antic604

Indeed. Got my copy from Suntrip as well a year ago or so. Sadly, I think Anjuna decided not to sell them even if they were printed & ready to go, allegedly because of some post office problems but I think it was primarily because of some unresolved issues with payment / licensing to UX. Anoebis was able to get some copies directly from Tal and sold them (twice, I think?) via Suntrip's store. Hope there are still some copies available in Tal's "basement" and they will see the light of day sometime, because it's a very good release.

...and their Facebook says 15/3, so even better

Samples: http://www.arabesquedistribution.com/index.php?option=com_artistavenue&task=singleCd&id=3774&Itemid=1 Arabesque says it releases on 31/3, so that's probably the correct date.

In addition to the above, the general rule would be to use less of everything: less reverb, less delay, less tweaking, less panning, etc. because headphones tend to make those things sound great and exciting, but then on speakers it easily turns into a mess and a lot of important detail gets lost / masked. Also, I hear it's a good practice to actually work on a low volume, because that allows to get the mix balance better. Then, if possible use those same headphones to general listening of music, videos, etc. so that you get to know them. Lastly, listen to your mix on as many other players as possible - phone, laptop, TV, car audio; it doesn't have to sound great everywhere, but it's important that the key elements of your track are clearly heard. Stating the obvious, good (flat response) headphones are a must as well - I can advise either Audio Technika ATH-M50x (closed) or Bayerdynamics DT990 Pro (open).

It's really good - melodic, but not too much; very old-school in spirit and arrangement (from what can be said based o 2 min sample). The mix is fine, I heard worse on some commercially released music... Please post the full track when finished!

Sorry, I'm pretty clueless about other religions So @NHJO, it looks you can choose whatever suits you - there's 'devil' everywhere

Didn't know that. Thanks! For me, the reference to psytrance as "devil's music" came in the form of Cosmosis' "Synergy" album (my overall #1 music album ever, BTW) Just check the description for track #7 or the sample in track #1: https://www.psydb.net/labels/transient-records/cosmosis-synergy-tranr614.php

It seems it's going to be released on 15th March and can be pre-ordered via Beatspace! https://beatspace-impactstudio.bandcamp.com/album/vulcanosis-vv-aa-impact-studio-records

Pick and choose the best bits from either and create your own religion. The benefit would be you can adjust the mix of the components and create tailored versions for prog, goa, full-on, darkpsy, etc. With your entrepreneurial skills, you should be able to market and sell it successfully! Personally, I'm a Catholic Christian, so psychedelic trance fits really well with that religion, as it is often said that it's "devil's music". AFAIK there's no concept of "devil" in islam, hinduism or buddism; so I don't know how can people believe in those and listen to psytrance...

No, not 'whatever' because calling it a "sequel" you imply that Mindsphere was trying to do a follow-up to Presence, but failed. This isn't the case, 2nd part was always going to be ambient / downtempo and there's no surprise here. I'm not saying you should, but - in my own experience - there are albums I liked a lot at the beginning but disliked after 4-5 listens; and - even more frequently! - vice versa: I hated some of them initially, only to fall in love eventually. I learned not to fully trust my initial feelings, because they can and most likely will change over time. But everyone is different, so if you have that capability to definitively asses something so quickly, then - as I said - I envy you.

It's not a sequel - it'a a part of trilogy: 1) melodic, 2) chill / downtempo, 3) hard / aggressive Also, your view is probably why Suntrip decided to go with limited edition for this one. Lastly, I envy you that you can form such a definitive opinion just few hours after it's been released - I'll need few days

That's the beauty of Bandcamp's notifications

Purchased! Looking forward to diving into it

Nice to see some people coming around

Thanks! And indeed you should at least have a listen Knowing your taste I knew it's not your cup of tea, like Nervasystem or Hypnocoustics before it Regarding the softness (or 'warmth' of analog vs. 'coldness' of digital) I'll just paste what I wrote few months ago: I actually experience this very clearly in my own music-making, where if I automate something drawing the envelopes with mouse, it sounds OK but often boring. However, when I record those same modulations tweaking the parameters 'live' via MIDI controller it immediately sounds more exciting, more alive and energetic; even if it's a far cry from true 'analog' way of working, because I'm still controlling digital plugins in a digital DAW, that digitises my tweaking onto a very limited 0-127 scale... But please let's not go off-topic here

