DeathPosture Posted March 2, 2006 Share Posted March 2, 2006 V/A – Pump Fiction Cover: front+ back Artist: Various Title: Pump Fiction Format: CD (jewel case) Label: Yage Records (Sweden) Cat. #: YAGECD02 Distribution: Wirikuta Date: February 2006 Track listing: 01. 06’59” Mechanix – Pump Fiction 02. 06’55” Xerox & Illumination – High Fever 03. 07’27” Neuromotor – Children Of Peace 04. 08’27” Hyper Frequencies – Rhythms Of Peace 05. 07’11” Damage – Sweet Suffering 06. 07’07” Mechanix – No Doubt 07. 06’52” Toxic – Serious Damage 08. 06’40” Rabdom L – Thermal Dispute 09. 06’08” U Men – Retro Punk .m3u-playlist: http://tinyurl.com/qsbkr (all tracks!) Review: A Royale with cheese! Yage Records is out with their second compilation, following Electric Embryo released in the summer of 2005… I was really impressed by the debut release, which had an impressive roster of artists and corresponding sweet tunes… This one is compiled by Israeli producer Eldad Ben Ezry aka. Mechanix and he has yet to let me down with his hardcore funky psytrance… So, I’ve got my hopes up for this one… Let’s pump it up… Let me take you thru the tracks… #01: Mechanix – Pump Fiction [146 BPM] “I woke up one morning and thought; I’m no longer a destroyer. I’m a means of resurrection!” Eldad opens the ball himself with the title track… After a brief intro we’re introduced to a stomping, heavily filtered march-rhythm that’s accompanied by some old-fashioned synth exploring and knob tweaking… I really like how this track morphs back and forth in such a playful manner… It sounds simple, but it’s not… A brilliant opener! #02: Xerox & Illumination – High Fever [144 BPM] Wow, here’s the biggest surprise off the CD… Who would have expected that two of the leading forces in the evolution of Israeli full-on (Moshe Keinan & Amir Dvir) would be on the next Yage compilation? Well, their latest album did have some small excursions into the darker realms of psytrance, and I guess Eldad pulled some strings… Anyway, what we get here is basically full-on disguised as night trance… The rolling basslines and the synth melodies are VERY full-on in structure and the structure follows a pretty predictable pattern… Luckily it’s not all generic and predictable full-on, as we get some interesting tweaks and some very dancefloor friendly peaks… Pretty good, but it’s still basically full-on… And that’s a shame, coz I’m sure these guys could impress even more… A decent track! #03: Neuromotor – Children Of Peace [145 BPM] French producer Frederic Talaa has released 3 full albums + a ton of compilation tracks, and I remember a couple of his tracks from back in the days as being pretty good… Apparently this is some kind of remake of a track already released on his 2005 album Bloody Reality – but I haven’t heard that one, so I can’t tell what was changed… What I can tell you though, is that this resembles the previous track with its full-on patterns… It’s very lively and energetic, but there’s nothing here that I haven’t heard a gazillion times before… Yawn! #04: Hyper Frequencies – Rhythms Of Peace [145 BPM] “I have a dream…” Gilles Béraud is another Frenchman with an impressive roster of albums and compilation tracks… His track on the recent Peak Records compilation Utopeak was solid, yet somewhat predictable… This track starts with some dude’s high-pitched native chanting – which soon is accompanied by a pounding bassline and some tribal drums… And that’s not a bad combo at all… Actually it’s pretty simple, but unlike the previous tracks, this doesn’t suffer too badly from full-on tendencies… This is fragmented, playful psytrance – with all kinds of crazy FX… Real nice! #05: Damage – Sweet Suffering [148 BPM] “I'm sure God has his tricks, but getting out of places no one else can, that's one of mine! …The suffering, the sweet suffering!” South African producer Gideon Baard also had a track on Electric Embryo, and he’s had some really nice tracks on Digital Psionics too… This track starts really wicked with an awesome ambience not unlike Artifakt… Soon after we’re in full FX and all gates are open… Fast-paced, multilayered, edgy party music… Brilliant! The track itself goes down the same nerve-wrecking, eardrum-caressing, brain-massaging road as some of the better South African maximum trance… Oh yes, this is ripe! Hands down, the best track here! #06: Mechanix – No Doubt [146 BPM] “This is… the beginning!”