Trance2MoveU Posted December 20, 2010 Share Posted December 20, 2010 Artist: Frost-RAVEN Title: Thee Old Ones Label: Goa Records Date: May, 2010 1 Thee Olde Ones 2 Warlock 3 Feed your ego (Frost Raven rmx) - Ectima 4 Molly 5 Trolls 6 Merlin The Wise 7 Morgana the wicked 8 Deka (7th Mix) 9 Seraki Mire I was invited to review this album a few weeks ago and now have ample time to do so. This is Dustin Lee Musser, a psytrance DJ from San Francisco. Whoo-hoo! USA! USA! We lead the world! Ooh, not the best example...how about that American cyclist? Pure talent... Yeah he's a winner. Say what? He got caught doing what...? Oh, f*ck. Well, in America we have such a high standard of living that all can envy. Streets paved with gold... For the love of.... Ok ok. Well one thing is for sure you don't have to worry about those tsunamis happening here. I don't think a volcano has erupted in the US since Mt. St. Helens in 1980. Natural disasters seem to avoid the good 'ol US of A. Wait, that was here? I'm sure we took care of it though, because if it is one thing I know, we take care of our own. Him again? Man, we got a lot of problems. Music doesn't seem to be one of them however. Sure, the music scene is full of subpar artists that are all flash and no substance, while robotic DJs continue to force the same 15 songs down our throat every hour on the hour. Everyone and their mother are trying to put their ghetto kids on youtube with the hope that Ellen will "discover" them and get them on her show well on their way to fame and riches. For God's sake, this is the face of music in my country right now... Why am I still here? I bet Dustin didn't think he would get a review like this . This is his 3rd studio album and I'll be honest, I haven't heard one single track from him. I figured it for more copycat full-on that was beneath my notice. Obviously I'm not the end all and be all for what is great music, but be real there is a lot of shi**y music out there. Thee Olde Ones- "No they can't help you, I mean it. If...you're talking about a sarcophagus that doesn't match any thing in our records. There's nothing that's not in our records..except what came before. The old ones." Choir pads join some percussion with an eerie feel. The beat is heavy and the track is taking its time. After a quasi break it starts up again with more of the beginnings' percussion and a higher pitched bass sound in rapid fire mode. Halfway through there is a yummy break. The above sample sounds great, but the track itself is nothing to write home about. Not much evolution. Warlock- This one bounces along with a thick bass sound and a distorted synth that gets louder. The break is again eerie, (I think we found his forte) and all too short before we are thrust right back in. Another break which sounds great before a synth with a house feel snakes forward. This is a really beat driven track I guess for the clubs and it would work nicely. Not so much for home listening though. Feed Your Ego (Frost-RAVEN RMX)- I have never heard the Ectima track so I cannot compare the two. This one has a progressive swagger; crunchy with some nice echoing effects. A lead grows into the chaos, and is gone just as quickly. There is a sample, but I can't understand it except for the New World part. The synths are revisited and it has a pretty good bounce to it. Pretty good! Molly- Love the start of this one, spooky, metallic with great use of panning. Very alien. The leads crawl and are grounded in the nighttime. This sounds delightfully dark. There is a breakdown into electronic noise and then right back at it. The effects start piling up and then a new melody drifts in but is quickly swallowed by the darkness. The power is there and driving in an almost goa melody. Pretty sweet. Who was Molly? Ex? If so, she must have done something really bad... Trolls- More squirting darkness and power. Pretty fast and intense with more than just a nod to the dark side. Twinkling sounds flow nicely above the riot and they devolve into a twisted lead. At the break is a truly horrific sample about trolls stripping a captive female. What I can't decide is if it is a serious movie, or a porno. Very powerful and dark but also catchy. I liked it. Merlin The Wise- I love his intros as they are very effective and so far very dark. The bass line rumbles as pads sound off in the background. There is a forest feel here with effects and washes. The melody is light and I don't mean in the sunshine sense. After a break with the Merlin sample (which I loved) a great lead makes the track even more furious. Pretty cool track. Morgana the Wicked- Arthurian legend influence? Another sample as the bass gets its dancing shoes on. Effects bubble, and the beat drops producing some good flow. There is a tempo change amidst more foreign language