Uptempo: 01. Nervasystem - Brainradio <- a psychedelic mind-f**k, just perfect 02. Artha - Dream Theater <- Hallucinogen's 3rd album that we never got 03. Virtuart - Virtuart & Friends <- old-school treasure 04. Ultimate Experience - Lazarus Rising <- dancefloor-friendly Juno Reactor 05. Loud - 5 Billion Stars <- the definition of concept album 06. Mind Sphere - Mental Triplex: Presence <- sweeping, melodic storm 07. Tripswitch - Vagabond <- dark, brooding ...and beautiful 08. Oforia - Read More <- old master at work 09. Morphic Resonance - The City of Moon <- new master at work 10. Crossing Mind - Beyond Duality <- flawed, but takes you on emotional rollercoaster Downtempo: 01. Globular - Holobiont <- Ott v2.0 02. Mindex - Re-Focused <- glitchy, stuttery mess of beauty 03. Pitch Black - Filtered Senses <- deep, dubby 04. Dub Trees - Celtic Vedic <- deeper, dubbier and more spiritual

The review is up as well: https://www.psynews.org/forums/topic/73083-martian-arts-giant-locusts-tip-records/ Go buy it, people!

[DISCLAIMER] I received the .wav files prior to the release from Nectarios for review, but I also ordered my own copy from Arabesque. I encourage you do the same! Track list 01. Martian Arts - Dali Mountains 02. Martian Arts & Eat Static - Giant Locusts 03. Martian Arts & Radical Frequencies - There Is No Time 04. Martian Arts - Assagao 05. Martian Arts - Velos 06. The Rave Commission - Skunk Funk 07. Martian Arts - Discrete Circuit 08. Martian Arts & Ingrained Instincts - Downward Dog 09. Martian Arts - We Get Out Review Full-on music has always been there within the wider psychedelic trance genre, as a bridge between the “lighter” styles of prog, morning and goa; and the “darker” ones: forest, hi-tech, darkpsy. Over the years that sub-genre took a lot of shapes and forms, but the common denominator was constant: fast tempo, hard sounds, sparse - but present - melodic content and focus on short riffs and patterns. For my personal taste, the British brand of full-on - which I always conveniently labelled just as “true psychedelic trance” - was ticking the most boxes: it was full of funky grooves, acid lines, sonic experiments and …humour! Check back the releases of Green Nuns, Cosmosis from their Synergy / Intergalactic years, OOOD / Voice of Cod, early EVP or Sean ‘Process’ Williams sound design to see what I mean. Today’s full-on either borders on darkpsy (e.g. releases from Sangoma, Wildthings, Bom Shanka), gets dangerously close to prog or ‘normal’ melodic trance (e.g. Dacru, Ovnimoon) or turned itself into a homogeneous pulp, with no redeeming character (Nano Rec.). It was refreshing then, to find out that Nectarios Meidanis aka Martian Arts will finally release an album on TIP Records! Those that followed his career, will likely remember him from two free full-lengths on Ektoplazm as Disco Hooligans (with Jordan Bonyo) released in 2009 and 2010 and over the last 6 years numerous collaborations with the likes of Eat Static, Manmademan and others. His sound fills exactly the gap in today's full-on landscape: it's charmingly funky, groovy and contains the right amount of good melodic riffs, to balance the light and the dark. For those in-the-know there’s an additional twist, because Nectarios is a huge fan of analog modular synths and is eagerly incorporating those sounds in his music, making it very alive, fluid, organic and at the same time otherworldly alien and bizarre. Lots of artist try to recreate that sound via digital software, but there's simply no faking it - the sound of electrons flowing through circuits, tamed by analog gates, shaped by self-oscillating filters and orchestrated by voltage-controlled sequencers is like no other. There's chaos and randomness, there's imperfections and there's life. The album doesn't seem to have any main theme or thread, making it more of a collection of dance(able) tunes - some are more melodic, some are slightly more focused on sound experimentations, but all of them are of very high caliber: usually start with beat and ‘chaotic’ analog sequences, leading into some melodic riffs - either in-your-face or very vague, almost subsurface. In contrast to the British artists I mentioned earlier, it's not very acidic and instead relies more on the scratchy, skipping and stuttering sounds and effects to build the tension. It sounds very cybernetic, but because of the analog gear it's also very gentle, smooth and pleasant, unlike a lot of ear-drilling digital-only music out there. The melodic bits are really well done as well - short and concise (it not goa-trance by any means), but add a lot of lushness to the otherwise aggressive music and take advantage of the hardware, i.e. are cleverly modulated over time, emerge organically from the sonic chaos, are chopped up mercilessly, but beautifully. The music is also varied in terms of feeling and texture - after 2-3 listens I could already tell the tracks apart, which nowadays is rare and praiseworthy. Is it perfect? Not quite - sometimes the arrangements do not work to their fullest and the momentum / energy is lost in second half or last third, other times some sounds are not fully in tune with the rest (an inherent beauty and curse of analog circuitry…). But it's really, REALLY damn close! Favourite tracks? Difficult to tell, because they're all very good, but to my taste “There Is No Time”, “Skunk Funk”, “Velos”, “Discrete Circuit” and "Downward Dog" take the cake for being the closest to that old-school trippiness of Cosmosis & Green Nuns, with just perfect balance between sonic experimentation, twisted acid lines, patchwork-y melodic riffs and funk. The (slight) let downs? Probably “Dali Mountains” and “Assagao” for offloading their - otherwise awesome! - stuff a bit too early and then meandering aimlessly until the end (they’d be perfect at 6:00 duration). Similarly, the titular “Giant Locusts” with Eat Static while instantly recognisable from the lumbering, mechanical and droning acid-housey stabs; seems slightly unfocused - neither here nor there. Incidentally, “Parallel World” with Martian Arts on Eat Static’s latest album was top notch, so I'm looking forward to their albums as Strontium Dogs scheduled for release later this year. TL;DR - if, like me, you appreciate creative, analog sound design and are longing for the trippy sound of British psychedelic trance, defined by funky and groovy rhythms, sprinkled with good melodic riffs, acid lines and emergent beauty found in sonic ‘accidents’; then you owe it to yourself to purchase it this instant! Go now!!! Otherwise, take a listen as well - in my book it stands proudly next to the recent(ish) full-on heavyweights like Master Blasters, Hypnocoustics or PsiloCybian. Extra points for the cover - it's beautiful, colorful and charmingly tacky, in the best tradition of TIP Records 4/5 Samples Purchase here https://tiprecords1.bandcamp.com/album/giant-locusts https://www.psyshop.com/shop/CDs/tip/tip1cd819.html http://www.beatspace.com/9998/Tip+World/MARTIAN+ARTS/Giant+Locusts+/detail.aspx

