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Artist: Virtuart (and Friends. He had a lot of help) Title: Virtuart & Friends (see, right there in the title) Label: DAT Motherf*ckin' Records Date: December, 2016 CD1 1 Virtuart & Chronomyst - Vashisht 2 Virtuart & Franky - Wakatoom On The Road 3 Virtuart & Kshoo - Esprit Libre 4 Virtuart & Chronomyst - Sacred Drop 5 Virtuart & Nagar Bhatti - 2068 6 Virtuart & Kshoo - N2 O 7 Virtuart & Maël - Neverending Party 8 Virtuart & Manitù - Red Spirit CD2 1 Virtuart & Chronomyst - Prospector M 2 Virtuart - Light Lifter 3 Virtuart & Chronomyst - L'Karnaj 4 Virtuart & Manitù - Indian Summer 5 Virtuart & Nagar Bhatti - Svadeshi 6 Underhead - Orejuna 7 Virtuart - La Sorcière Des Sables & L'Homme Libre (Sandoz Mix) 8 Virtuart - L'Annee Des 13 Lunes (Galactic Time Mix) Can we get a DAT Records appreciation festival? F*ck a thread, a festival. Just take all the artists who have released on Draeke's label and put them in front of a mountain or sea backdrop for a three day weekend. This is the view from my backyard. I have 2 acres and would volunteer the space. Waitaminute...I've seen what you guys do to a patch of land when the festival is over. Also I'm the youngest in my hood by a generation so you'd probably give them a heart attack. Besides thanks to our Cheetoh in chief (he's such a disgusting douche bag) you probably couldn't get into the states depending on which country you're in. Offer rescinded. But seriously, DAT just keeps on going with quality release after quality release. While I wasn't super impressed with Analog Dreams the rest of them have been home runs. This is an interesting release. Virtuart is Oliver Abitbol and like the title says he enlisted a lot of his friends to make this happen. Originally on the first disc was properly released back in the 90's and only 100 copies were made. The second disc was apparently out there also, but homie just gave it away. So this is nice to have a 2 CD set of music that was super hard to find. But that's what Feds does doesn't he? Oliver made several mixes of these tracks so for this release he compiled the best of those remixes and voila you have disc one. It is old school that churns and evolves with awesome melodies. The layers are thick with atmosphere and thanks to the mastering you can really hear them. I find the whole thing delightfully dark and mysterious and not too polished as to sound artificial. Sacred Drop is the only one I've heard and it reminded me a lot of Colorbox. Disc two has the hard to find tracks and Draeke said he tried to stay true to the tracklist that disc 2 was comprised of when he gave it away to his friends. Oliver's friends. Not Draeke. Draeke doesn't have friends he just bangs supermodels. This music is deep. Full of nice, long tracks replete with twists and turns to keep you interested. Driving rhythms. Let's see...a Pleiadians 3-disc set, a two-disc Etnica set, a Doof 2-disc album and now a 2-disc Virtuart Opus. Can you be my president? Bring your supermodels with you. DAT Records Psyshop Beatspace

Artist: Thenaria Title: UFO Ep Label: Space Baby Records Date: December, 2016 1. Display 2. UFO 3. Ultegra 4. Acceleration 5. Microscope Thenaria is a project consisting of two lads from the Ukraine who seem to dabble in a few genres of electronic music. One could surely be forgiven if upon listening to this conjured up images of any number of horses from the progressive stable of Ovnimoon Records. Indeed their Ep Fantastic Universe released in 2015 sounded like all the other progressive trance you've heard (yet even that one was expansive and deliciously detailed). This Ep has that smooth feel, but the difference is it's drenched with heavy goa themes. On the surface it's nothing that will rewrite the annals of goa trance, but the production value is high as the tracks twist through multiple layers of melodic goa clouds. They seem to be quite good at telling a story and generate an immersive atmosphere. Their ponderous downtempo closer hits all the right eerie and mysterious notes. Like I said, nothing groundbreaking, but very talented and on my "ones to watch" list. Space Baby Records Bandcamp

