abasio

Various Artists Ear Pleasure Chill Tribe Records 2007 Tracklist 1. Robert Leiner - Beginning Of The End (7:32) 2. Blue Planet Corporation - Gengis Khan's Reverie (7:34) 3. Kris Kylven & Syb-Sonic - Forgotten Souls (12:08) 4. Cosmosis - The Himalaya (6:59) 5. Digital Mystery Tour - Nemo (6:03) 6. Slot Machine - Quick And The Dead (Snake Thing Dub Remix) (6:34) 7. Kiwa - Inside (6:59) 8. Highpersonic Whomen - Free Space (6:51) 9. Bluetech - Embrace (6:12) 10. Zen Lemonade - Island Of Forgotten Dreams (7:47) Chill Tribe Records, the Oslo based ambient/chill label headed up by PKS! This is the 3rd compilation compiled by PKS & like Quality Relaxation & Relaxed Journeys the tracklist oozes class. With artists like Blue Planet Corporation, Cosmosis, Digital Mystery Tour, Kiwa, Bluetech & Zen Lemonade, it's hard not to get excited. But how does the music compare to the excitement experienced while waiting for it? 1. Robert Leiner - Beginning Of The End We start the compilation with a nice patient track. It takes two & a half minutes for the melody to materlialise but when it does it's a nice relaxed one not trying to do too much. The beats start off a little uneven but straightens out as the melody floats around it. Not a spectacular track by any stretch of the imagination but a nice pleasant relaxed feeling flows through it. The best part is the wet sounding drums that have a nice mat sound. 2. Blue Planet Corporation - Gengis Khan's Reverie Blue Planet Corporation, a name that has gone down in the annals of psychedelic history (at least in my mind) back with another chilled out track filled with nice dubby textures, spacey ambience & weird Mongolian samples. The sitar (not played very musically) adds an ass backwards, middle of nowhere eastern feel to the music & really sets this track up as a glitchy dubby experimental rather than musical ambient track. It's decent enough but lacks the journey element I expected from both the artist & the track title. 3. Kris Kylven & Syb-Sonic - Forgotten Souls A nice long ambient intro manages to build an atmosphere reminiscent of a jungle cruise. When the beats come in they are slow tribal beats & adds to the atmosphere of sailing down a river in the deep dark jungles of Peru not knowing what might be lying in wait on the banks or under the boat. The best track thus far on the album & when the vocals come in, adding to the atmosphere being built magnificently I really feel we're onto a winner here. The melody that follows isn't so fitting with the mood of the piece but is pleasant & doesn't distract anything either. At 12 minutes long it has time to weave a story & we are left with a very nice journey track. 4. Cosmosis - The Himalaya One of the most well known names in the scene, Cosmosis has made that name with music that started getting way out ideas but also music that you could listen to and enjoy many times over. Layers of psychedelic sounds & always with a nice melody to top it off. This track is the best track I've heard from Billy recently. It does exactly what it says of the tin with a really backwater mountain settlement feel. The vocals might be called cheesy by some, ethnic sounding chanting breaking into cries of psychedelico does verge on cheesiness but just manages to stay on the happy side of the line. Nice stuff. 5. Digital Mystery Tour - Nemo Getting a bit harder now as DMT add a bigger kick to their music. The music underneath the kick is really impressive. Nice little melodic sounds, funky synths & some drones that move almost melodically. It takes a bit of work to focus on that though as the kick does tend to dominate a little bit too much 6. Slot Machine - Quick And The Dead (Snake Thing Dub Remix) This is a very funky track that seems heavily rock influenced. Now, usually when I hear a rock influenced electronic track or an electronic remix of a rock track it just sounds really bad. This however manages to use the rock elements in an electronic structure so that it ends up sounding fresh & new instead of hackneyed imitation shite. The guitars fit, the beat seems right & the whole feel of it works for me. 7. Kiwa - Inside Another funky track here, this time in a break beat guise. It starts off quite boring & I think the quality level has slipped somewhat but the groove comes in after a minute or so & the bassline really really works when it drops down in tone. The flute melody is interestingly used, verging on quirky but pleasant & musical enough to stand up on repeat listens. Nice stuff after the first minute. 8. Highpersonic Whomen - Free Space Another strong beat follows a spoken sample you can make out if you really focus or not if you don't. Groovy jazzy elements make it sound quite loungey but the pace of the track is halfway between downbeat & progressive trance giving it more of a dirty dancefloor feel. I can picture the sexy people grinding away to this. Not a particular stand up but it's nice & varied from the rest of the tracks. 9. Bluetech - Embrace Bluetech (Evan Bartholomew) has been carving out a name for himself with his own brand of cold yet emotional music. Deep melodic music with a melancholic touch. This track is pure bluetech. The melody paints an image of bright shining blue in my mind, the beats fit around it perfectly. I'm looking forward to a new Bluetech album & recently I've been enjoying Evan's more ambient releases. While being unmistakably Bluetech, this track similar yet different from the music he has delivered us before. If I was to compare I'd say it sounds more like his Sines & Singularities album than anything else. 10. Zen Lemonade - Island of Forgotten Dreams We finish up with Gus Till & Super Cozi dealing us a dose of chilled out summer goodness from the beaches of Bali. A really warm track with the gentle sound of lapping waves coming in at times. A light melody and half heard voices give this an edge of evening. imagine sitting on the beach on Bali Island, watching the sunset. Around you there is no one else but a short distance away there are other sun worshipers taking in the scene as you are. A lovely way to round off the day. In conclusion then, PKS has proved again that he really has an ear for picking out some of the best music the psy chill scene has to offer and that he knows how to compile an interesting, varied compilation that manages to flow pretty well. It doesn't quite reach the heady heights of Quality Relaxation but it's a CD that should be in your collection if you like well produced, varied, often freestyle chill with a touch of world for as the compilation progresses I get a feel from many of the tracks that they are set in different parts of th e globe. It's a nice feeling binding the tracks together into an album rather than just a collection of tracks.