An interview with Nectarios Meidanis aka Martian Arts is up: https://www.psynews.org/forums/topic/73077-artist-martian-arts/?do=findComment&comment=10005499 Enjoy!

...but apparently you need Switch, because performance on Wii U is atrocious: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1348277

I'd have believed if you told me it was a sitar...

Indeed, Bitwig has a lot of 'small' but very useful things that seem obvious to implement, but somehow Live9 - and many other DAWs - forgot about them. I guess that's the luxury of being a new kid on the block and to be able to draw from the experience of others, especially since AFAIK Bitwig is developed by ex-Ableton employees supposedly tired with slow pace at which Live9 is progressing. Personally I'm happy that Bitwig exists, because Live9 needs a strong competition - they became complacent and happy with their steady stream of cash, but Bitwig beats them handily in several workflow areas so they need to step up their game. For several years they've been mentioning that new version requires a rewrite of the program from the ground up, which is probably why it's taking them so long. I hope Live10 at least incorporates the whole Max4Live modularity inside it, because it's ridiculous now that if you want to add LFO device you need to wait for M4L to launch in the background (and then it's awesome ). It is indeed - as you said - typical for software that's long on the market: the bugs, weird dependancies and workarounds are dragged along with it. Still, I really love it. Whenever I have time to fiddle with my music - which recently is approx. 2h / week - I'm amazed how quickly I can achieve interesting results with the built-in synths and effects (I don't think I've yet tried VST-s with Live9), how easy it is to sketch some idea in Session, create MIDI controller modulations and then record the performance 'live' to the Arrangement for further tweaking. As I said here or somewhere else - with Bitwig, I'll see how v2 shapes up and in particular how their annual support works out for the users. If indeed the patches come in regularly and are substantial (not just bug fixes), then in 2-3 years I'll consider changing the camps. Well, unless Live10 comes out in the meantime and blows Bitwig out of the water

Yeah, I can see that. I believe Live/Bitwig works great for people who: - used to work with trackers on Amiga or PC many years ago, because the concept of 'clips' is a generalisation of tracker's pattern, - are completely new to music-making, so they can easier wrap their head around a 4-bar loop, than an infinite timeline. So, indeed it's literally different strokes, for different folks

I disagree - both Live and Bitwig are centered around the Session view / Clips idea, which in turn work best for repetitive / loop-based music, i.e. trance. Most artists using those work by creating their tunes in Session view with clips and then are recording the live performance to the Arrangement view, to further tweak the automations, add the one-off events like transitions, breaks, etc. Sure, plugins are important but they work the same everywhere.

The same - my favourite way of buying music, for those releases that are distributed by Arabesque