Cybernetika - Colossus

[Trance2MoveU]

Artist: Cybernetika
Title: Colossus
Label: Ektoplazm
Date: August, 2011

1. Gagarin (175 BPM)
2. Devoid Of Gravity (175 BPM)
3. Close Your Eyes (175 BPM)
4. Anomaly (177 BPM)
5. Ghost Of Midas (174 BPM)
6. Humanity: Static (Cybernetika Remix) (176 BPM)
7. Forged For Battle (175 BPM)
8. Electron Tracker (177 BPM)

 

 

Sure he gets cable, but you should see the champagne room...

If you don't know who this is then let me help you get out from the rock you've been living under. This is Lars Goossens whose Scythe of Orion was the best free psytrance release of 2010 voted on by Ektoplazm visitors. Didn't hear it? Get crackin' f*cknut, it's a whopper of a good time. But you can go farther than that as this guy has consistently produced quality music and all for free. Atropos, Nanospheric,...the list goes on and on. He is gifted in a lot of styles but what I think sets him apart from most artists is his attention to detail and atmosphere creation. Sure he is all about melding psytrance and drum and bass now, but he has done psy, goa, darkpsy...Go to this site and you can get all his music for free. Beside the awesome cover, you might notice the BPM's are pretty high. Don't be scared, just jump right in.

Idiot.


Gagarin- Epic science fiction beginning. He just keeps getting better and better. Can you feel the cold embrace of space? The slow glide of a star freighter as it passes between a moon and an alien planet? The Russian broadcast confirms that it was 50 years ago that Yuri Gagarin was the first human in outer space. Drum & Bass rhythms bounce as synths race to the planet surface. Let's face it layers and atmosphere is where Lars rules and the break is no exception as a dark melody slowly appears from the dark side of the moon. The pads maintain that cold feeling as machinery hums in the background. Beautiful and chilling effects top off this masterpiece.

Devoid of Gravity- Icicle pads echo in the dark as the temperature drops well below -100. A slow breakbeat gives way to the more rapid fire drum & bass. Metallic effects scream in protest and it is those effects that keep my focus as the track rages on. A bass lead slithers as higher pitched synths trickle down. Smooth pads continue through a sparkling break as percussion gets filtered and knobs get twisted. A massively fast lead speeds across the bass into the next break and wouldn't you know another lead is waiting in the ready to take its place. Technical, cold and like ice crystals floating in zero gravity. Don't think it's easy to craft such a powerful and atmospheric track that lasts over 12 minutes. Bravo sir.

Close Your Eyes- This track sounds like all the drum and bass stuff, but his layering of synths and atmospheric pads make it better. His break once again shines, with a melody that switches the direction. Unfortunately it doesn't do much to distinguish itself from the better tracks on the album. Good, but didn't bowl me over.

Anomaly- This one has an odd time signature and...whew it's a pummeling. Very heavy beat and thick sounding. Once again he makes his mark at the break with effects and an evolving melody that touches the farthest stars. Nebulous twinkling sounds race from point to point and man, I'm just tired from listening to this. Good but exhausting.

 

Yeah, but not six dick sticky where the hell are my panties I need cab fare exhausted.

Ghost of Midas- Man I love his intros. So f*cking lush. It builds slowly with metallic banging and laser cannon bursts. A computer voice drones in the background and then the beat hammers away. A synth churns underneath the firefight and then the leads speed up the attack. More racing synths into the break where pads guide the listener as new leads bubble. Spectacular.

Humanity: Static (Cybernetika Remix)- Never heard of Vortech, but here Lars remixes one of their tracks. No time is wasted as he jumps right into the beat. There is a computer voice that speaks unintelligibly, well at least to me. Sounds like Frontline Assembly with the industrial vocal. I don't like it as I feel it intrudes on the music. Personal opinion. Which is weird because I love FLA...well until the vocal style gets to be too much.

Forged For Battle- I swear he takes the best part of Atrium Carceri and owns the atmosphere. When the beat drops he modifies the drum kits, I'm guessing switching kits in the jungle style. The effects and pads rumble and growl as the drums rocket at blinding speed. The break is a fluid thing, alive with guitars and thunderous drums. Alien, yet oh so welcoming. Powerful brother, what a track!

