Bill

I stand corrected, just used to the old albums being remastered, I suppose. I corrected my text. Here's from the Suntrip site: "So, what's the deal You get the original music, with original mastering (it was damn great already back in the days) and the artwork is 80% original... 20% of the artwork has been made by us. There is a new tray and the cd was tweaked a bit. Also, the cover has better colors!"

Asia 2001 Psykadelia Suntrip Records Tracklist: 1. Anafuzz 2. Orion 2 3. Eolis 2 4. Kalimba 5. Replicants 6. Sherkan 2 7. Reykjavik 8. Flirt Filter Man, this one takes me back to a different life altogether. It was a time when goa was an eastern hemisphere phenomenon (largely it still is), every single raver in the world flocked to Ishkur's Guide To Electronic Music like it was the second coming of Jesus and whatever new goa hit the planet with some degree of popularity would pop up on Napster some six months later, all shiny and new and available for play when it was done downloading in about six to twenty-four hours, depending on the performance of your dial-up connection. For a kid in New York listening to Man With No Name, Cydonia, Astral Projection and Total Eclipse through crap-quality audio files - his only access to these magical sounds - it was like listening to transmissions from a completely alien world, literally and figuratively. It is with a loving heart that I have listened to the newly re-released Psykadelia and have been transported to a by-gone era. It is a lovely and awesome journey. The back-story of this one is intriguing where something so good was so limited in its initial release in 1997, through Asia 2001's own Trans'Pact label, thus making it extremely difficult to obtain and therefore an immediate must-have, a cult status it has kept to this day. Now the mystique is lifted and we are able to hear the album in something other than dial-up quality and it is most definitely worth it! "Anafuzz" gets my vote for best of this bunch (though all eight tracks are captivating) because it bristles with so many different ideas and the creativity is pulled together exceptionally well in awe-inspiring harmony. "Orion 2" is decent goa showcasing tribal chants that most will find either hypnotically repetitive or persistently annoying (I fall in the former). And in the well-chosen words of MDK, everything else is "in beast mode and gets stronger as you get sucked further into its psychedelic vortex." Psykadelia's sole down point is its lack of variety, as compared to another Suntrip re-release on Dimension 5's Transdimensional masterpiece, but when similar-structured full-on goa sounds this damn good that is hardly a shortcoming. Of these, the uplifting euphoria overload of "Kalimba," the mystical and mysterious chants of the full-powered "Replicants" romp and the storming acidity of "Sherkan 2" showcase Martin Cooper/Gilbert Thevenet pouring passion and fire into his music. "Eolis 2" and "Reykajvik" are blazing portals of straight-forward, no-frills goa power while the "Flirt Filter" conclusion brings back the melodic greatness of the album's opening tracks and combines them with the raw and riveting muscle of the later tracks. I would stop short of calling Psykadelia a masterpiece but would go all-in on calling this a must-hear. Especially in this crisp-sounding, better than dial-up, re-released edition. Asia 2001

