antic604

Indeed, this album is awesome, in particular the tracks with Whoop which combine incredible energy, elaborate technical wizardry with touching, sublime melodies! The final run in this track is simply out of this world! In addition to your list, I'd say Terrafractyl's "Chrysalis" album has a similar vibe, but not quite the same: I'd also be very curious for suggestions, because it was quite an unique album

Two weeks in and I still stand by my 3/5 rating - it's enjoyable, some tracks (that I mentioned above) stand out but otherwise it all sounds very samey, very consistent in the wrong way. One would think that with analogue equipment the palette of sounds should be infinite. This particular sub-style of psychedelic trance - focused on sound patterns & textures, sonic manipulations - should in particular leverage on that. Instead, a lot of those artists (Wildthings , Bom Shanka labels) fall into the trap of locking into vary narrow sonic niche, that obviously works initially but quickly gets boring... It's mind-numbing not mind-expanding, especially in larger doses. 1-2 tracks in a DJ set will probably work just great, full 10-track album is just too much.

Yeah, I've no excuse nor explanation for that. Hope the mods won't ban me from the forum

Two weeks later it still - mostly - sounds pretty bland, boring & uninspired. Normally it wound't bother me, but in this case i.e. the album being written by two established artists with critically acclaimed back-catalogue; I can't get over the fact that this could have been so much better! All the ingredient are there, but somehow they end up adding them to create negative synergy - it's constantly lacking something, be it structure, variety, catchy riffs, variation, etc. Sigh...

Also, symptomatic that no one corrected my reference to JR's "Jardin de Cecile" - obviously I meant "Conga Fury" (corrected now)

So, what are your favourites so far? For me it's "Andromeda" for its awesome bassline, chord progressions and storytelling; and "Across The Universe" for its relentless, kinetic drive! On the other hand I'm in a love/hate relationship with "Lazarus" - some moments are incredible, some are pretty dull. Also, I've slight issue with "Thee Audyssey [Continues]" - there's some sort of reverb (or something?) on top of everything, resulting in it sounding much muddier - and somewhat louder, as well - than the rest of the tracks. There's a note in credits that this particular track received a post-production mastering separately, so I guess there's something to it and it's not just my imagination. Agree in principal, but you really need to be a good musician (not just a producer!) to make it work. Most often than not, long-duration tracks are simply 2-3 shorter tracks glued together and they'd work equally well - or better, actually - on their own. For me, the ideal length for goa/psy-trance is 7-9 minutes: enough to get you into trance and not too long to start getting boring The issue with this album that I personally have (but I see others hinting on that as well) is that some tracks - e.g. the "Andromeda", which I love anyway! - would benefit from being more concise. There's a lot of great, catchy, emotional and/or driving sequences there, but they're separated by periods of emptiness, i.e. just plain kick+bass. If they were closer together, connected by some (short) breaks and transitions, it would be great. Also, (new) UX rarely combines more then 2 non-rhythm-section layers together (usually only some melody/riff + pads), which contributes to the tracks sounding a bit "flat" in terms of dynamics. I'm not asking for 5+ layers of melody like e.g. Filteria does, but surely some more overlap would be welcome. Then again, I'm talking about what *I* would like this music to sound like and obviously Kris has 100% artistic freedom in doing whatever he pleases. I love the album regardless and it seems people are also appreciating it a lot!

Is it fair to expect it in Nov/Dec? Looking forward to it!

Was that the sub-forum where pubic hair trimming tips were exchanged? That was a blast...

+1

Check Neogoa's posts in announcement thread: https://www.psynews.org/forums/topic/71686-ultimate-xperience-lazarus-rising-neogoa-records-2016/?p=1072470 Full physical release is coming end 2016 / beginning 2017, incl. 5 tracks from "Lazarus Rising" and 5 new ones.

While I loved the new album, it will never be closer to the "UX sound" without Pete Martin. I guess Kris & Pete were contributing different things to the UX sound: Kirs - as evidenced by this album - is great in creating atmospheres, textures, chords / pads and rhythms, while Pete was all about those crazy, labyrinthine, wiggly acid melodies & riffs. Too bad they don't work together anymore, because that was an unbeatable combo...

