antic604

@Imba, there's nothing wrong with your sound and the choices you've made, but review is - as I see it, mind - a deeply subjective thing and I just want something more from music than a good drive, deep rolling bass and squaky acids/FX. Those are obviusly important, after all it's music to dance to, and you got that covered already which in itself must have taken a lot of work and dedication! As I said, in 2nd half of the CD I clearly see there's potential for you to reach the next level, to get past the "technical" side and express yourself in more emotional, musical - or maybe more crazy & psychedelic - manner. And just like Hallucinogen, Cosmosis or Koxbox who - for me, at least - peaked with their second albums, I'm convinced you'll get there too and the immediate success you're finding in the parties or on the festivals will give you confidence to do so! I'm happy you take my criticism so constructively and please keep in mind that any art form - music in particular - shouldn't be created with a mindset of catering to someone's tastes or expectations. It's got to come from you - your heart, your emotions, your ideas. If it's true and genuine it will find the audience, but you can't indeed satisfy everyone. And you shouldn't try to

@Anoebis, I can now see this is frustrating. It's as if people couldn't cope with (constructive, I'd hope) criticism? If only positive reviews are perceived as "proper" reviews then what's the point of review section? I'd however refrain from drawing simple conclusions e.g. Suntrip releases get worse reviews the longer it is on the scene. There's a lot of reasons that might seem there is such a trend, but in reality it's not really Suntrip-exclusive: 1) There's now much more goa being released than it was 5-10 years ago, so - assuming reviews inform purchase decisions - reviewers need to become more picky: if you can't buy everything, it becomes crucial to differentiate great releases from those that are "only" good (and especially those that are really sub-par), 2) There's group of old-timers here (myself included) that do not get any younger and with age people become more difficult to please, because they know and experienced stuff and also have other things in life requiring them to focus on just the good stuff, so - again, in their best interest they think - they'll be more discerning and analytical in their reviews, 3) With very easy and convenient access to music (physical & digital distribution, streaming / subscription services, torrents, etc.) people listen to a lot of music, most of it very briefly and more often than not do not care anymore for authored "albums" or "compilations" (no wonder concept albums almost vanished) - they'll just play their favourite radio / webcast or put their entire "collection" on random, which makes it easy to appreciate single tracks, but difficult to form any coherent opinion on the album / compilation as a whole, 4) With wider reach of the music more "regular" people (non die-hard goa/psy fans) will listen to it and take it only on a surface level, i.e. if they liked it or not (which is perfectly fine, BTW!), not putting any thought as to what it is that make them like it (or not). It's hard to write a review - or indeed reply to an inquiry about enigmatic "It's killarghhh!!!" review - if you can't articulate why you feel in certain way. 5) It's really difficult to convey - and then discuss, defend - thoughts, emotions and ideas via written text on the Internet, especially in foreign language. Had I actually posted all the posts / replies I started, my post-count would probably be 3x higher. If all above hold true, then you'll end up with small group of grumpy, old, dedicated die-hard goa/psy fans described in 1) and 2), which results in reviews getting more critical, which in practice means more negative. That's why some time ago I proposed to include polls in reviews, because it allows the rest to contribute to review at least that way.

Damn, I thought this is about Hansel & Gretel and the house the witch lived in: But the music sure sounds intriguing!

@Jannis, would it be possible for you to add Remixed + Unreleased to Bandcamp as well? I'd love to buy it there! Also, looking forward to new Filteria / K.O.B. stuff - hope it won't take much longer?

So, you also meant it is my fault that we get so few reviews? Because that's that *I* said. And to be technically correct... ...you posted "If true, that's sad" after I closed my earlier post with a "sad" smiley, so it's actually you that repeated what I just said

Well, I'm sad to hear this because I've been known to ask people to substantiate their - short - reviews or ratings, so I feel partially responsible... Obviously, my reasons were not the discredit someone else's opinion, but to better understand their thinking behind opinion/rating so that I could maybe learn from them or find out who's opinions are similar to my own. Hope that's not the case, but with Internet you never know as it's very difficult to convey one's thoughts and emotions in text, especially via non-native language.