Dimension 5 Transdimensional Suntrip Records Tracklist: 1. Iron Sun 2. Purple Om 3. Antidote 4. Omega Centaurus 5. Deep Space 5D 6. Psychic Influence 7. Beetlesnuff 8. Harmonic Convergence 9. Utopian Dream 10. Flow I fall into the camp that says this album immediately became one of the favorites in my collection. I also agree with all the responses, here or in the thread for the 1997 original release, that says most of these tracks are of equal value to each other, hardly any better than the rest, one whole album that is absolutely, remarkably put together. "Iron Sun" is an awesome opener - exciting, riveting, with superb warmth and adventure emanating from the analog sounds. It sounds old-school but not too old-school. Instead the "Purple Om" follow-up comes off as dated, almost too old-school, but there are still some very strong points to the track, such as the cool male-voice tribal samples. However, one of the better moments from this album takes place in "Purple Om," where the direction changes and settles down and gets very mature and makes a seamless, break-less transition into the excellent "Antidote." In fact, if you're not paying attention, it may be halfway through "Antidote" before you even realize that the track has changed. It is a very well produced moment, where the festive "Purple Om" becomes the introspective mastery of "Antidote" with such smoothness. It impresses me deeply each time I hear it. "Deep Space 5D" gets the most votes, it seems, for best track on Transdimensional and it's very tough to argue with that logic, it is a track where the energy truly picks up and takes off, shooting you through the vortexes of outer space, a fantastic energy burst. But putting that much acclaim on just one track takes away from the power of the whole - this is a very complete album where each track makes perfect sense and lends power to the track that follows it. As such, I find it difficult to separate "Deep Space 5D" from its block with "Omega Centaurus" and "Psychic Influence." The trio works tremendously well exactly as they are laid out in the tracklist. "Psychic Influence" even manages to be a great track despite its cheesy Independence Day samples. "Beetlesnuff" is the weakest of this bunch but it is not one that I would call poor in terms of quality. It just lacks the magic of its nine siblings. In an earlier post here in this thread, Jon Cocco says that "Utopian Dream" could be an Astral Projection song and I would agree one-hundred percent and add only that "Harmonic Convergence" be included in that assessment. These two tracks are phenomenal and wild space odysseys that romp intense and beautifully through the galaxy. This duo is an awesome conclusion to the goa part of the album, one hell of a rollicking finale. "Flow," though, is simply perfect, an immaculate down tempo closer that keeps with the beautiful goa tradition of finishing with a serene chill track, lest we forget this is an album from the exact era that created that tradition. A perfect closer to an almost perfect album. As the sample from "Deep Space 5D" tells us, "it turned out to be a good trip." From its hard-to-find 1997 original release to its 2007 loving remaster by Tim Schuldt, it turned out to be a very, very good trip indeed! Many will tell new listeners about the goa albums that should be essential listening. Under no uncertain terms, Transdimensional should be an album at the top of those lists.

Suns Of Arqa All Is Not Lost, But Where Is It? Liquid Sound Design Tracklist: 1. Mother Tongue 2. Sadrayama 3. Erasmus Dub 4. The Fool Ascends 5. Discordant Dawn 6. The Truth Lies Therein 7. Pablo's Lament Suns of Arqa (Michael Wadada) have been around for a very, very long time. Since the 1970s, in fact, and the goal of the music is a fusion between world beat, dub, electronic and just about everything in between to create sounds that are trippy, cerebral and experimental. All Is Not Lost, But Where Is It? is an album title dripping with Shpongle-isms. It makes sense because in the tradition of Suns of Arqa hundreds of guest musicians have been invited in to take part in these weird compositions over the past decades. This time around the legend Raja Ram makes many a contribution (as does The Orb and Youth). The result of the album, from old-schoolers like Wadada and Raja and The Orb, is very much an old-school chill and dub album. Old-school in flavor, definitely, but also a trip back to the beginnings of electronic psychedelic music where the definition of the sound was not clearly defined, where deeply interesting albums such as this were the norm and experimenting to see where something new like goa and psytrance were going were readily accepted. Where is goa and psytrance going? No one knows so why not fuck with it and see where it all leads, the mindset back then seemed to be. All Is Not Lost, But Where Is It? is an album lost in time, perhaps. We know now where goa and psytrance have gone, we know now what they mean and how they are defined. In part, the album does not work because in the here and now it does not go far enough to lend any additional meanings to any established definitions. That's not to say this is a bad album. It is a good one, it is sometimes wildly intriguing and I'll be the first to say that my heart is warmed every single time I hear Raja Ram's flute come through the deep and hazy dub. Sometimes these compositions work and sometimes they just do not seem to go anywhere at all, like it's just a jam session between old friends who are still in the planning stages of what these tracks will eventually sound like. If All Is Not Lost, But Where Is It? were more cerebral, it would be a better album. But this may be twenty years beyond its time. It's a pleasant album, it's an interesting album but it is not a wildly fascinating album. The best track here is "Pablo's Lament," a fine encore, where the musicianship comes together in a celebration of sound. It is also a track where the experimentation on the rest of the album does not make an appearance. Suns of Arqa

+1 Gorgeous piece of work!