Artist: Various Title: Ascending Label: Melusine Records Date: December, 2016 1. Lauge - For Evigt Og Altid 2. Logical Elements - Flower Nebula (Original Mix) 3. Olexa - Miss Spring 4. Ancient Core - Caracatitza Cuantica din Oceanul Mecanic 5. E-Mantra - Ascending (Live Version) 6. Lifebloom - Rest In Self 7. Reasonandu - Immerse 8. Metamorphosis & The Adaptive - The Long Way Home 9. Cabeiri - Uranus' Seed 10. E-Mantra - Daydream (Dense Mix) 11. Saranankara - Awakening 12. Jaraluca - Spiritual Transformation 13. Ascent & Argus - One Day In India This digital release (24 bits) is from the label started by E-mantra and Reasonandu. It's a charity release with all the profits going towards underprivileged and abandoned children in Constanta. I won't pretend to know where that is, but doing good is universal. This is a long release at over 100 minutes and it contains quite the variety of music. A few mentions...All of the tracks have a good amount of depth in them and I didn't find one that was subpar. I'm not one for beatless ambient unless it's time for night night, but you get a couple of tracks of that here. Flower Nebula is a gentle and silky smooth progressive track that screams sunshine and the promise of a hopeful future. E-mantra has a couple of really good tracks here and they flow in the same vein as his downtempo releases. The music varies from utterly relaxing to strong, beat oriented downtempo with tribal touches. For example a track like Uranus' Seed has all of the above. While Awakening wasn't anything special, the middle break hit me just right. Shame it was so short. The fastest track belongs to Jaraluca and it is unapologeticaly goa. Mid tempo swagger stuff. And lastly if you like female Indian vocals than the closing track is your holy grail set amongst a head nodding beat. All in all a very good quality release and for a good cause. Recommended! Melusine Bandcamp

Artist: DNA Title: Virtual Jungle Label: Zion 604 Date: December, 2016 1.Chakra & Avi - Insignificant Form Of Life (DNA Remake) 08:14 2. Phreaky - The Second Moon (DNA Remake) 06:50 3.Joti & Avi - Etheogenic Spiral (DNA Remake) 07:46 4.Joti & Avi - Solid Bubbles (DNA Remake) 07:21 5.Dino & Avi - Tango Electro (DNA Remake) 07:53 6.Oli & Avi - Nuclear Fissionchips (DNA Remake) 06:59 "It's amazing!" No, it's not. But I'll get there. Zion 604 is a wonderful label which specializes in releasing hard to find goa trance or stuff that was never released. They do some artist stuff as well and for the most part have been (and rightly so) lauded for their efforts. Their latest is an update on an old-school album Virtual Jungle. Well...kinda. I mean 4 of the tracks are missing and they added Insignificant Form of Life. These aren't remixes just updates done by DNA, otherwise known as Dan Komen and Avi Alga..Avi Algaran...Space Cat. First let me say that this is far from my favorite goa album. The original was decent and quite good in places, but I could take it or leave it. I was gonna do a track by track review, but the more I listened to them the more I realized that what I was going to say for one track goes for all of them. The sound is much improved. Warmer and clearer with more punch. The groove is more out front and it sounds like something from Zion. I had forgotten some of these and it made me remember how psychedelic tracks like Solid Bubbles is. Here's where the disappointment comes in. Even though the sound is vastly improved now we have just ok tracks that sound better. I never listen to samples so I was hoping that they would do whatever juju magic they seem to have and make a diamond out of a zirconium. They did not. Mostly Couple things. Even though aurally it is super some of the tracks are missing that punch, that fury. The Second Moon is one of them. It's like they took the drama out of it. Nuclear Fissionchips wasn't a great track to start with, but the remake just made that more clear. Bottom line I think it's a good maxi-Ep (that's what it is), but with the quality of their output I cannot help but be a little disappointed that they didn't do more with this. One thing I will say...that cover is awesome. Zion604 Bandcamp