What do you mean? Are people sending you PMs with positive reviews because they're afraid they'll get challenged & be called "Suntrip fanboys"? Or you mean the opposite - the reviews are negative, and they're afraid to be criticised for being overly pessimistic and negative if they put them in the open? I've seen both, but there's nothing wrong in constructive discussion as long as it's civilised and topic-based.

I planned to start this by saying that I'm disappointed with the release, but actually that's not entirely correct... To be completely honest I knew this will be underwhelming (definitely the weakest Suntrip Rec. release in 2016 even if I wasn't very keen on Ra's "Earthcall") and played back to back with recent albums of Artha, Crossing Mind, Mindsphere, Ephedra or - to take something non Goa-Trance - Nervasystem; it's clear Imba's only learning the ropes and while he's got the technical side covered, his music writing skills need to catch up. 1st thing to note here is the bass lines - he stubbornly insists on the 'galloping' bass which is present for like 90% of the time, not helped by playing it on too high a note (or by adding a hi-frequency components), which results in it sounding like a lot of (morning) full-on music used to sound few years ago: very static, monotonous, boring. There were several times after a break or bridge when I hoped something great and unusual would happen, only to be assaulted by that annoying K_BBK_BBK_BBK_BB pattern... 2nd thing are the acid lines - they're largely fine, there's plenty of them (which is great!) and they're very clear homage to classic psychedelic trance of 90's, but somehow they fail to deliver on the energy - I don't know if it's the issue with mixing or the way Imba designs his sounds, but acids work best when - within their full range for cutoff & resonance - they contain both the low growls as well as highly resonant twirls. I couldn't really hear it here, it's all sort of in a very narrow, controlled frequency range, with the most sonically "exciting" parts left out below and above that range. 3rd thing - tied to 1st, somewhat - is that musically the album is very constrained, with melodic variations firmly rooted to the monotonous basslines and limited to short 16-32 note (4-8 kicks) loops. It gets better in 2nd part of the album, in particular in tracks #5-7 but it never even touches the storytelling qualities or emotional impact of above mentioned artists. Some of the Astral Projection-like bell" melodies in early tracks are particularly annoying, slowing the otherwise dynamic tracks to a crawl... As said, I wasn't surprised because after reading comments like this or this it's pretty clear that - at this point of his development, at least - Imba's focused on the technique, on making the dancefloor "rock" and this he's got spot on! I only hope that in few years we'll see him develop further beyond the craftsmanship and into the realm of artistry. He has the skills, he has the ideas, he has the experience - what he misses (IMO, of course) is some music theory, some craziness in his arrangements; maybe he should try writing some other non-trance stuff? Incidentally, this comment in Richpa's review: ...is actually backwards - he SHOULD collaborate as much as possible, because that's where his technical expertise complements somebody else's musical chops, resulting in great tracks like many of his remixes or collaborations, original Space Elves (Imba + CoaGoa, SETI Project & Arronax) album included. 3/5 from me - it will surely work a treat on the dancefloor, but does little to satisfy couch listeners BTW, I love the cover art here!

If by "serious" you mean "delusional" then sure, go ahead. You're making a splendid job already!

I've not presented a single idea in this thread, let alone two. Are you seeing things? That'd explain what's happening here...

Thanks for the kind words I'm working on new stuff and it's very unlikely I'd re-do those old tracks, but who knows. Not promising anything, though

Ooooo!

That would make you a genius in logistics, considering we're all from different continents, time-zones, etc...

Well, this one at least changes the octave halfway in and changes the key at 4:40, but - really - it's just the same track, isn't it? At least the instruments and the idea are the same? On the flip side, the 1st one had more interesting intro and I feel the drum loop was more interesting. Please study those on how to "do something out of nothing", i.e. how to build the tension and "tell a story" by just adding simple elements: In "trance" (goa, psy, dark, prog, whatever) it is key to build stuff gradually, to induce the trance state. Obviously it's different for different artists, because some will build their full percussion loop for 3 minutes, because they've nothing more to "say" (musically speaking); others - like Artha, Crossing Mind, etc. - will start at full force and can build from there, adding and tweaking melodic lines, acid lines, breaks & transitions, etc. For me the biggest challenge was always how (and when) to take something away, but that's the next step The structure I used to follow (almost 20 years ago ) was: 1) build up the backbone of the track, i.e. the main rhythm section loop, 2) add and play with some acids / effects, sprinkled with some smaller breaks or transitions, 3) introduce a bigger "bridge" section, presenting a main melodic line of the track, adding some atmospherics (pads, chords) + spoken samples, 4) combine everything for the "grand" finale, 5) add an intro to the track, using some of the elements from 2-4 Try to think of your track in above terms. Maybe this will help?