Great insight, Daniel, thanks very much for sharing it. I personally love seeing the nuts-and-bolts version of how the music is made. Not to take away from the importance of what Trinodia took the time to write, but more to perhaps go hand-and-hand with his words, I've had this for just over a week but did not want to share it while the debate was raging lest it get drowned out. Drezz sent this over but my review was already completed so I could not fit it in. Still, it's cool insight, albeit brief, that I felt should not be left out of the archive of this release. Drezz/Nervasystem: "I became involved (with Prana - Remixes 2015) due to my long time association with Matsuri and Tsuyoshi. I released many tracks on Matsuri in the 90s and worked with Tsuyoshi on the Antimatter project. We have chatted over the years and he asked me to do a remix for the album. My favorite Prana experiences were probably the early gigs and sets in London, late 90s, Return to the Source and Zencentricity, and when i went to Australia for a year in 99 and hung out and lived close to Nick Taylor who'd moved down there a few years before. Good times, much more to tell, but probably not legal, and best left for another day."

Djantrix Twisted Reality Digital Om Tracklist: 1. Twisted Reality 2. No Side Effects 3. DNA - Djantrix & Spirit Architect The two great tracks on Twisted Reality should be paired with the three great tracks from Spirit Architect & Djantrix's Liberation EP (reviewed here). Stylistically they are absolutely identical, five tracks from three guys who are obviously having a whole lot of fun just fucking going-for-it. The lead-off track can be disregarded, it is nothing special, just common full-on where the same effects, delays and sound structures are used, making it on par with so much that is out there from lesser producers. "No Side Effects" shows Djantrix has some good talent of his own and the awesome power of Liberation was not just the result of the talents of the Spirit Architect duo. "DNA" is a fantastic showing where Djantrix and Spirit Architect team again for another winner. If all you pick up is this EP, well, great. Two out of three here are pretty damn good but it seems almost foolish not to pick up the other EP and increase the number of quality tracks by just over double. Spiritually, neither of the EPs have much to offer. This is just pure body music, intense and wildly energetic full-on. If that's appealing then you won't want to miss these two (or five) tracks. DJ Djantrix

Love "The Journey" from The World Beyond and was thrilled to learn that LSD was one of the producers. He's definitely one of my current favorites.

I'm with Padmapani on this one, it's a great track.

Haha, well, agree to completely disagree. Cheers!

Lemmiwinks, you don't like this one, I'm completely cool with your rationale. 1/10 though is pretty harsh. A) this isn't the first time we've seen a remix project of this sort (TimeWarp & Omnivox just released a similar EP a couple weeks ago) but it's sort of doomed to public opinion unless one of the artists remixes a personal favorite and as we can see from this thread, no one seems to agree on just one track being the best of Prana. Even if they are the same tracks done three times, each artist brings their own flavor and those flavors have their strong points. Anyway, the point is, for future reference, this would be a 1/10 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3eXSaXwkrY

Nice, some of these sound very interesting, looking forward to diving in a little deeper. As for Re-Horakhty, this is one is awesome fun:

Galactivation - Arcanum Arcanorum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVIQLUh0-34 Avalon vs Tristan - Another Planet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgWJ5eq211o Crossing Mind - Virtual Mind Cleaner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiY3LZOFCEM Kurandini - Kalindian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgdwzC6byoI Josh - Waiting For God https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5eIxF70M_g Cybered - Dark Athena (Part 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pbMkgw4L3E Globular - Squabbling Gods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KZuugjdjhw Brujo's Bowl - Gyananakashu (The Eye Of Knowledge) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRUMsrBL070 Radioactive Sandwich - Bhagwan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqMKm2My6yk Easily Embarrassed - Blessed Day On Distorted Shape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqFcN7a9mBo Interestingly, most of these are available at Ektoplazm. The list wasn't compiled that way by design and I'm kind of surprised at the amount of "favorite" music I've gotten through the site.

