Setherian - Mulitiverse (Full review)

DeathPosture · August 22, 2004

Setherian - Multiverse

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Artist: Setherian (Brazil)

Title: Multiverse

Format: CD (digipack)

Label: Glowing Flame Records (Macedonia)

Cat. #: GFRCD-02

Distribution: Wirikuta

Date: July 2004

Track listing:

01. 08’10” Vectra In Bedrock

02. 08’46” Hard Drives

03. 09’33” Runner Blade

04. 08’43” Evil Drug

05. 08’10” Multiverse

06. 07’12” From Time To Time

07. 08’15” Ribbon Crying

08. 08’49” Trust Me

09. 08’10” Retro Sequence

Review:

Setherian is DJ Seth aka Christian Zahn from Sao Paulo, Brazil… Though he’s in his early twenties, he’s been in the business for several years as both a DJ and producer. He describes his style as “a mix between progressive, clubby elements and energetic full-on”, and under his Setherian moniker he has already had releases on labels such as YSE, Com.pact and Ajuca Productions… Glowing Flame Records from Macedonia (previously located in the U.K.) released his debut album in July, and why don’t we have a closer listen to it…

Let me take you thru the tracks…

#01: [138 BPM] We kick off with a slowish tune… Spacey intro – organic, floating pads… All very harmonic… Soon we are greeted by a very nice, FREq-like synth melody – oh, I’m a sucker for those proggy tunes with twisted analogue synths… Also, Seth makes an effort here to use stereo-effects and he does it pretty good… Not as good as FREq, but nice try… This is a full-on track with rich, progressive elements… Nice track, very promising for the rest of the album!

#02: [140 BPM] As this CD is mixed, we seamlessly float into track 2… Another organic intro, soon interrupted by a pretty hollow, banging bass… Later on a tribal percussion arrangement kicks in, but that doesn’t do more than lift this track a tad above average standard… Decent track!

#03: [141 BPM] Electro sounds and a phat bassline… Yummy! This is pretty straight-forward melodic full-on without many surprises… Sure it’s well-polished; it’s just not very original… Dare I say copy/paste? …I did! Well, that’s true for the middle part of the track at least – it picks up for the last couple of minutes… Ok track!

#04: [143 BPM] Let’s try some evil drugs!... As the title suggest, this is darker, more evil than the first 3 tracks… But not evil as in Parvati-evil… It’s just less fluffy… Seth does his best to spook us with horror samples, darkish bassline, industrial-sounding effects and an overall gloomy atmosphere… This is night-time trance, and actually it’s not bad… I could have wished for even more darkness, but for what it is, it’s pretty good… Sweet track!

#05: [143 BPM] Time for the title track Multiverse… This is a pretty hectic track with all kinds of stuff going on… Acid-riffs, phazers, fast-paced bassline, tribal-like percussion, ethno voice samples and an overall spacey, metallic groove… It’s like a big mix-up of stuff you don’t normally find in the same track – I like that idea! Fairly good track!

#06: [143 BPM] What is that – a sample from a Yello-track? A weird, but nice mixture of tribal percussion, electronic birds and light-hearted acid-riffs… Unusual combo, but it works! Later on we get some nice floating Twin-Peaks-theme-like part, with the Yello-sample and something that sounds like the old Chi-chi-chi-chi-Chiquita banana whispering… Well, it’s a nice and melodic, floating, drifting, fluffy morning tune… And only the original elements mentioned, lifts it above average standard… Nice track!

#07: [144 BPM] Fastest track on the album…Starts with a Son Kite “On Air” like take-off sample… Though faster, and toned down so it’s not plagiarism… Standard full-on bassline, floating atmospheric pads, hi-hats, oil-drums and cheesy Nord Lead synth… Oh, and that On Air-like take-off is used again a couple of time later on in the track for climax purposes… Nice, but Son Kite does it better… All in all, this is a pretty nice track!

#08: [143 BPM] “Trust no-one!” Another track with many different styles in one… Organic, yet spacey at times… Voice samples, both normal and pitched up… I like the bassline here, it’s tweaked somehow – or run thru a filter or something – it has a nice kick to it, and it’s kinda funky! This is melodic full-on with bits and pieces thrown in… Not bad at all…

#09: [138 BPM] Time to chill out for the last track… Well, it’s not chilling per se, it’s just a little slower and time for some experimentation… Though still very well-polished, this is a little more off-key, with the odd irregular key… But overall, this is another melodic piece of music with a bunch of psychedelic bits sprinkled around… Nice ending!

This is one of those albums that are really hard to grade… So I won’t! It’s like this: It’s all very well-produced, well-polished and have many great moments… But on the other hand, nothing really sticks out… There are not obvious “killers” on this album. I mean, it’s all pretty good, but nothing is fantastic either… Hope you catch my drift here?

When interviewed by PsyMag.com, Seth said that “Multiverse means the "space" where many Universes are located including ours (one of the top theories amongst physicians and cosmologists) ... and it makes a lot of sense to call my debut album that name because this album is like a compendium of ideas and styles, it has many faces in one.” Well, that’s true – we get both morning and night trance here – and full-on and progressive… And that’s a concept I like – that way it doesn’t get too boring too quickly… Oh, and the cover-art is pretty nice too!

Overall, this album isn’t essential – however, if you’re looking for a well-produced, well-polished album by an artist somewhere in between full-on and progressive – and in between night and morning trance, you should give this a try…

Favourites: 1, 4, 6, 7, 8

DeathPosture

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