Is that out already? np

Some labels really have a quality filter though & everything they release is fantastic, these labels I can buy from blindly & know I'll love the music ...until they fuck up then I'll be more careful with them in the future

The more I listen to "Invention" the better it gets. Maybe the best track of 2007 for me

Great! just ordered this Looks well tasty

Hol Baumann has talent & I like his style, will have to check this out

Nice

More music? Great! Hope everything works out for you mate

The Circular Ruins Empathy Test Databloem 2003 Tracklist 1 Empathy Test (5:39) 2 Over Fields Of Light (6:31) 3 Recollections (7:06) 4 The Interpretation Of Dreams (9:20) 5 Salient Features (8:58) 6 Eccentric Souvenirs (7:24) 7 A Little Different From Reality (8:55) 8 The Seven Sisters (7:47) After discovering Databloem records I also discovered just how good The Circular Ruins are. The Circular Ruins are up there among my favourite ambient producers now & I am eager to collect all of the albums. This is one of the first 3 I bought & the 4th released. The sounds are all very well used, intricate, very relaxed but never boring. It's an easy trap to fall into making ambient, letting it be boring. Some big names have fallen into this trap but I've yet to here a boring track from The Circular Ruins. 1. Empathy Test We start of with some soft bleeps, a high pitched but pleasant droning melody & very light percussion. There is a very, very soft sample about flying to fast which comes in before a slightly more noticeable sample from a female leader discussing policies. The percussion comes a little further forward but never grows beyond relaxing. The whole feel of the track is dark warmth. Like bad news on a summer night. 2. Over Fields of Light This track starts very naturally with the sound of a river & some bird calls. A sound like electronic bamboo permeates through the air. The naturalness gives way to electronica quickly although they blend together very well. The high pitched electronic sounds sound like buzzing insects in the air & I get a nice warm feeling like a summer evening out in the open, maybe in an orchard or a field with a few trees. Some very light percussion sounds to me like the passing of a horse somewhere in the distance, carefully controlled by it's rider. Nice natural electronic soundscape. 3. Recollections Recollections starts off with a very static like sound which morphs into a sonic downpour of sounds which get darker & deeper as it moves on, like a long forgotten memory being recalled. Melodious sounds pop out the background, fly around a little bit & then go underwater again. Halfway through there appears an oscillating sound, like the memory has come to us but is just out of reach. Finally the sounds bubble up to the surface like at last it has been recalled & then flitters off into the void of insignificance. 4. The Interpretation of Dreams The most melodious track on the album, probably the most accessible to chill lovers rather than ambient lovers. A simple melody repeats through the track as sounds are build up around it, let go & then have more build up. The sounds that accompany the melody range from percussion to soft oscillating drones to little bleeps of a different melody. The melody itself does not evolve through the nine & a half minutes of this track but how the other sounds accompany it makes it feel like it does. In the final third the melody leaves to be replaced by a more percussive sound. Wind blows at us & we have a much darker track now. The sounds are all very similar to those that were accompanying the melody but with out it's bright presence the music descends into darkness. A very nice piece of ambient. 5. Salient Features The conspicuous thing about this track is that the sounds are very much in the foreground, like famous or important things that need to be seen. Whereas the previous tracks had just as impressive sounds, they didn't seem as intrusive on my thoughts as these salient features. The sounds are jutting, marked & have a lot of movement. Notable are the drones in this track that are also in the foreground. Drones in most ambient sit in the back but these feel like they are rushing towards you. Not obtrusive or obvious, but prominent & pronounced. For me this is quite a significant ambient work for those reasons 6. Eccentric Souvenirs This track seems way out there in the depths of space. I really get a cosmic feel from the music. The light drones whisper images of stars & hyperspace gateways to my mind. The way the sounds bubble in the middle makes me picture the birth of galaxies. It gets a bit more glitchy (not enough to ruin the mood) later on making me imagine alien communication through the ether. 7. A Little Different From Reality The swishing in this does hint at something different but it is the inclusion of little mental sounds that if were made louder & put in an upbeat track would have people going nuts on the dancefloor. As they are, subtle & relaxed all they do is intrude upon your open mind & pull at a few of the threads, slowly unraveling everything. One of my favourites on the album & one of the most psychedelic ambient tracks I've heard. 8. The Seven Sisters I can't describe how this track seems to have a finality to it but it really feels like the journey is coming to an end. Elements of feeling from all previous tracks seem to be gathered here like meeting all the players after a play has finished. There is natural sounds, electronic wind, outer space & ultra trippiness all in one. All the sounds though sound as if they are dropping down into nothingness & though they are here now, they will soon vanish from your life. This adds an extra melancholic feel, for as good as this album is I don't want it to end & it's imminent conclusion leaves me a little sad & wishing there was at least one more track. Brilliant. So a very good ambient album from The Circular Ruins. Each track is varied enough to make the whole album one you want to come back to again & again. From warm summery sounds to deep space tracks to ultra psychedelic trippiness this is an album that ambient lovers the world over should own. Pure brilliance. Such chilled goodness but never boring once focused on. It leaves me wanting more every time.