Electron Tracker- A chopped up synth at light speed leaves a trail of destruction in its wake. It's pedal to the metal breakbeat that has spiraling melodies twisting like a pretzel in motion. A deep space lead trails colors in it's comet like tail. The break shines yet again with grumbling discontent moving with the slowness of a sloth. The leads are supersonic however, and a new one rings out of that same break. You would think over 13 minutes would be fatiguing but not so much. He changes leads so often that it remains fresh. Big finish people.


The man has still got it. Easily one of the most accomplished electronic musicians. Period. The only reason I can think of he isn't signed to a label is that either they cannot afford him or he just doesn't give a f*ck. Does it for the sheer joy of it and the joy others get out of his creations. He excels where he always has with passionate and descriptive music. His layers produce the lushest of tracks as it has many twists and turns.

 

That's the good.

Two things. Penzoline seemed to be right on with his mastering comment. Now I will be the first to tell you that I am in no way qualified or a master of anything (except chocolate chip pancakes, that is where I rule). But even to my untrained ears it seems like all the sounds are of equal volume. The bass and kicks Lars uses should have the concussive force of a car accident and the synths should be scraping the cloud ceiling. Is it a problem with the mastering? I'll leave that to the experts, it's just something I noticed. Sounds great on my headphones though.

Number two, IMHO (very important I stress that) I think the Drum and Bass has run its course. He's been doing it for awhile now and it sounds great, but I start to grow weary of the same beat style in all the tracks. It gets a little tiring to make it through the entire album. Nobody does it better than him and he has clearly made his mark. Some may say that about my reviews (stop with the gifs already!) but unlike me, Lars can do other genres. And do them exceedingly well.

Since the dog ate the DVD that had the 5 hours of psy-polka obviously he needs to get that dog to sh*t it out and reassemble the pieces. Until then I think it's clear what direction his music should take. We've had darkpsy, goa, psy, breaks, dnb....I am convinced that if Lars decided to tackle a downtempo album it would be the greatest of all time.

This one is still an awesome piece of music with just some minor flaws. A worthy addition to his musical resume. Enjoy this guy now before Hollywood snatches him away for paying work.

Ektoplazm

Mdk

[Penzoline]

Nice review and I'm glad someone posted a full one.

 

Personally, as I've expressed before, I think this is musically brilliant stuff. Catering to audiences of psytrance, dnb and even that industrial sound a little. The atmospheres ooze such thick atmosphere that all it does is make you wonder has the creator been to these off-wordly places and spaces because it's just vivid and even visible. Just fascinating and fantastic dance music on top of that. I cannot stress the musical brilliance enough.

 

But I do like the fact you also mentioned the mastering, I also can't stress this enough. I just don't understand what happened here, it's just not good. Some tracks sound a tiny bit little better than others but it's very stale throughout. Nothing has that oomph I hear everywhere else, highs aren't crystal loud, lows aren't thumping my speakers/headphones at all. Even the simplest thing as actual sound volume is low. Sure, I can EQ the sound to hell and back and make my system louder, but that's not how it should be(and it doesn't magically fix everything either), in that case the mastering is simply non-existent and it removes so much of that dynamic sound what is supposed to be apparent.

 

I've quite had enough of this; I'm boycotting bad mastering. I just hate when wonderful music like this is treated that way. Masterers, labels, artist, DON'T LET MUSIC BE TREATED LIKE THIS, please. It deserves so much better. Especially when it's something special like this.

[Cybernetika]

Thanks for the review Trance2MoveYou. But no pictures? come on.

 

Penzo, your comment has been noted, I can understand your thoughts on the mastering, it is indeed low in overall volume. I suppose the idea was to create more of a thick wall of sound with a lot of equal elements, not the most impact on individual elements. It is a different approach to mastering, trying to focus more on the ambience, less on impact and loudness. It's different, I would't necessarily say it's worse, but I'll leave that up to taste.

[Trance2MoveU]

Fixed!

 

Mdk

[Penzoline]

I kind of ignored this for a while, but ever since i put it on my mp3 I've been dream-walking. I'll have to write some sort of a review for this one day.