chanting. Reeeeeally dark. Shimmering sounds float while chopped up synths rage until it all dies down. Not bad at all. Deka (7th Mix)- Mmmmm....love a good choir pad. Twisted effects start the beat off as synths combine in a filtered bowl of delicious. The elcetro/techno influence arrives giving a momentary respite right into a beatless break. But you can hear the slow arrival of another crunchy groove. Seraki Mire- "Everything looks good from here. Yes. Yes. This is a fertile land and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land and we will call it...this land." I really want to know what movie these samples are from. The obligatory downtempo number. Sounds like real drums as a bass line hums with the skittering of effects. Synths echo and get modulated to distortion all while maintaining the same aura. The goa feel here is unmistakable, and it was a nice way to end. Well, he is definitely not who I incorrectly assumed he was. This was Twilight approaching dark with some nice melodies and great atmosphere. You could hear where the album took a turn down darkness avenue around track 3 and not coincidentally that is when it began to appeal to me. I'm a guy that likes layers of complex melody and oodles of atmosphere. I suppose it is easy to make a full-on track with all the technology out there, but where he shines is the breaks and intros. I enjoyed them the most but he also brought the power and groove. The melodies in tracks like Deka (7th mix) were pretty damn good. With the samples he uses he reminds me a little of Xenomorph. All in all I would say this was an enjoyable listen and reminds me to not make assumptions. Good job! Beatspace Psyshop Goastore Mdk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psytones Posted December 26, 2010 Share Posted December 26, 2010 Frost-RAVEN – Thee Olde Ones (Goa Records) 2010 (GOAREC013) Frost-RAVEN Aka. Dustin Lee Musser is a friendly and talented person located on the west coast of the United States of America. To be more precise, he’s from the beautiful and fun filled city of San Francisco. In 2008 he managed to release his second Frost-RAVEN album titled ‘Star Muse’. The album had its infected flavors with loads of progressive drive sprinkled with psychedelic stars and frosty atmospheres. The album art then was filled with light, ice and a sense of innocent hope of what the sound might induce to a listening ear, though the track titles would indicate otherwise. In my own opinion ‘Star Muse’ did its mark showcasing a person with a lot of talent for sound and drive. The landscape of which was introduced viewed more than generic full-on music for the partygoer, but tried to give more of an adventure then just you’re average and forgettable dance music with weird sounds and touches of coolness. ‘Star Muse’ released on ‘Digital Drugs Coalition’ (Which like ‘Goa Records’ is a branch of ‘Geomagnetic.TV’) went fairly unnoticed around the corners as little or no noise about its sounds where to be found from mouths and fingers of fans in the psychedelic trance world. This was in 2008. Now a couple of years later Frost-RAVEN has shed his light manifested dream vision and gone darker inside the world of fantasy, trolls, magic and infected mushrooms. 1 Thee Olde Ones 2 Warlock 3 Ectima - Feed Your Ego (Rmx - Frost-RAVEN) 4 Molly 5 Trolls 6 Merlin The Wise 7 Morgana The Wicked 8 Deka (7th Mix) 9 Seraki Mire The introduction track which is also the main title track starts eerie with some wind, monk like choruses and a steady yet rampaged progressive beat with nice echoing sources of enchanting sounds making you become ready for a trip into ‘Thee Olde Ones’. The steady beat is followed by tribal drums to make it all become more lively and fun. After the introduction of steady beats the groove gets a bump and the bass gets the strength it needs to really rock the room, making the wall vibrate in a delightful manner while playful drums follow its lead with blended effects coming and going to keep a keen ear interested and curious about how it all will progress. – As the first pause comes you’re indulged in echoing effects heavy bass like sweeps and a mood which settles in while the sample comes in to mystify the whole scenario. Again the bass line gets another bump in power and firm energy. Its rock steady as the groove trembles the mind making the foot stomp until finally the melody sways in to lift it up to another level of friskiness. As the 10 minutes long track ends the sample sort of repeats and the track ends its glory leaving you mystified about what and where the album might lead you. Sample: No they can't help you, I mean it. If...you're talking about a sarcophagus that doesn't match any thing in our records. There's nothing that's not in our records..Except what came before. The