Artist: PsySutra Title: Nebulla Cebulla EP Label: Neogoa Records Date: December, 2016 01 - PsySutra - Infinnitus Anniversarius 02 - PsySutra - Semper Fi 03 - Artha - Insidelamp (PsySutra Remix) 04 - PsySutra - Air Trance Corporation (Red Sun Rising Remix) PsySutra is Łukasz Wiącek and with this 4 track digital EP he appears to be flexing his creative muscles. Like you I was expecting music in the vein of his recent release Gamma Phoenicis, but this is most certainly not that. Neogoa's final release for 2016 is quite interesting and at least for me wholly unexpected. For starters the cover looks like half an onion floating through space. Is it just me? Not my favorite work by Ivan, but if the music is good he could put a Campbell's soup can up there and I wouldn't care. And it is. Infinnitus Anniversarius- Pretty good psychedelic opener. The second half really kicks the door in. Semper Fi- is almost 11 and a half minutes of aggressive goa trance. Throaty 303s growl fiercely and he adds some Posford-esque chopped vocals and it just pounds all the way through. Insidelamp (PsySutra Remix)- This was one of the Artha tracks I really liked and Lukasz went and turned it into a smooth downtempo track. The lead flutters overhead while down below the slow dub beat plods on. Sparkle fresh. Then the breakbeat picks up the pace for a bit before settling in for the final chill. Air Trance Corporation (Red Sun Rising Remix) has floating, ethereal pads as the machine gun bass line marches in a progressive tempo. Can get lost in this one. While it's not my favorite, it's not a bad ep at all and shows the artist stretching his talent to other areas while still showing he can cause some goa earthquakes. Ektoplazm

Artist: Various Title: Goa Trance Revolution 2: Retrofuturism Label: Goa Trance Music Date: December, 2016 1. MK Ultra - Shivarathri 2. Athena - 20 Seconds 3. Spirit Dance - Telemetry 4. Indoor - Bom Shankar (Original 1995 DAT Version) 5. Shakta - Lepton Head (Veasna Remix) 6. Proxeeus - Tyca Tyca 7. Denshi Danshi - Leave The World Behind 8. Ephedra - Disappearing Dreams 9. Clementz - Circles I'm a little uncomfortable with German youth getting this excited. Hype. As long as people have been selling something, there has been hype. And you have to otherwise the masses won't know how great your product is. So many incredible inventions have simply ceased to exist because they didn't have a Flavor-Flav type hype man telling you how everyone is getting their product and if you don't then you'll be the only loser relegated to a lonely life in your cat urine stained one room apartment. Por ejemplo: "What the f*ck? Sheep sold separately? What a rip-off." So yeah hype is aggressive marketing. Our little music scene is no different. The labels have to get the word out otherwise they're gonna be left with a lot of backstock in mommy's basement. Which is why this compilation was so refreshing. Goa Trance Music isn't a label that releases a lot, but when they do you can rely on its quality. I don't recall a sh*tload of advertising here and the only reason I know about it is because of the forum here. Word of mouth is the best advertising they say so maybe those fine folks are on to something because this album is awesome. Like the previous version, this is a mix of old hard to find goa trance as well as some of today's artists. The older ones I had never heard of and they absolutely rip. Shivarathri is a blistering opener and Spirit Dance has that beach vibe that sweeps you up and carries you all the way through. So bouncy and melodic. You also get the full version of Indoor's Bom Shankar and while the track is fine it's the long break where its worth can be found. Bee-yoo-tiful. Throw in a very old track from Athena (Miranda) and it's like it's 1995 all over again. The new guys don't disappoint either with an impressive remix of Lepton Head. Proxeeus goes full India on Tyca Tyca and doesn't forget to bring his screeching 303. I'm uncertain whether the Denshi Danshi track is new or an old one, yet it is quite involved. Great to hear. The only track that didn't knock me over was Ephedra's Disappearing Dreams. Hands down the most mellow thing I have ever heard from him. The class of the new guys though has to be the closer Circles by Clementz. Where the hell did this guy come from? What a track! Intense and old school to the bone this is X-Dream reincarnated. So bottom line, this has to be one of the best compilations of 2016. No filler to be found with great mastering by the one and only Tim Schuldt. The artwork is retro also supplied by our good friend Ivan Richpa. Thumbs way up. Goa Trance Bandcamp