I've yet to here the 2 comps on native state. Stupid really seeing as I really love that label. Soon, soon. np damn! I want more from this label too

:clapping: :clapping: Nice! Unfortunately, one of my completed labels has recently released another album (Chilltribe, Ian Ion) so that is no longer complete for the time being

Very Very Very Very Nice :) :posford: Really looking forward to this! WOW! More BPC Thanks a lot, no chance with this I wont be keeping my chill tribe collection complete Don't worry Radi, I've never heard anything from BPC that wasn't at least good :clapping:

I've really liked it so far! & yes it grows & grows!

Asura - Land & Freedom

Asura - Lost Eden

Mystical Sun Deeperworlds Cyberset Dec 2006 Tracklist 1 2012 (7:28) 2 Blue Magnetic Ocean (7:21) 3 Halo (8:13) 4 Pure (6:36) 5 Cloudbursting (7:14) 6 7 Generations (6:11) 7 Ceremony (4:17) 8 Ninth Sphere (4:40) 9 Innerworld (4:33) 10 In Between Orbits (5:37) 11 Dragonfly (2:53) 12 River Goddess (3:19) 13 Waters Of Life (4:18) 14 Antediluvian (1:17) Mystical Sun had a lot of tracks on compilations that I really liked & I was interested in hearing more of his work for quite a long time. when he released this album towards the end of 2006 I was immediately interested & eventually bough it. I was a little disappointed to see 5 tracks out of 14 that had already been released over the previous 5 years but that still left 9 brand spanking new tracks for me to enjoy. 1. 2012 Well, we start with a familiar track, this was released on the 2003 compilation 13th Moon & struck me then as a great track. It strikes me now as a great track. The melody the, slick sliding beats & lovely chimes all fit very well & create a kind of under water atmosphere. This manages to blend psy chill & lounge very well so is a nice opener to the album even if I have heard it before. 2. Blue Magnetic Ocean Another familiar sounding track, this time one from Ultimae's 2002 compilation Fahrenheit Project Part Three. It has everything you might expect from an ultimae track, soft, spacey, floaty with a lot of atmosphere & beats that you are never quite sure what they are going to do. Other than that this really manages to give me the impression of an ocean. From floating slowly above it to riding the crest of it's wave. Very nice stuff. 3. Halo The 3rd track in a row to be one I've already heard. This time a more dubby number from Interchill's 2005 compilation Earth Octave Lounge Vol. 2. Like from that compilation it's pretty Eastern sounding dub mixed with lots of floating atmosphere's. The layers seem to rise higher & higher with this track until I feel like I'm floating among the clouds looking down on the landscape far below & it's people milling about as people do. A nice track again but I'm waiting for something new. 4. Pure Finally at track I've never heard before & it's about time! It has a familiar sounding melody but I can't put my finger on what it sounds like. The beauty of this track for me is the wet percussive sounds acting as a sub beats oscillate in and out of the track. The tribal beat that kicks in with a couple of minutes to go is kind of slow jungle in feel but it's brief & ends up sounding like it did at the start. Progression missed. 5. Cloudbursting Points go to the best track title here. I like the image just the name puts in my head. Up among the clouds as little things go pop. I'm left hoping that the track will live up to what I'm expecting and for the most part it does. It's quicker & more energetic than I'd expect & sounds more like cloud riding but it definitely has that high in the sky feel. 6. 7 Generations A slightly more mystical sound with promises of oriental power & mental control mixed with some steady 4-4 beats & crashes of symbols here & there. It never quite lives up to it's promises though & becomes quite forgettable in the end. Not bad but not great. 