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VA - Psychedelic Revolution Compiled By Gnomes Of Kush BMSS Records Tracklist: 1. Sonic Entity - Disengage 2. ManMachine - Asceticism 3. Middle Mode - Sunrise 4. Nerso - Particles (Remix) 5. Kiva & Gnomes Of Kush - Modulated Mantras 6. Datacult - Afro Samurai 7. ManMadeMan - Traveling Light 8. Parallel Dialog - Disorder 9. Sideform - Vahana (Odiseo & Gandulk Remix) To be honest, I did not expect much going in to this one but it has a few notable names and out of respect for those particular artists I gave it a listen. Gnomes Of Kush, who compiled this thing, has done some wonderful work on the dub side of things even if I've never been a fan of what he has done in the progressive community. Here, just as expected, there is a lot of by-the-numbers progressive, not a whole lot of variety, very little in the way of surprises, almost pure vanilla psytrance. For instance, if you like Sonic Entity or his full-length release "Altered Fiction" from earlier this year then you'll probably enjoy the "Disengage" opener. I, however, do not. It sounds like every other Sonic Entity track ever produced. This guy has a formula and he follows it by-the-book, where it sounds decent for the first couple of minutes and then gets predictable and dull pretty quickly. A disappointing ManMachine track follows this up, again just very dull work, very progressive, very formulaic, it takes absolutely no chances. One would be better finding his Ovnimoon Records full-lengths for a better form of his progressive. Gnomes Of Kush team up with Kiva for a good (almost great) outing, ManMadeMan are almost quite good on "Traveling Light" with the sounds being minimal, more techno-oriented and the Sideform closer is only great because once it is over there is no more to sit through. Datacult's "Afro Samurai" is good on in the first go-around but loses its charm over repeat listens. For the highlights things get into some great full-on territory where the engines rev quite beautifully and layers get pieced together quite professionally by two of the more capable producers in the progressive spectrum. Middle Mode, one of the reasons I picked up this collection, kill it on "Sunrise." Even when these dudes annoy me with their plodding pacing on most of the productions they create I am still extremely impressed with the levels and details they put into their work. No difference here. In fact, I'm sure this will become one of my favorites from these young producers. The progressive side is still there in this piece but they flirt so heavily with full-on that everything moves at a great, crisp pace. And the levels, oh yes, they give some great depth to this one. The other highlight belongs to progressive producer Nerso, a man who is no stranger to taking chances in his work. "Particles" is fantastic, another full-on type gem, perhaps not as impressive as the Middle Mode jewel but certainly a full level or two above most everything else here in terms of quality. A "Psychedelic Revolution" this one is not. In fact, most of this is revolting because of how typical it all sounds. The real rebels in this one are Nerso and Middle Mode who revolt against the same-old, same-old of their peers.

Imaginarium Origins EP Tip Records Tracklist: 1. Origins 2. Colliding Orbits The icnoic Shiva continues to be a wonderful deity over great psytrance. Imaginarium is the full-on project of Sonic Entity, the sometimes good, sometimes not-great, popular progressive act. The results, for a guy not usually associated with this full-on thing, are fantastic! "Origins" is everything you should expect from Tip at this point in their storied history, it is short, it is damn good, it is nice old-fashioned psytrance. No bells-and-whistles, nothing fancy or ground-breaking, just nice old-fashioned psytrance. Where the pace is brisk without being intense, where the imagination is sparked the moment the tracks begin, where the versatility makes it a dance-floor filler, day or night, where your evening out should not be considered complete unless magic of this sort is projected from the sound system you find yourself standing in front of. Imaginarium makes crisp and clear productions here with "Colliding Orbits" being the more magical of the two. However, the title track is not one that I will be booting out of my collection, either. The down point is that, unfortunately, there are only two tracks. Well, quality over quantity, I suppose. From the legendary Tip Records, where so much great music has come from, where so many great artists have called their home, after twenty-plus years in the game, this is the high quality we should expect from them. This is great, down-to-basics, back to the "Origins," good old-fashioned psytrance. ()