[Penzoline]

I am ashamed I never did write a review for this. Since 2011 things have changed and I don't find the mastering as dreadful as I might have before, it ain't great but it doesn't completely break the album. Some tracks have it worse than others(which might have clouded this train of thought even more so) of course, but generally I find it passable now from start to end, however, the musical quality has grown even stronger for me. It is simply put some of the most intelligent work I've heard. Ever-changing beautifully constructed colossal space operas. The incredible attention to detail in such a strong drum n bass environment makes me realize how easily most DnB gets away with doing barely anything. And this just goes to show, it is literally taking the best parts of several genres and meshing it together into a dark cyberpunk scifi epic. You have catchy, trippy and sometimes emotional melodies and details from psy, fast paced groundwork of DnB and strongest atmospheres from industrial. It will become an issue as if it's not 100% of something, and it's already aiming in the middle of the most underground one's, scenes tend to ignore them as they aren't fully representative. Regardless, this album is a masterpiece in it's own right - It's just very unfortunate it will remain out of the spotlight in just about any scene it might fit in, just because of it's obscurity in what it does. I do wonder if there is a proper scene for this stuff? Well I'm just glad I can fully appreciate what it offers, as I never had problems with giving these particular genres an open mind. There's just one last huge pet peeve I have... why can't I buy this on CD? I managed to snag The Scythe Of Orion from Ektoplazm but this one was never available. I don't often find myself crying for physical releases but Cybernetika is one of those artists who should grace your collection with it's might.

 

I can't say much else than it's a shame Cybernetika has kind of... disappeared? We had every year since 2007 an album stronger than the last one and it really did peak with this one, but then it just stopped.. Burnout? I hope not! There have been some individual tracks with long time-spans between but that's about it. ( check https://soundcloud.com/zg-n-zalay/cybernetika-mellow-sonic )

 

Hopefully someday he will come back to surprise us once more, regardless of genre.

[ion1zed]

Have you heard "explorers", released on VA. Archon?

It was released this year on osirion records. Typical high quality Cybernetika stuff I'd say...and it's psy!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeE28_nAfCw

[Cybernetika]

this was just brought to my attention... thanks for all the interest in my music

 

as i said in another thread:

I definitely had little free time in the past 2 years or so, work and life keeps me busy all the time. I am still making music, just not at my old pace, and there is a lot of unfinished material waiting to be finished. So yes, there will be something coming this year, I am thinking spring to summer.

[Jon Cocco]

Great artist but I could never get into this one when it first came out. I found that the drum and bass distracts from the immersive feel, synth work, and atmosphere of the tracks. I thought The Scythe of Orion was great (still do) and hope that he makes another album more in that direction, without the drum and bass. A down/mid-tempo album in that sense could be very immersive and interesting. I would love to hear one if/when the artist gets inspired some day?

 

Hearing Colossus again after several years, I like it more, especially the work around the drum and bass influence. I was simply never a d&b fan. It's nothing against the album. I find that the song's introductions, synth melody/sound, atmosphere, sound effect elements, and ambient (that creates moods and emotions!) influence very engaging, powerful at times, and interesting even with the d&b present. This is a new revelation for me.

 

Anomaly however, has such strong d&b sound over the other influence that I find it less enjoyable. Some people do like d&b though and will like/love this album, and I give the artist credit for experimenting and churning something with solid results relative to incorporating even one of my least favorite sub-genre's of electronic music.

To the artist: Have you ever thought of approaching record labels? You're one of the most underrated artists on the planet. It's almost hard to believe that someone would give out so much great music for free but that's the way the world can be, where we're all contributing our gifts, our passions, talents and abilities to improve and open up the world we live in without compensational dependency on money. I'm just curious why you choose to release your music for free, but am grateful and appreciative of your decision to do so regardless.

I'm curious to hear a down/mid-tempo album in his (the sound more of us are familiar with) via sci-fi, moody, atmospheric, psy/space trance-esque piano/industrial (whatever else, vast) style. Similar to the tempo of Distant Systems "Spiral Empire" album for instance, but in Cybernetic's vision and sound. I'm just putting the idea out three. I was just listening to Forged For Battle and really impressed with the feelings and moods that this artist creates. I find that song so immersive that for a while I wasn't even bothered by the d&b element.

[ptn]

Number two, IMHO (very important I stress that) I think the Drum and Bass has run its course.

 

Well, we are on psychedelic goa trance forum and this music has had its peak almost 20 years ago without any groundbreaking changes in the goa area since then (also IMHO), so ...