7. Ceremony An aptly named track manages in some way to feel ceremonious. The soft shuffling beats that leads the soft slow build up into seemingly nothing but the long drawn out groans of a synth that hint at ritual. Just as you feel something's going to happen though it ends. Like it's sacrificed it's own ending to the gods. 8. Ninth Sphere After a couple of disappointing tracks it's nice to get back on track with a heavy but slow beat driven track. The sounds hint at flying in the sky but the beats are much more grounded! The hidden melody in the track rears it's sound briefly & lightly throughout the track giving it a real sense of mystery. Nice work. 9. Innerworld A bit more trancey here with quite a quick 4-4 beat. Could easily be played on a relaxed dancefloor. The vocals are pretty decent adding an ethereal element to the music but it doesn't quite manage to pull it off. There is nothing wrong with the voice per say but they just don7t have the goddess like quality you hope from such an effort. Overall it's a nice track but not as good as it's potential. May sound better with lighter beats as a heavy beat often detracts from what I think this track is trying to get at, etherealness. 10. In Between Orbits A spacier feel with this track as the title suggests. The sounds are a lot further apart it seems. All the sounds have an infinite space in which to breath & you can almost here them breathing like the wind. The beats are sporadic at first but build into something a little more coherent. The sounds blip out of the darkness like pinholes of light in the dark canvas of the music. 11. Dragonfly I'm put in mind of Ishq's work here. Imagine a dragonfly lazily flitting over a lake in the late evening as the sun is about to go down on another summer's day. A lovely image indeed but it should have been longer and more involved. At less than 3 minutes it's almost pointless. Over so soon. 12. River Goddess Back to the familiar tracks. This one from 2001 on Interchill's Floataion. Another nice floating ambient track that I feel could do a lot if it was long enough but at 3 minutes again it never really does anything. 13. Waters of Life From 2001 again, this time from Fahrenheit Project Part Two on Ultimae records. Ambient again with the sound of a bubbling stream running through. A very nice wet track. Only brought down again by the shortness of it. The vocal leading into the dark synths is nothing short of amazing & the atmosphere it manages to build is as good as anything on FP2 but it's over before you are able to sink into it. 14. Antediluvian Well, we finish on more of an outro a short 77 second track which once again makes me wish it was longer. In just over a minute Mystical Sun has managed to create a nice atmosphere but just as I want more it's over. What I'd really like to here from Mystical Sun is an ambient album. Not Psy Chill, not 4-4 beats, almost beatless in fact would be great. An album not of 14 tracks like this but somewhere between 3 & 8 would be perfect. See this guy obviously has talent but I feel he's wasted it a little bit on this album. The tracks I really though could be great were far too short & I could never really get into them. 3 minutes is just not enough time to explore an ambient landscape. 10 minutes to an hour is best so if this guy ever releases an album like that I'll snap it up. As for this offering, it's decent enough but far from essential. With so many tracks available elsewhere (including two of the best) it feels a bit lazy & the shortness of the best tracks is disappointing. Let's see what the future holds.

is it going to be available on saikosounds?

I'm actually really liking this one. Loving the wet bleak sounds used

It's a nice minimal piano & guitar album. I like it now after a few false starts try the record labels website http://www.ryoondo-tea.jp/home_e.html or amazon.co.jp as they have english support for books & music amazon Japan I'm off to bed to listen to this again Night Night

Ironomi - いろのみ

1. Shpongle - Are You Shpongled? 2. Shpongle - Tales of the Inexpressible 3. V/A Eclipse - A Journey Of Permanence & Impermanence 4. Hallucinogen in Dub 5. OTT - Blumenkraft 6. Shpongle - Nothing Lasts Mostly Shpongle & OTT, for me easily the best thing on twisted is there downbeat stuff also they re-released SPs debut Twisted which would be top of the list if it didn't feel so much like a Dragonfly release in my heart

