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Artist: Gataka Title: In Trance We Trust Label: Phonokol Date: October, 2005 1. Deeper Level 2. Blast From the Past 3. Night Becomes Day 4. Viva La Mexico 5. How To Create A Monster 6. Experience 7. Down To Earth 8. The Mind Twister 9. One Day Ticket 10. Israelizer No. Seriously, just...no. For the longest time I've been calling this label Oh No kol just to remind me of the crap they put out on a consistent basis. What was once a proud label has devolved into fluffy, full-on eye rolls. Every single trope is represented here and this confection is about as deep as a petri dish. Pretty sure this information is already known by this community, but just in case any newbie stumbles upon this review, do not put your trust in this.

Artist: Various Title: The Next Generation (Compiled by DNA) Label: Phonokol Date: 2006 1. Psysex & Rocky - Japanese Awa (DNA Remix) 2. X-Noize - Rock It (Psy Craft Remix) 3. Melicia - Running Out Of Time (DNA Remix) 4. Domestic & X-Noize - Flaming Dart 5. Wizzy Noise - Behemoth (DNA Remix) 6. Quantum - Need For Lead (DNA Remix) 7. DNA & Melica - Magic Stick 8. Space Cat - Kreak Take 2 9. Injection - Massive Attack "Boys, what the f*ck is wrong with you?" I apologize if their grandmother is reading this, but DNA (Eitan Tanami and Zeev Kardonsky) are pretty much patient zero when it comes to the pandemic known as full-on. An insidious infection, it has spawned many copycats and taken the psychedelic out of psychedelic trance. They are far from the only perpetrators, but they must take responsibility for their role. Looking at their Discogs account it seems they have released the same album 5 times. True this isn't their artist album (even though they are involved in over half the tracks), but they compiled it thereby dragging all the artists represented into the swamp with them. It's unabashedly full-on full of rolling bass lines, hyper sample use, and glow stick melodies. Running Out of Time by Melicia is a blistering track and the only way DNA could screw it up is if they changed the synth sounds to dog barks. Low point has to go to the deplorable remix of Rock It which reinforces why people make fun of psytrance. Music we have heard a million times that really should have the psychedelic label removed post haste. The stops and starts, the guitar...Oh, the agony. Full-on can be done well and can be descriptive and detailed, but a bar set this low...well, that takes some doing. Not the worst I've heard, but man...just throw it on the ever increasing pile of low-mediocre releases. "Full-on as home entertainment, this cannot be the future. Can it?" May God have mercy on our souls, Kurt. Beatspace

Artist: Gataka Title: Bless The Mess Label: Phonokol Date: September, 2007 1. Dreaming Mode 2. From Zero to Hero 3. King of the hill 4. Triping Out 5. Higher Level 6. Reaction in action 7. Time to change 8. Fun in the sun 9. Bring this beat back 10. In my mind Ok. Take every psychedelic atom which circulates through your mortal form and mold it into a tightly shaped ball of imagination, creativity, and energy. I'll wait. Finished? Now place it on an aircraft carrier floating over the Mariana Trench. Stay with me we're almost there. Finally, and this requires laser precise focus...train the combined nuclear arsenal of the developed world on said carrier and sink that motherf*cker. Sink it so it tumbles into the abyss, never to be heard from again. At this point you should be a comatose husk devoid of any of life's color or imagination. You are now ready to listen to this album. Since the psychedelia that would invigorate your body has been freely given it won't interfere with this music. I cannot even say this is full-on because even that has the potential for psychedelic properties however minute. This is euphoric trance appealing to the weakest of minds. Minds that don't want to be shackled with a prison comprised of layers and depth. Why bother with complexity when simplicity is much easier to grasp? The 2007 bag of tricks is on full display and you can see the twists and turns from a mile away. Know what we call that? A straight away. The sound quality is excellent (the only saving grace), but I don't care how good you make nails on a chalkboard sound it still makes you cringe. And that's before we get to the vocoder or the, ahem...singing. Oh Lord, the singing. This thing should come with a fist pump tutorial and a bag of glow sticks. No link because I don't want to infect my new computer. Mdk

