Azétris

Artist: Various Title: Balbalot Label: Michaeli Records Date: 1999 1. Lost in the Jungle 2. Shikana (Ofer Levy) 3. Hamosad 4. Devil Laugh 5. Just Goa 6. Last Mission 7. Psychodelic 8. D.J. Zoom PERSONAL NITZHONOT RATING SCALE: 5 stars: Close to perfection. Makes me automatically dance. I might almost cry of joy if I listen to it. (Though I somewhat lost the ability to cry while ago... but it the same feeling I remember) 4.5 stars: Usually good-quality Nitzhonot. Makes me automatically happy. 4 stars: Average rating for Nitzhonot. I enjoy it. 3.5 stars: Usually lower-quality Nitzhonot, or Nitzhonot that's "slow" without compensating with psychedelic elements. Underwhelming. I wouldn't chose to listen to a Nitzhonot track from that quality after the first time I did for discovery purposes (except to remind myself of what it sounds like). 3 stars: Usually very amateurish music with poor melodies. Very underwhelming. 2.5 stars: Very amateurish music with poor melodies. Kind of boring. I may actually get sad if I listen to it. Or laugh at it if it sounds so amateurish that it becomes funny. 2 stars: Boring. I never felt this bad about Nitzhonot. ≤ 1.5 stars: Let me reach 2/5 first to know what my Nitzhonot 2/5 means before I even attempt to know how I would feel about ≤ 1.5 stars Nitzhonot. REVIEW: Lost in the Jungle: Look at the title. Of course it features distorted animal samples (which is an oldschool Nitzhonot cliché, by the way). It also features nice tribal drums. I don't find the melodies anthemic enough, though. 3.26/5 Shikana (Ofer Levy): This one is weird. But I like the fact that the artist did experiments! However, (correct me if I'm mistaken as I don't speak Hebrew,) I don't understand this concept of making a Nitzhonot track out of what seems to be a pretty depressing sample, as "nitzhonot" means "victories" in Hebrew. But someone else did it for Uplifting and I love their track, so I guess that kind of stuff can work, lol. I would have enjoyed this track more if the melodies didn't drown the rest as much as they do... 3/5 Hamosad: Somehow, I find the melody, the synth sounds and the mixing boring... So, all these three things. I usually have little to no issue with any of these things in most Nitzhonot tracks, at most I may find some melodies easy to improve. But here, all these three things are off to me! In a way, that's an achievement for a Nitzhonot track. 2/5 Devil Laugh: Listening to almost any Nitzhonot after the previous track would have given me a sense of relief. However, while this one is better than the other one, I still don't really enjoy it. I find the melodies boring, some synth sounds not very enjoyable, and once again I have an issue with the mixing. Upside: I like the tambs. 2.5/5 Just Goa: For a track titled "Just Goa", it sure isn't very psychedelic! 😛 But it's not unexpected from 1999 nitzhonot. Once again, I'm not convinced with the mixing, some synth sounds (that one from 3:59 to 4:37 kinda hurts my ears...) and the melodies. However, I do feel like these are getting better. Or maybe I'm just getting used to what I used to percieve as worse than mediocrity a few minutes ago... 2.5/5 Last Mission: It begins with a nice intro that reminds me of what Nitzhogoa artists would later produce. I also like these busy kick patterns. Once again, it's something that people use in Nitzhogoa nowadays. I find the mixing and the melodies of this track more enjoyable than that of the 3 previous ones, though this one is lacking on the anthemic department. In fact, many of the melodies would not be out of place in a typical Goa Trance track, except that it's lacking psychedelic elements to make it work... 2.8/5 Psychodelic: That one is meh in my opinion. Nothing about it is anthemic. Upside: some nice tribal drums there. HOLY SHIT, WHAT IS HAPPENING AT 5:23?!! I barely have the words for it. You see the complaints I had about mixing, synth sounds and melodies? ... yeah. But this time it's very much worse. DON'T LISTEN TO THIS TRACK WITH A HIGH VOLUME!!! Upside: That terrible part only lasts 1 minute and 12 seconds. So basically until the end of the track. (Okay, not sure that's a good thing lol) Damn man, that outro sucks... 2.26/5 D.J. Zoom: Better mixing than the other tracks. Still a bit boring. And to compensate with the better mixing, a new problem has been introduced! Why are the drums weirdly panned? Between 0:52 and 2:03 it kinda works because the kicks are on the right and the snares on the left to compensate (though the kicks are way louder than the snares so it still feels umbalanced), but then 2:18 happens and it physically uncomfortable with my headphones. 2.5/5 COMPILATION RATING: 2.6/5 I think that's the lowest score I gave to any (non-single) Nitzhonot release I rated so far...

I'm always impressed with Rayavana's attention to detail / skills with drum patterns! It's like Technical Death Metal drums, but in Nitzhonot! Dunno how many people will get what I just wrote, but whatever. What I mean is that if his drum style comes from somewhere else than Nitzho, then it's a showcase of how taking non-Psytrance (or even non-Electronic) influences in Psytrance can lead to great results! As for the video, it's nice! I wish people had such good musical taste in real life ahah 😭 Edit: wow, that was quite a bump! But I mean, if it can contribute to "reviving" this website...

Loving the 90s vibes! Some people say old CGI aged poorly, but I find this kind of art style very charming and a bit nostalgic! (though I was born a tiny bit later, in 2001...)

Good idea! I joined We need more people on it though, ahah

I'm very happy for you, and also wish to become a Goa / Nitzhogoa DJ someday! The few Goa Trance fans I know are at least in their 30s and sad about not being able to frequently go to real Goa Trance parties anymore... nowadays, party organizers (at least in France and, from what I've been told, also in Switzerland and Funland) use "Goa Trance" to mean any style of Psytrance! Kinda like surprise bags that never give you what you want! But I'm glad people like you are trying to revive the genre! So am I (with Nitzhogoa)! As long as new people get into it, the genre lives! Let's give it more life!

Hi, thank you for all these uploads! I'm interrested in the scans of the magazines (especially any article about nitzhonot / uplifting), do you still plan to share them someday?