Padmasana Padmasana (Balinese Space Dub) Dakini Records 1999 (Reissued in 2001) Tracklist 1 Be Where Now (12:19) 2 A Distant Star (11:08) 3 Holistic Resonance (18:20) Padmasana is a collaboration between Gio Makyo and David Hikari, a pair of Tokyo chill-out djs, and the mysterious S. Widi, their "spiritual advisor" from Bali. This album was inspired by misty nights in Ubud and the mind-shattering "oong" mushrooms of Bali. The music takes you on a trip through inner and outer space, finally ending up back in the lush, tropical ambience of Ubud at night. The album features field recordings and live performances recorded in Bali, Tibet, and Tokyo, and varied instrumentation, including: Tibetan mantra, gamelan, Indian frame drum, water drums, bass, assorted Balinese percussion, sampler, cumbus, broken BassStation, Korg Z1, voice, Eventide Harmonizer, tr-303, tabla, and Ubud night insects and frogs. 1. Be Where Now A nice opening track. Has a nice chilled out bassline through out the majority of the track playing like a melody. Lots of tribal ethnic sounds in this one but in the usual Dakini way, the ethnicity of the music never goes too overboard or gets too cheesy. It all sounds very real, a perfect mixture of tribal sounds, modern technology & future spaciness. This last element is given a perfect boost by the sample The spacecraft passes through the gateway, space returns to normal halfway through & continuing with scattered short samples of space & time & spacecrafts through the rest of the track just the right length to be trippy as hell & never annoying. The melody playing through the whole track is a simple falling melody that fits as a link from the earthy beats to the spacey vocals. All in all it's a fantastic track. One of the best from Dakini 2. A Distant Star With lush vocals from Keiku who has featured on other Dakini tracks, most memorably for me was her vocals on Puff Dragon's Qi Gong. For a long while it is just her and some nice ambient sounds. A lush drone, some very soft tribal percussion & some gentle strings. It's all such beautifully done ethnic ambient. As before it sounds so real, no forced ethnicity or cheesy overdone stuff here, this sounds like the Eastern Promise in my dreams of Tibetan temples when I was younger. Picture yourself trekking through the mountains, the clouds low all around you & as the mist clears you find yourself in front of a large yet humble temple. As you walk in through the gates there is a quiet market with peddlers selling their wears and priests walking serenely among them. In the main building you can hear the voice of a goddess & you are drawn to it but the more you go towards it the more distant it becomes. These are the images conjured in my head but as the voice finally disappears I find myself back in a small hut, pipe in hand, wondering where I've just been. 3. Holistic Resonance The last track is an 18 minute journey into your deepest inner reaches & past your outer limits into the limitlessness of space. It's soft melodic ambient, mostly beatless in the first half but with enough energy through it moving. There is hints of soft percussion here & there but it never really needs any beats. The music drifts along beautifully without it that by the time steady beats do materialise you are left wondering how long they have been there. The NASA type samples are amazing out of place with the whole feel of the track yet surprisingly seem to fit in as well. During the second half the track picks a bit more energy with the beat becoming more prominent and some oddly places vocal sounds. the real treat musically in this track though has to be the chimes that make up the melody in the final run of the track. Dreamy in a meditative sort of way. Like sitting in a forest clearing on a warm summer evening, connecting your thoughts to the nature around you & really looking deeply inside yourself from far away so you can see how the deep inner reaches of your mind & body are connected with everything else. One of the best final runs I've heard not just from Dakini but in ambient music in general. This album is definitely a must if you like Dakini's sound. One of the highlights from a very good label. It's soft dreamy music conjuring images of Eastern Philosophy and deep space ideals. The ethnicity is very real & never sounds fake, cheesy or forced in anyway. The vocals in the second are goddess like in their beauty & have to have been made for the track rather than a sample used by the producer. The percussion is very down to earth tribal beats & the basslines are subtle a tuneful. The melodies add the spacey feel as do a few well placed samples. The only flaw is the length at under 42 minutes you are always left wanting more. Still, best to release 3 brilliant tracks only than 3 brilliant tracks & 3 sub par tracks maybe. About Padmasana "Padmasana" is a common type of shrine found in Bali --although most gods and goddesses are usually visually depicted with statues and other works of art, the supreme godhead is shown only as an empty chair, the "padmasana" ("lotus seat"). On one level, this is a great spiritual prank; on another, it's full of meaning: the divine cannot be shown as a "god", because ultimately, it's everywhere and in everyone.

Padmasana - A Distant Star Perfect spacey tribal atmospheres full of eastern promise without getting cheesy