Artist: Melicia Title: Play With My Mind Label: Phonokol Date: October, 2006 1. Grip (rmx) 2. Suenos 3. Image if my soul 4. Discoteque (rmx) 5. Magic Stick 6. Dont Go 7. Massive Trance 8. Envelope (live mix) Exactly. My God it's cringe worthy at times. Most times. If good music is a meal this is a f*cking pixie stick. Euphoric trance taken to cosmically absurd extremes. Especially the tracks with the vocals in them. Ugh...makes you feel bad for this guy. Like a lot of you I like to play my music loud in the car, but the corn levels here are off the chart. I can't take that kind of ridicule. I realize there was atrocious full-on before this, but this is so bad it deserves it's own after school special. There were some tunes that I used to enjoy back in the day. But like footie pajamas and underoos I've outgrown it. Mdk

Artist: Various Title: Siesta Label: Phonokol Date: October, 2002 1. Earthling - Chill or Be Chilled 2. Water Spirits - Jah Feedback 3. Earthling - Helix 4. Spacedrifters - Reverse (Vocal Version) 5. Orion Vs. Alien Project - Cryptic Aliens 6. Earthling - Kilamanjaro 7. Earthling Vs. Alien Project - Fantasy Island 8. Etnica - Trip Tonite (Playa Mix) 9. Alien Project Vs. Astrix - Crystal Skulls (Long Version) 10. Logic Bomb - Normalised I'm gonna go on record here and say this was one of the best things Ari Linker (Alien Project) was involved with. Smooth downtempo tracks with laid back grooves. Earthling or Alien Project are on most of the tracks which are full of deep bass. Some of the beats are grimy, but they all have a floaty feeling. The samples speak of alien landings and government coverups. Unlike other downtempo comps this one ends with two upbeat numbers heavy on the psychedelia. To be honest it's kind of dark with melodies that can make you think about past decisions. The only one I didn't care for was Kilimanjaro which broke the flow of the album. Otherwise this is really good stuff. Mdk

Artist: Melicia Title: Running Out of Time Label: Phonokol Date: July, 2013 1. Experience 2. Running out of time 3. Freeman 4. Psychodeliya 5. Dancing up (dance mix) 6. Smash 7. Genesis 8. Sea Master 9. Illusion Quest "It seems...we are running out of time." If you picked out 50 of the all time cheesy full-on compilations and albums from the early to mid 2000's I'm willing to bet that Melicia was on 75% of them. Dude was everywhere and I believe him to be one of the harbingers of the Israeli full-on sound. And as we all know there have been an avalanche of derivative full-on producers that exploded onto the scene. Like a herpes outbreak at a frat party you just knew there were more coming down the line. Just looking at the Phonokol artist list on the Psyshop page makes me want to say Oy vey. It was one of the first albums I bought and it was aggressive. The samples spoke of aliens, and psychedelics, and there were movies I recognized. Realize I came from regular old trance where the vocals sometimes reminded me of house. Where the melodies were euphoric and sickeningly sweet. The bass lines here were punchy and rambled unlike the one note bass often found in trance. He put layers of crunchy sounds together and it was like a wall of powerful sound. Arpeggios filtered up and down the scale hit me just right. The tracks were long and seemed to get stronger as new melodies were added. But don't get it twisted. It's still full on and there are some tracks that make me want to jab a shrap pencil in my ear to end the suffering. Or at least parts of tracks. The house like female vocal in Psychodelia is just such an instance. I liked Smash, but could you cram any more samples in there? It's like a f*cking clown car. So if it sounds like I'm torn on this release, you would be correct. At times it can be powerful full-on and at others it's, well...full-on. And I think that's how it goes. The shelf life for full on is very short and this gets old rather quickly. Mdk