old ones." The second track named Warlock enters with a thin percussion sound which builds itself until an eerie and more or less disturbing synth comes in to make weirder electro humps and bumps of blipping and jumping sounds as the progressive groove vibes in to a field of harmonic air and stronger leads of progressive stomp. The melodic flow is staggering and snorts of evil powder making the sweaty palms clinch into a fist of grinding power. A slapstick track of little inspiration though with some effects and remixing play, it may and will show greater power than presented on the album. The third track which also follows in the progressive manner with nice float and flexible drive proves how good Frost-RAVEN is at bringing the psychedelic vibe into his progressive drive. This is originally a track produced by Ectima which is a psychedelic progressive producer with full-on influences. I’m not familiar with the original but as always I do like the approach Frost-RAVEN puts on his art. I like the motion and drive, the effects and the storytelling and especially the power he at times unleashes on his bass lines, which I promise, has an amazing drive at times. This track almost slag itself with a sample saying; ‘Listen to my words, this is an experiment. Double gated, high and dry. Progressive? Yeah,right!’ Welcome … I’m working a new word’ Not totally sure what the voice say all the way through the sample or what he means. The drive is more a crossover between electro and progressive. Again the sample is trying to communicate some words which I’m not fully capable of understanding. I mean the words them self and their deeper meaning if you will, I guess I might encounter a day when they will fit and make sense in some kind of bizarre scenario. It’s a nice track with a pleasant flow yet I got to say it’s also one of the more boring ones. Anyway, as long as you don’t go overboard and become an ego monster, it’s both nice and important to feed your ego, to acknowledge that you are doing a good job; and Dustin, you are doing some great work on your musical art, I can confirm that. With Molly things are picking up, the tempo is being raised and the flow is floating firmer and more exiting then before. Gone are the dull progressive drives and in come the faster phased beats and lingering effects which follow the stream of Molly-glow. The track contains your echoing sounds; beat manifested drives which may change direction to make it more fun and a story of power and lust that is fundamental for Frost-RAVEN’S musical style. I’m not sure if this track (Molly) is dedicated to a girl in Dustin’s life or if it’s about a fish he or someone has in an aquarium, but that doesn’t really matter as this is a flying track which has an up-tempo drive with hints of infected twists and mushroom like glow. For me one of the absolute highlighters of the album must be the bastard track named ‘Trolls’. Its fast, it’s furious and it’s wicked. It has a fast phased tempo of 150 BPM and the drive tells us that this is something to be aware of. When the climax settles in you can’t help but to wave some arms around and play along with the affectedness of the story being told by a person diving deep inside the world of fairytales and mushrooms. What makes this track a personal favorite is the sample taken from a 7 hour long Hallmark movie named ‘The 10th Kingdom’. For fans of Infected Mushroom and their track ‘Roll Us a Giant’ will quickly recognize the troll’s voices where they have captured the princess. ‘She’s a captive of the merciless trolls now. Merciless! Without mercy, he he - This could be a long torture session. Rush a torture ruin a torture’. One can have a lot of fun affecting this sample. As the track continues though I feel it lacks something to keep the momentum up. Instead it has more of the slamming doors effect and melodic clinging. The tempo seems a tad too fast for its own good, it’s like the track is struggling with giving us a slamming ending to an otherwise slamming track. Next is maybe one of the absolute strongest and twisted tracks on the album as we continue in the infected land of fairytales, magic and might. This track has a theme based around Merlin and his apprentice. The bass line is orgasmic, the strings floating around are lush and beautiful, the effects are to make their scenario interesting and the build to the main sample of Merlin is magic. It contains a lot of truth as there are many who seem to only have mastered the art of rattling snakeskin and other scare tactics. This is yet another strong track that in the right circumstances and with some knobbing effect making will make inner magic glow. The weirdness which floats around and especially the weirdness of effects that come after each spoken sample is nothing but pure awe. It’s