I'm pretty disappointed with low feedback to this release. A lot of you hurried to defend it when I posted my initial impressions, so I'm surprised it hasn't translated into more posts here? I find that for this particular release it's sometimes difficult to put into words the feelings it evokes - both positive and negative - but I'm sure the artist would appreciate more feedback. Myself, I can't get enough of it! Sure it's annoying sometimes, but the good bits greatly overshadow any issues I might have with particular sounds or sequences. It is so full of emotion, breathtakingly beautiful at times. It's interesting that - for me - it's easier to assess or "quantify" the quality of releases such as Artha's or Imba's CDs, because they're so consistent in style and execution. For Crossing Mind the only constant is huge variability: within one track you'll have incredible, soaring highs (that you'll find nowhere else!) and bottomless lows taking you for an emotional ride and it's up to you if you can work up a tolerance for those "lows" and look past them. It took me some time, but it was worth the effort because - just glancing at the surface - I'd otherwise miss a unique experience. I hope it sold well to warrant future releases. Also, I'd be interested in hearing some collaborations from Crossing Mind - with right artists (not strictly from "goa-trance" camp) that could be really something!

That's really low, even by your own "standards"...

*your*

Was that you choking right now?

I'll add the 15% to the total, then. Thank you!

I would prefer Bandcamp (because of building a collection there) Can you tell me (us) how much should I increase the purchase price in Bandcamp so that you end up getting the same amount as if I purchased via Dat Rec. store? Let's try to get the best of both worlds EDIT: Are you allowed to give away d/l codes just like that? Won't you have to pay for used bandwidth, etc?

Sorry, but that's just bull s**t. It's a very conformist and easy way out. Sure it WORKS that way, but that doesn't make it THE truth. To give an example - in TV when talking about WW2 it's very common for reporters to speak of "Polish concentration camps" (where Jews and other minorities were mass-murdered by Nazis) and they simply do it out of convenience, to make it shorter. In few decades I'm sure a lot of people will think those were actually Polish concentration camps, not camps established in Poland by german Nazis. In your example this will eventually become the truth, while in reality it is far from it.

That's childish. Grow up, will ya? I knew this was a stealth comment directed at me. Knew it! Will you then apply the same "logic" and present your own music to support your uncritical hype about anything that's got "GOA" label on it? Or should I simply take your word for it, because it's a positive feedback? Anyway, you can listen to my music from 1996-2000 here: https://soundcloud.com/antic604 I even made a thread about it some time ago, but I guess there's wasn't enough hate in it so you somehow missed it? If I ever write anything new I'll be sure to let the people whose opinion I value have a listen.

That could be the case, still it makes more sense to post them at or few days after the release date. This is what Nano Rec. is actually doing (+ posting full albums on Soundcloud) which - from my personal perspective, at least - worked against them because I've not purchased several releases that I would have if it wasn't for those full YouTube/Soundcloud "previews"

But I'm not saying this is the case at all! All I say is that making the album available for free a week before release is a poor commercial move. For a lot of us obviously it doesn't matter and we'll get it regardless in best possible quality (I pre-ordered my copy a month ago, mainly because it's on Suntrip, not so much because it's Imba to be completely honest...). But majority of people will simply stream from YouTube or d/l YouTube rips because it's already out there, they don't care for quality and they won't care to support the artist & label. I for example would be really curious to see the ratio of people actually paying for "Name your price" releases on Bandcamp and I'd bet it's strongly skewed towards getting it for free. That's how people are - they'll get stuff free if they can. Making it difficult for them, e.g. have staged releases via different delivery channels is the way to go. Unless - as I said - the artist doesn't care about money & just wants the stuff out there, which is fine as well. None of that considers (most of) people of psynews.org

Majority of young people don't know what torrent is. They know what YouTube is And I was mostly talking about the album appearing in FULL on YouTube A WEEK before release. I don't mind doing it AFTER obviously - that's the proper way to promote your music.