding to the trippiness not ruining the flow. All through the track it feels disjointed like it's broken as in Any Kind Of Structure. When the piano comes in it really gets an urgent feel, like the music is running from something always looking back over it's shoulder making it stumble but not fall. The beats are bouncy, it makes you move your body. It has great melody & rhythm, overall it's a great track. 6. Story Of Forgotten Notes This for me is more reminiscent of the first album, it has that kind of sharp metallic tang to it that I loved in Lost Entertainment. More relaxed than the preceding track with more spacey ambience in the background. Very trippy, sounds like ambient with a beat and a bassline in the first half. It gets a bit glitchier as it goes on and more melodic with some very simple light melodies & squelchy sounds on the edge of the beats. The end of the track flips between funky & sci fi. It's all pretty odd but it's all pretty good too. 7. Stand By Me Wow, wow, WOW!!! This is one of the melodic tracks of the year for sure. The main melodic line runs up & down, left & right and is accompanied by what sounds like a mix between crowd cheering & rain. I thought that would get tired pretty soon but it didn't at all. Each time it comes in I still smile. The melody moves around very pleasantly and it really is a feel good track in Kino Oko's weird trippy style. Love it! 8. Pure Irony An ambient intro followed by some twisted laughter like a drugged up hyena! The laughter continues as the beat kicks in & through the rest of the track it is twisted & warped in really trippy ways. The long synth drones in the background gives us a nice spacey atmosphere again whereas the laugh bring me right down under the earth. I imagine a desert at night, cold and barren with threats in the darkness but also the beauty of the clear night sky filled with stars. 9 Remedy Express This starts of glitchy but out of that glitch comes a clear crisp melody & bassline that really drives this emotionally. There is lots going on in the track on the sidelines, little blips of melody forming almost into a side tune, a lush natural melody that seems like it's trying to hide & scrathy bits of retro acid gleam in rusty glitter. Very cool. 10. Messiah Formula This is one of those tracks that builds itself up from the bare bones to something truly wonderful. We go from just the beats to the synths to some clacks to a rushing sounds that seems to be powering up before it winds down & down until it disappears & the melody kicks in. The melody is accompanied by some long soft majestic synths & eventually some 80's synth pop sounding vocals. The rushing powering up sounds comes back in, build & builds as if it's all going to kick off & then it just lightly floats along on it's high notes. When the music finally does kick off it does so in a pretty relaxed way. It's all just very emotional, almost unexpected but very welcome. Great track, best on this great album. 11. Through The Round Window A nice funky end to the album, relaxed with quite a slow beat. The melody & rhythm are quite a contrast to the dark creepy vocal that if it was put in some darker soundscapes could be quite scary. It almost sounds like someone is in pain, like the short stabs of melody are slicing through this poor soul's body & ripping him apart slowly. Resigned to a slow death surrounded by cool funky music. So Kino Oko has made another essential album. It's fresh & retro at the same time. He has taken sounds from 20 odd years ago and blended them with a whole heap of other styles to create something that sounds pretty different to just about everything else out there. If you like really trippy cool funky music then you'll probably want to check this out.

Kino Oko - Alphabetically Divided Highway

Shulman - Invention (In my Pants) :posford:

Leaving Home is one of my favourite albums but in true Ultimae fashion, it didn't hit me straight away. It took a lot of listens for me to really be able to focus & thoroughly enjoy