powerful, magical, evil and with glimpse of snarling smiles with blinking eyes. Frost-RAVEN, you are worthy and you seem more than ready. Morgana the Wicked comes in with more samples of an angry and powerful woman telling someone off. A Morgana is someone who is mysterious with stunning good looks who may be a dark angel who is highly creative within music and art. This is yet another very seductive, beautiful and strong track. The drive and magic which comes after the second sample blows me away as it floats in angelic ways with some evil strength for the mesmerized ones. Powerful tune with some wild and trippy bubbling sounds in the background, and the samples is strange enough - sometimes in another language and some lines in plain English. All in all it’s a very delightful track with all its shimmers and scrumptious wraps and echoing choruses. After three strong and adventures tracks from the more darkened land of fairytales and magic, we again enter a tune focusing more on the travel and swaying effect. Gone are the fairytale samples and in comes the storytelling in semi-melodic scenarios and powerful electro breaks. I have no idea of what ‘Deka’ actually means or refers to, but I think it has something to do with the metrical system (?) This is the 7th Mix, or so the info reads. However on the physical album cover it only reads ‘Deka’. It’s a beautiful electro journey filled with layered melodies from a Goadelic era with some harder electro interruptions which staggers the track so it doesn’t fly in loose air. At 03:17 the sounds used actually reminds me of the Infected tune ‘Intelligate’. But hey, in my ears a lot of the synthwork, approaches and fairytale like adventures presented on this album remind me of infected vibes. As a closer to an adventures and darkened trolled album we get a down-tempo track in the range of 150BPM. The sample used is about some space crusaders who have found a fertile land which they will, well, call ‘This Land’. It’s a humored sample with some alien trolls who interrupts the man who has found the land and wants him to call it his grave. I think the sample is from a TV series based on Serenity or something, not sure. The track itself is Ok with some interesting sounds and rolls. Recommendation: Now this is a strange album me thinks. On one side it got all of these powers and fantasy, it has loads of phat bass lines and infected synths which really bend the mushroom view. Objectively I think this is a powerful album with some strength not always apparent. Some of the tracks played at the right circumstances with maybe a touch of FX and manipulation will showcase strong Goa flows and hyper cool twists and turns. For me the best tracks are the ones with the samples (Except Molly which is hyper Omg infect me cool) though the samples used aren’t always suited to be played in any DJ-set or at certain times. Then again, sometimes they fit perfect. It’s a very dark and gloomy album, maybe not in that proper dark and gloomy fashion, but absolutely in the fantasyland of an almost negative and sorrowed place with furious and raging beats running on a path of inner love and light. The cover design is dark, dirty and hard to understand. What is it, is it a rusty metallic plum welded on an iron wall? The track names all have these darkened themes around them while the sounds presented are at times beautiful, strong, fun and really cool! I adore most of the drive and as mentioned, the bass line when it puts on its power is mesmerizing boarding to stunning. Thee Olde Ones .. What will Frost-RAVEN’s next album sound like? I am eager to listen, because this guy has immense skills to admire and follow. PS. Frost-RAVEN also released a free to download experimental downbeat album named 'Deep in Blue'. You can get it here: http://www.spectralonyx.com/catalog/frost-raven-deep-in-blue/ :) Where to buy and other links: DiscoRAVEN: http://www.discogs.com/artist/Frost+Raven?anv=Frost-RAVEN Frost-Space: http://www.myspace.com/frostraven DiscoGOArecords: http://www.discogs.com/label/Goa+Records GoaRecords: http://www.goa-records.com Geomagnetic.TV: http://www.geomagnetic.tv Psyshop: http://www.psyshop.com/shop/CDs/gre/gre1cd013.html Play: http://www.play.com/Music/CD/6-/Search.html?searchstring=frost+raven&searchtype=musicall&searchsource=0 Goastore: http://www.goastore.ch/product_info.php?products_id=3857&osCsid=7e0beed4c44f1f98ca68ce2b385b6e98 Juice: http://www.juice-net.jp/shop/detail.php?seq=4578&&kw=frost+raven Juno: http://www.juno.co.uk/search/?quick_search_records=m_physical&q=frost+raven&x=0&y=0&qs=1&s_search_precision=any&s_search_type=all&s_genre_id=0000 More trollish reviews: http://www.myspace.com/psytonesmusic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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