That link takes you to their web site where you will see the exact same message along with a hyperlink that leads to the contact page where you can fill out a form to send a message, etc, etc, etc. It's a bit convoluted.... but the address should be http://adept@globalsect.ru Nice packaging, solid looking tracklist, very interested in this one!

One of the artists for track four is revealed in the first page of this thread.

VA - Parallel Worlds Womb Records Tracklist: 1. Ketale - Multiple Occasions 2. Atoned Splendor - Alien Possession (Pan Papason Remix) 3. Yar Zaa - Genetic Modulation 4. Mind Evolution - Quirky Element 5. Pan Papason - Sea Breeze (Goa Is Calling Mix) 6. Double H - Rise of Glory 7. Champa - Zef (Pan Papson Ibiza Mix) 8. Psique - Astrologic 9. Pastrix - TinTiri 10. Millennium - Grab The Knowledge I tuned into this one to check out Atoned Splendor and Yar Zaa. Unfortunately, Womb Records head Pan Papason drops the ball on the Atoned Splendor remix, turning "Alien Possession" into some generic and forgettable full-on. Spanish producer Yar Zaa, on the other hand, does not disappoint (though he rarely does). "Genetic Modulation" is fantastic, an air-tight full-on production with plenty of layers, excellent effects and not an ounce of wasted space. Definitely one of the best in this collection! Pan Papason redeems himself later in the collection on "Sea Breeze (Goa Is Calling Mix)" with a solid floor-filler that brings much more passion to this compilation than his generic remix. Unfortunately, the goa mentioned in the title does not occur, it is name dropping rather than a style approach. A nod to the producer, also, for his "Ibiza Mix" of Champa's "Zef." Even if the track is not one of the highlights here it's clear that the attempt and intent are there even if the quality falls a bit short. Ketale's "Multiple Occasions" is an interesting one. I enjoy the morning progressive vibes flowing through the music but, unfortunately, the psygressive effects, build-ups and climaxes are just too generic, too by-the-numbers. Those factors kill off an otherwise good track. It's a decent but disappointing opener to the compilation. Double H's "Rise of Glory" is excellent, a persistent full-on groover that works extremely well. Psique's "Astrologic" is a full-on gem that works less successfully as dance-floor material but its trippy experiments make it a weird and wild mental experience. The collection closer on Millennium's "Grab The Knowledge" gets high marks for creativity. The track's direction changes and use of tribal samples are diverse and wildly successful making it a very sweet conclusion. There are some gems in this one. A listener has to wade through a few duds to get at them but by my reckoning five of these productions are worth hearing a few times. Parallel Worlds has some very good full-on that is less concerned with today's trends and more with good old-fashioned, passionate dance-floor energy.

Paul, agreed 100% about Track 2.

Spirit Architect & Djantrix Liberation EP Dacru Records Tracklist: 1. Liberation 2. Fluorescence 3. Full Moon Forget the shitty album cover, try not to pay attention to the busy and senseless graphics going on there, try to look past that overly dramatic block lettering announcing the artists' names up at the top. This is not Israeli full-on masquerading with spiritual imagery while secretly making music for the fist-pumping guido who thinks its cool to wear his sunglasses in a dark club past midnight on a Saturday. This EP deserves better than that cover. Granted, it's almost good but it does look like someone's pastel kit puked on the rest of this thing. And the dude in the middle...my guess is the graphic artist just ran out of ideas. Spirit Architect and Djantrix do not run out of ideas, though. This trio of producers absolutely kill it where it matters the most. The Spirit Architect duo are Ovnimoon Records veterans and many, many moments in these three fiery full-on tracks they showcase exactly the sort of sound that landed them that prime gig to begin with. These are three floor fillers, pumped full of energy, energy and more energy. Make no mistake, though, there is nothing derivative or typical about these productions. In fact, Spirit Architect and Djantrix use enough progressive touches throughout to add some nice variety, even the samples are held to a minimum but used effectively and all three tracks have awesome and tantalizing effects. Lest it be forgotten that these are made for the live crowd (though this is awesome at-home listening) they all feature great build-ups and climaxes that don't feel like you have heard them before. The best place to hear this is out in the woods in the middle of an afternoon where the crowd is empowered from having killed the night and have no intention of turning away from the party at hand. This is peak-hour stuff - festival peak-hour, that is, when in the afternoon everyone comes out to play - when nothing surrounds you but trees and sunlight and familiar faces and ear-to-ear smiles. Liberation is an EP that deserves to be played at those moments for those kinds of people. Great stuff on this one!

