Guest Inukko Posted November 6, 2001 Share Posted November 6, 2001 The Overlords - All The Naked People Artist: The Overlords Title: All The Naked People Label: Habana Date: 1994 Track listing: 01. 06'00" God's Eye 02. 03'35" Coming 2 Go 03. 04'53" The 7th Stage 04. 04'59" Naked People 05. 04'55" Spiral 06. 02'18" Starseed 07. 04'08" White Room 08. 04'04" Wow Mr Yogi 09. 04'44" Solaris 10. 04'41" Masses Review: Goa with lyrics? Well, that's essentially what this is... Wait, don't run away yet! Overlords was Ian Ion's old band, before he became the producer of Koxbox. They made "Electronic Body Music" along the lines of Front 242, before turning to trance in 1992 with the remake of "Sundown" (a Goa classic). Tracks like "God's Eye On Goa" followed, and this sound can clearly be heard here, on their final album... so is it any good? Let's see... First we have "God's Eye", a poppier version of that infamous track. Though watered down slightly, the same madness is present in this version... driving, pushing rhythms, lots of melody, and trippy instrumental samples. Vocal performances are strong, and the track has the best "outro" I've heard in a long time (middle eastern strings, "spiritual" sounding synth and didges, really nice!). Good stuff... The next track, "Coming 2 Go", is also really groovy and rhythmic, with a nice "rolling" feel. Very melodic, almost commercial sounding, but the esoteric lyrical content lifts it above "rave fodder". It's just a shame about the length! Track 3, "The 7th Stage", is an instrumental, Kox Box-y track, and is a real masterpiece... this is true Goa! Beginning slowly with rain forest samples, it hypnotises with a groovy bass and drifting psy-sounds (you may recognize one melody from Juno Reactor's "Labyrinth", another Ian co-production). The whole track has this feeling of a beautiful, soul cleansing jungle trip... "you are all entrapped" says the voice and I believe it. One to have a good cry to. But, what goes up must come down, and track 4 "Naked People" is a really crap love song - with lyrics like "I'll make it rain, I'll make you shine, come again into my mind". Bleeech! This could've been a really cool, subversive trance anthem, and they blew it with the vocals. The worst one here. "Spiral" is much much better... another instrumental, with a ravey sound, but quite unconventional in it's execution (I can't believe they made the tuba sound good!). Really nice if you like (for instance) old 808 State/Prodigy stuff... `ardcore will never die! ;-) "Starseed" is a short ambient piece with Timothy Leary quotes. Pleasant, but nothing ground breaking. I don't really care for the next track, which is a cover of Cream's "White Room"... it's a decent cover, but WHY? How can you improve on a classic? "Wow! Mr. Yogi", however, is just great. Stereotypical Indian melodies (in the best way), EBM riffs, and a mini-metaphysical discourse in the lyrics ("so you want to make up your own reality? well my friend, that's no abnormality. but if you go for the world with cruelty, then you didn't understand a thing. meditate and mantain another state of consciousness"). "Solaris" is a chill-out, ambient techno track with a really beautiful atmosphere (a little bit like Juno Reactor). And the album finishes with the rather sad sounding, but very catchy "Masses"... Overall, I really like this album. Ian Ion wasn't entirely satisfied with it, and it's not hard to see why: it's an uneasy mixture of Goa and commercial influences. Some of it could've been better (2, 4, 7) but as a whole, the album works... so, I'll give it 6.5/10 (add two points if you like The Shamen, Praga Khan, or lyrics in general). It's a cool piece of psy-trance history, and well worth seeking out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AutoMath Posted November 6, 2001 Share Posted November 6, 2001 I had incredibly high expectations when I first heard this album since the cover is absolutely beautiful, needless to say I was let down since I had extremely high expectations and thought this was an all-out goa album, and in the end I din't buy it. Since I got the Gods Eye 12" I started to change my opinion about the poppier album version of the song. I actually really like it and especially the lyrics. This might seem really silly to some but for me the song seems to convey a message of how the band went to goa in order to find enlightment but instead became desillusioned by the promise goa couldn't keep. Prepared to leave the surreal spiritual world they experienced in india for the ordinary world's rainy streets of Copenhagen. "Sayonara cowboy, you can take my place", leaving the mission to someone else to try to find the enlightment promised by the now rather shattered naivistic dream of the goa revolution. So now I really regret that I didn't buy this album when I had the chance. Thanks for the exellent review Inukko. For more oldschool action from Ian Ion, try to dig up the "shiva's edit" version of "Wow mr. Yogi" on the dusty old Coma Records compilation "Mermaid Trax" along with the track "Crystal" by "Koxbox" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiritual Carnage Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 For more oldschool action from Ian Ion, try to dig up the "shiva's edit" version of "Wow mr. Yogi" on the dusty old Coma Records compilation "Mermaid Trax" along with the track "Crystal" by "Koxbox" I just bought that compilation :posford: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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