Jikkenteki - Warmth In Cold Places

Lustmord - Where the black stars hang

I must say again, the high pitch noises only annoy me on headphones

Various Artists Freshly Cut Tomatoi Cronomi Records 11 Jul 2008 Goa/Psy trance Tracklist 1 Pandemonium! - A Mad Scientist's Night (Subra Vs Felis Remix) (8:10) 2 Anakoluth - Orbiting The Earth (9:36) 3 Jikkenteki With 11 - Super Power Mustard (7:35) 4 Alt Anesis and 5Meo-Geo - Ficus (8:10) 5 Subra and Har-El Prusky - Freakagnux (7:48) 6 K.O.B. - Pitch & Chips (A Fairytale About A Chip) (7:31) 7 Merr0w - Pixelized Sight (8:45) 8 Radical Distortion - Unchristened (6:49) 9 Astrancer - Ashram (11:21) Shit cover, shit name, great artists on the back. The final criteria is the most important I think when choosing a comp and of the 4 artists I knew before buying this I like tremendously so I felt it to be a safe buy. What we have here is a collection of tracks from artists that have not gone the fullon route, the minimal route or the dark psy route but kept the old spirit of psychedelic trance alive with a new buzz. So how do the tracks chosen for this comp sound? 1. Pandemonium! - A Mad Scientists Night (Subra Vs Felis Remix) Straight in then with an energetic, melodic track with funk & glitch. The melody is sharp & builds through the track in quite a nice way. The background ambience is slightly orchestral with the hint of string synths played under the beat & melody. Halfway in there appear more wet sounding synths the music breaks down & then a vague enough sample not to grate after repeated listens & then it kicks back in again. Must admit that I love the slowness of the track. It has energy for sure but it's created with breathing space. Very nice I think. 2. Anakoluth - Orbiting The Earth I first heard Ankalouth on Mainspring Motion. I loved his track on that great comp & I was eager to hear more. I feel this is in the same vein, driving not speeding. Not so melodic but full of crazy psychedelic noises. Spacey samples, blips and a light bassline do give a spacey feeling. The tiny bits of melody that creep in after 3 or 4 minutes are brief & sound like they are falling, fleeting but utterly enjoyable in their brevity. By the end it feels darkly oldschool. Anakoluth, how music used to be Great track. 3. Jikkenteki With 11 - Super Power Mustard This doesn't float my boat as much as other Jikkenteki tracks. It starts off promisingly dark but about two minutes in we get these squeaky synths that I don't really like and despite, nice layers underneath with music I'm sure I'd love, the squeakiness of the melodic synths doesn't sit well with me. The trance roll is a wee bit short & it kicks back in strangely and all in all there is no wow factor in it. Saying that, the last 2 minutes of the track are great. Weird! Not Jikkenteki's best effort. 4. Alt Anesis and 5Meo-Geo - Ficus Atmospheric undertones to a high energy track. Like the rest of the music here, it's not full throttle but has a lot of synth work driving it forward. Similar yet different to the Anakoluth track. It's not melodic in the first part yet it has a lot of psychedelic glitch shoved into. The samples are fairly numerous but they are kept short so feel like part of the music rather than a vocal sample. As it goes on it's more melodic with a old school feeling with a modern sheen 5. Subra and Har-El Prusky - Freakagnux This has a more tribal beat, lots of atmosphere created by moving synth drones in the background & a quick synth line melody which shifts & moves quite nicely. There is energy & breathing space, nice sounds & synths just how I like but there is something missing. I can't put my finger on it but there is no wow factor when I think there should be. It's just good when I feel like it should be great Maybe I'm missing something, maybe I haven't heard it in the right context or mood or under the right conditions but I feel like this track is great but I can't hear it. Weird. 6. K.O.B. - Pitch & Chips (A Fairytale About A Chip) Dripping wet space (outer) is what the intro to this track feels like & that feeling is kept after the beat kicks in yet it is pushed to the back which is a shame. The rest of the music while fine is not as good as the brief intro. The beats are kind of "to be expected" and the synth work while very involved is too high pitched and gets on my nerves a bit. I usually like chaotic music but I feel like the random parts of this track are random just for the sake of it. I feel like it is trying too hard, like a kid a school that does too much to be noticed but just ends up as the class clown & nobody's real friend. This track, I don't really like. 7. Merr0w - Pixelized Sight This is much more to my liking. It starts off sounding like it's going to be a kick ass goambient track but the beat kicks in with sharp yet with synths slipping & stabbing all over the place, odd choice of breakdown then a kick back in with a much more crazy beat. The energy levels just go through the roof with just as many sounds as the previous track but all of them fitting together naturally, nothing forced, nothing ruined. The melody while a little high pitched is in no way grating & moves around nicely in the second half of the track to keep me interested. Good stuff. 8. Radical Distortion - Unchristened This is a weird track for me. I really like it despite not really knowing why. The melody is pitched too high, the beat is pedestrian, there is not much in the way of crazy psychedelic ramblings and no background ambience yet somehow it works. I find myself enjoying the simple formulaic structure and ill timed or misused beats. Not going to win track of the year but oddly enjoyable. 9. Astrancer - Ashram We finish on a high note. Most of what I've liked about the previous tracks are included in this one. The ambience, the involved melodies, the arrangement & the crispness of it all just fits in well. Sure it doesn't have the crazy psychedelic edge that Anakoluth and Alt Anesis and 5Meo-Geo - Ficus have but it manages to sound just as psychedelic with it's melodies and ambience. At the end there is 13 seconds of babababababababaaaababababababaaaaababababababa which I personally find pointless & a bit annoying. Why bother? All in all then it's quite a mixed compilation. Some really great tracks, Anakoluth, Alt Anesis and 5Meo-Geo, Merr0w and Astrancer. The rest are decent enough & nothing is horrible. The K.O.B. track is probably the weakest and a surprising miss from Jikkenteki in my book. Overall it's a worthwhile purchase but not essential.

I don't that's why I said wouldn't instead of didn't

Anakoluth - Orbiting The Earth

I wouldn't have banned him but he did post completely off topic, nonsensical posts in a lot of topics. Very few of his posts made sense. With the cessation of off topic, the forum is about to be music. Random crap was bound to have consequences. He should have no complaints

Nice review was particularly happy to hear this The art of being non was ok but I wouldn't have wanted an extension of it. Something different though :clapping: Just ordered :posford:

Cancers of the scene? Hmmm..... People who judge without trying/caring. The number of times I've heard that psytrance is dead. There is no good music being produced/released. All music made since 2000 sucks or whatever is really annoying. I really feel that these people think everything sucks so they just don't bother even listening, but then just complain that it sucks anyway. When I first got into Psy there was probably about 20 albums released a year, 10 great albums & 10 shit ones. Now there are hundreds of releases each year, most of them shit but there is every year great stuff that I truly love. That means the scene (for me) is still alive. In fact it's better than ever. There is too much music I want to buy & I can't buy it all because I don't have the money I still love my old Goa albums but I love the new stuff too. I'm sure people are judging without listening half the time! Also Simon Posford mania. No his farts are not music. Everything he touches does not turn to gold. He is not Gus Till Shanty shanty chill out has out stayed it's welcome. Fullon became generic crap. Shops putting anything made by ex psy producers under the psytrance section at the record shop :wank:

Elysium - Atmosphere :posford:

Kino Oko - Alphabetically Divided Highway

It's definitley in my must buy list :posford:

...and have poop pushed through them

I am trying to buy Abakus - We Share The Same Dreams Oood - Fourthought Procs - The Lonely Land of Tada Talpa - When the Somberness Becomes A Game Various Artists - Sundrops Hibernation - Some Things Never Change Pan Electric & Ishq - About Time but used my old credit card details & was denied

Would be nice if they came back to Japan :drama:

Yes Hence I'm looking forward to this album

His taste in other people's music is no indicator of what his own music will be like. I love my music taste for example.....

Shulman - Invention one of my favourite tracks not just from last year but ever

Hopefully that means Magnus has been spending a lot of time making it perfect :posford:

Frozen Abhorrence