So many eloquent, well-versed opinions! Thank you

I usually read, work or jog while listening to music. Playing videogames works too, but it needs to be something without much story, i.e. arcade shooters (e.g. Super Stardust HD, Alienation, Resogun on PS4) or driving games. But above all I just prefer to kick back and do nothing, so that I can focus entirely on the music. Especially for new stuff, that I need to get familiar with.

Just reading that "the soft hairn on my arms become punkies"

@Oopie, Lightforce, Scandinasia - myself & others would really appreciate if you backed up your votes with few words of comment what you liked or disliked, etc. It's not mandatory of course, but highly appreciated

Hmm, interesting - I found that one to be the least inspired, although the original is so great that one hardly needs to do anything to make it a good tune. Still, Orion's remix is unbeatable, even better than the original, IMO. Regardless, that's one hell of an album and I gave it 5/5 in my review.

Hi FP

And what's the reward? I've been here since Feb 2000 (previously until just "antic"), so I fondly remember those

1. Andromeda 2. Kingdom Of Heaven 3. Across Thee Universe [space Time Continuum] 4. LAZARUS [sanctum] [Mix XIII] 5. High Energy Protons [Deus Ex-Machina Mix] [vs. Juno Reactor] 6. Radio-Activity [eXtinction 13] 7. Thee Audssey [Continues] [The Faithealers Remix] Ultimate Xperience is Kris Kylven's solo project and an evolution of the legendary UX (Kris + Pete Martin), but he was also recording as Cyberkrist, Element Over Nature or Syb Unity Nettwerk and was actively contributing to the music of Juno Reactor, Killing Joke, Faithealers or Eon Project. Right of the bat it has to be said, that Lazarus Rising sounds almost nothing like the classic UX, i.e. largely gone are the twirly, labyrinthine arpeggios and meandering, interweaving melodies. Instead, this album is more akin to Juno Reactor in their "Beyond The Infinite" / "Bible of Dreams" phase, reworked as a - very good - full on. Kris has a very keen ear for simple but catchy riffs, incredible feeling for driving, hypnotic rhythmic sequences (he's a drummer, after all!) and wonderful knack for unusual major-scale chord progressions, boldly avoiding typical goa-trance cliches of cosmic spaces or ethereal ambiences. The tracks are full of well-chosen sci-fi or spiritual voice samples, especially in intros & outros, that in themselves are like little gems: orchestral, atmospheric, dramatic, grand(iose) and cinematic. His unique touch is in particular present in: "Andromeda", that likely has the most memorable opening in recent history, "Kingdom of Heaven" that takes cue from Juno Reactors "Conga Fury", expanding the 3/4 drumming into full-on, psychedelic journey or "Thee Audissey Continues" that closes the CD in a real banging manner, building on a foundation of incredibly touching chord progressions, adding bits of acid / guitar riffs and hits hard, despite relatively slower tempo. The tracks in the middle are more focused on single idea and are more typical full-on affairs, but there's enough variety and uniqueness to them to sound positively different. If I were to complain about anything, I'd say that some of those songs would have been better if they were shorter, more condensed and focused. A lot of it sounds like a bunch of awesome ideas and terrific sounds that fail to truly connect to each other, to coexist in any meaningful way, to achieve their full potential because they're spread thin over time and separated by periods of "empty" spaces. As such, there's little tension there - it's all pretty even-levelled, pretty flat. Still, albeit not perfect this is an awesome album - full of great, touching and hypnotic psychedelic trance music. If this is mini LP then I just can't wait for the full thing! 5/5 (it's more like 4.5/5, but I don't believe in 0.5 ratings and I thought 4/5 is a bit unfair as I'm liking it more with each listen). Buy here: https://neogoarecords.bandcamp.com/album/lazarus-rising Full album on Youtube for free.

I think it's split between Suntrip and Stephane, as the label probably has some rights to the music as well, I think

There's Bandcamp link in 1st post.

Great! Hopefuly a shorter, more condensed versions? Because the only criticism I can give is that - as they are - some of them drag a little too long, with a lot of padding along the way between the interesting bits. Awesome release, nonetheless!

Definitely. Although, I still hope this gets added as a bonus CD to the "proper" UX album that's supposed to come out late '16 / early' 17

@Richpa, sorry - all is fine. It was an issue with my headphones, which I thought were very good, but apparently they're not. Sorry for false alarm