… Wow – are we sampling ancient Brooklyn Bounce tracks now? Haha… Anyway, another track by Eldad, and this one also has his trademark sound of acid-ridden, multi-fragmented, no-questions-asked full-power night trance… Very rich in structure and instantly head-bob friendly… Never a dull moment! Awesome! #07: Toxic – Serious Damage [146 BPM] “Fell the power of the gods!” Toxic are Alon Atias & Avi Aboresi from Israel who’ve had a ton of compilation tracks on various labels… I really liked their track on the 2004 Parvati compilation Psychedelically Yours 2 and their track on Electric Embryo was sweet too… I like how this track starts really slow and held-back… That guitar sample is strangely familiar, but sounds really great… As the track progresses more and more layers are added… The feather light guitar-bit strike a remarkable contrast to the pounding bass and the twirling acid-lines… And oh my, what a build-up/peak part! Sweet tune! #08: Rabdom L – Thermal Dispute [144 BPM] Rabdom L is one third of the South African trance collection Twisted System who released their excellent second album Core only one month ago… This track obviously has Twisted System elements, but it’s not as action-packed as a TS tune… It’s somewhat more stripped down to the core (pun intended!)… The acid level is high though – don’t worry! It’s all pretty nice, but it seems to lack the intensity of the previous tracks… It doesn’t really stand out here, I’m afraid… #09: U Men – Retro Punk [143 BPM] “I'm here to tell the story. The story that has to be told. I’m here to uncover the glory. The glory of the old gold. For what is old got new again and what is new will soon be old. And remember: Everything you hear is real, it began in the future! […] ” I have absolutely no idea who U Men are – and the booklet doesn’t give any info to reveal that mystery… Anyway, I have really mixed of feelings on this weirdo track… It pretty much revolves around lengthy voice samples in uttered in broken English – and all kinds of oddball musical endeavours into electro, psytrance and IDM… It’s not bad, but somehow I have a difficult time to fully appreciate it… It’s just too… Retro! So, how does this hold up with Electric Embryo? Well, that’s hard to say coz it’s really two very different compilations… Whereas Embryo pretty much focussed on hard-hitting, nocturnal psytrance, this one has a wider spectre of psytrance… I was a bit worried when the full-on tracks took over, but luckily the South Africans came along and saved the day… What I’m trying to say here, is that this is indeed a nice compilation with a handful of stand-out tracks… As you can probably tell, I’m not the biggest fan of full-on, but luckily we get a bunch of other musical styles here too… Great! Diversity rules! The cover art is very cool – reminds me of the NOS style… The Engrish cover notes have fast become a Yage Records trademark, and I guess they have their charm… Fans of the darker sides of psytrance will most likely like all but a couple of tracks here – and there’s something for full-on buffs too… All in all, another solid Yage release… Enjoy! Favourites: 1, 4, 5(!!), 6(!), 7 DeathPosture External links: Yage Records: http://www.yagerecords.com Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/release/627993 Beatspace: http://tinyurl.com/pubzs Wirikuta: http://tinyurl.com/py5mr Psyshop: http://tinyurl.com/oqsw2 Cisco: http://tinyurl.com/pqn6w Saiko: http://tinyurl.com/qbvxc Chaos: http://tinyurl.com/rfdk5 Ajuca: http://tinyurl.com/q4l9k Juno: http://tinyurl.com/n55zt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riton Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 im crazy about the opening of this CD... and track 5 of course. overall i like it, but it's not something crazy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrozenRealm Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 Finally a quality Full on CD! really took a long time but there are enough good tracks on this CD to definately purchase it! If you're into bouncy and a little twisted Full On with some dark edges at the time and high quality audio manipulation combined with dancefloor-approved melodies withouth getting too cheesy.. check this out! Faves: 2,4,5,6,7 ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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