Maybe the next project of this sort, since so much of the original source material is not available to remix, should be a remake album. Most of the Prana discography, for instance, could very much use a remaster but since that is not possible logically this would be the next best thing. As far as this release goes, I'm surprised at the lack of response to Filteria's remix - the layers in that one are awesome!

Master Margherita Afro Dots Blue Hour Sounds Tracklist: 1. Master Margherita & The Positronics - Frogs Dub 2. Master Margherita & The Positronics - Gaia Dub (Protogenos Mix) 3. [De]composer - Etude Simple II "Aleksej" (Master Margherita Remix) 4. Kliment - 3db (Master Margherita Remix) 5. Master Margherita - Sync Mode (Midi Mix) 6. Master Margherita - Strobe 7. Master Margherita, Mr Pink, Elvis Lobo - Bump Ride (Blue Hour Mix) 8. Master Margherita - For Aldo (Hanfstengel Remix) 9. Master Margherita & Ermetico - Freude 10. Master Margherita & Ermetico - Sei Otto (Original Mix) 11. Master Margherita & Ermetico - Campana 12. Master Margherita & Ermetico - Capodanno 13. Master Margherita & The Positronics - Santana Dub 14. Master Margherita - Blue Energy Part 1 15. Master Margherita - Blue Energy Part 2 16. Master Margherita - Rototom (Skin Mix) 17. Master Margherita - Tyrel Dub (Belgaroth Mix) 18. Grouch - Indifference (Master Margherita Remix) 19. Master Margherita - Spirit Dub (Ghost Mix) 20. Master Margherita & The Positronics - Scrumptious (Shorcake Mix) 21. Master Margherita & Ermetico - Sei Otto (Hibernation remix) 22. Master Margherita - Blue Fish (Sunrise Mix) Afro Dots is a very ambitious album - twenty-two tracks long with a meandering spirit that crosses several different styles of mid-tempo and down tempo styles before its journey is over. Naturally, with so many tracks in the offering, there is a lot of throw-away material here, approximately half of the tracks by my estimation. These filler tracks are mostly droning, experimental, uninteresting bridges to the album's better and more memorable moments. What is contained in those memorable moments is an album almost split into thirds - one-third techno, one-third down tempo, one-third dub. In fact, for an album mostly marketed as down tempo the first third of the album - and the first third of great music - is techno masquerading as down tempo. Some of it is dirty ("Sync Mode (Midi Mix)"), some of it is dark and rhythmic (the remix of Kliment's "3db") and some of it is pure beauty where well-known classical is married creatively to some dance-friendly techno (the remix of [De]composer - Etude Simple II "Aleksej" - one of the best on the album.) "Bump Ride," another mid-tempo gem, encapsulates Master Margherita's nice progressive psy flavors. The acoustic guitar and didgeridoo performance from Mr. Pink and Elvis Lobo, however, are the gems of this one. The sum of its awesome work speaks more to Margherita's overall vision for good and groovy music rather his ability to do it alone. Nice collaboration on this one. The invigorating hand-drumming and riotously infectious guitar strings of "Freude," co-produced with Ermetico, ushers in the fine down tempo moments of Afro Dots, with another equally effective moment in the same style cropping up at the end of the album playlist on the heavenly bliss of "Sei Otto (Hibernation Remix)." The dub segment of this album shows Master Margherita saving the best for last. Here the slow-rolling head-bobbing excellence of his dub style offers up gems on "Tyrel Dub (Belgaroth Mix)," an excellent remix of Grouch's "Indifference," a dark yet magical number filled with addictive female spoken word on "Spirit Dub (Ghost Mix)" and a co-produced beauty made with The Positronics on the delicious "Scrumptious (Shorcake Mix)." Afro Dots is a pretty long album and for half of its time it is not particularly interesting. However, with a little bit of careful editing, what is left is half an album of eleven stylistically varied and very well executed musical ideas. It is a gorgeous marriage between some great synthetic beats and some even better live instrumentation. It may be only half a great album, but what a great half that turns out to be. Bandcamp

It's not over-compressed on Prana Remixes, it does sound a lot better.

Declaration Of Unity Optical Delusion Ovnimoon Records Tracklist: 1. Intrinsic Darkness 2. Parallel Deception 3. Optical Delusion "This is a rather complex issue where we come from musically speaking. And it has to do with the fact that definitions change a bit through the years and new ones occur. Generally, we have the dark psy approach which is supposed to serve the pure pagan side of trance music. We also have the goa side which sometimes has the intention to be equally old-school. While many people may see huge gaps in the these approaches, we can observe some awfully common ground. What happens if you make dark psy a bit brighter or Goa instrumentations a bit more covert with forest principles in addition?" - Spectrum of Declaration Of Unity I happen to like this project quite a bit, being a big fan of style mashing, and Declaration of Unity takes a very interesting and entertaining approach to that subject. Optical Delusion is a full-on stomper, a twisted and mystical dark psy and forest journey and a chirping and positive goa lift, all wrapped up into one bold, powerful, body-rocking package. That said, if these three Greek producers continue tinkering and experimenting with this approach, for as good as Optical Delusion is, we may find that this EP is nowhere near as good as the material that may yet emerge. "Parallel Deception" is the best track here and the strongest indication of the potential of Declaration Of Unity. It's a track where the layers of all three styles are excellently measured out. It is where the full-on drive is at its most invigorating, where the background forest mysticism tantalizes the imagination the most and where the goa effects add excellent texture to a dance floor gem making it as much a playground for the mind as for the body. It is where dark seance chants in the background can suddenly emerge in the foreground as uplifting positive shaman chants, where the dark most definitely corresponds to the light. Excellent stuff! One-third of this trio is Ion Vader (his 2015 goa EP was reviewed here) who executes on some good full-on goa ideas on the title track and "Intrinsic Darkness." Spectrum and George Koutsourelis, the third member of this creative project, also bring some great levels of work to these tracks. The forest-y mysticism is pretty enticing and all the nifty effects add some very good layers that are pretty fun to pull apart on repeat listens. Good concoctions on both but not the complete package of quality that the second track contains. Kudos to Ovnimoon Records for seeing the potential behind this one and putting their seal of approval on it. There are some very good ideas running through Optical Delusion and it's refreshing to see the label release an EP absent of any signs of progressive. As for Declaration of Unity themselves, here on their second EP, job well done, fellas! This is a good one and worth checking out. Don't be surprised, however, if by EP number four or five these gents are releasing stuff that becomes absolutely astounding. This project has the potential to be something truly remarkable. Beatport

Haha me neither! I haven't heard it in a couple weeks and remembered it being a bit slower. But, nope, it's a night-timer. Should have listened to it again before posting....oops! Try this one, a bit older but damn good:

Good review! Gave this one a listen and was not impressed with anything on it. Did not know he was part of Hypnoxock but knowing that I'm going the other way and think he's better off with Hynoxock than without. Their music together is far more interesting and complex.

Great EP from earlier this year. Atoned Splendor, from the UK, collaborated on three different tracks with three different producers from China. (Didn't know they had a scene in China.) Excellent full-on in this one! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZS2_cJs3bY