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Koxbox and Juno Reactor


GagaISM

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I spent this afternoon listening Koxbox's Forever After and Dragon Tales and subsequently gave Juno's Beyond The Infinite a spin. It immediately hit me how much more dated Juno sounds today, which is quite interesting, as I considered them one of the most cutting edge acts back in the day. Dated doesn't have to mean bad of course, and it doesn't in this case. But the Beyond The Infinite does sound old. Much more so than many other electronic releases of the early 90'es.

 

Any thoughts?

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I never liked Juno Reactor. I don't get the appeal in their music. I dislike both their old and new stuff. I'm possibly the only guy in discogs who has voted their album Shango with 1/5.

 

Koxbox from the other hand still sound awesome. I would love to listen to the old Koxbox stuff with +5 bpm. This is something I always wanted from Koxbox, to be just a bit faster. Otherwise they're gods. Well they...were gods.

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I never liked Juno Reactor. I don't get the appeal in their music. I dislike both their old and new stuff. I'm possibly the only guy in discogs who has voted their album Shango with 1/5.

 

Well, I have exactly the same! I never liked Juno Reactor... Only a few tracks from Shango were decent imo... (mostly the softer tracks), the uptempo tracks I never really liked...

 

Koxbox, they were/are gods for sure... Altough their Psychopod project was even more "my style" :) And as you said, it can stand the test of time :)

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I was a big fan of Juno Reactor and they are one of the groups/artists that got me into psytrance (along with Astral Projection, IM, Hallucinogen, MWNN), but I agree their stuff sounds pretty dated when you hear it today. I kinda feel the same way about all of those artists except Hallucinogen though. I remember Shango feeling kinda "oldschool" even back when I first heard it though (around 2002), despite only being a couple years old.

 

It's still decent music but I rarely listen to it anymore. When I do it tends to be Bible of Dreams, but I always thought Bible of Dreams was their best album. :)

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Juno Reactor sounds dated now cause their sound kind of defined a sect of that era. So listening to it now makes one think they are listening to the music of that time. It is so weird how mind works, rofl.

 

Juno Reactor is kind of a superior class of psytrance, the image I have.

Even my 75year old acid dealer would buy all the releases Juno Reactor made from his liquid money. The only other psytrance he listened to was Simon Godford.

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After listening to Beyond The Infinite again I think one of the main reasons for it's dated sound is the sequenced synth lines. The ones in the third track "Ice Cube" is a good example. They sound like something taken out of a late 80'es Depeche Mode track. It's not that it's bad. It just immediately places them in that era.

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I still like Juno Reactor very much - it was my first Trance. But I mostly like Bible of dreams and transmissions. It is dark and has a lot of atmosphere - it truly is psycedelic. Most tracks on beyond the infinite are too fast (exception is rotorblade - what a bomb!) The ethno stuff on shango etc. really turns me off.

 

I like the old style because i am "old" enjoying 20 years of Trance and i also liked the EBM alike Front 242 things that came before psytrance.

Juno has truly its roots there.

 

Koxbox makes very weird ans spacious music which I appreciate much, but I do not listen to it often - it is too complicated for my mind ;-) Maybe you are right it is a little bit too slow which makes you nervous and wants you to walk the walls upwards...maybe it makes you mad on the dancefloor.

I prefer the other projects especially saikopod with all the groove in it.

 

Without an doubts - both artists are ancestors of this genre and they managed to make unique music for a very long time.

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Never been much into Juno Reactor either... But then again I must admit that I haven't listened to their tracks a lot... I have tried a few times, but mostly I put something else on after a couple of tracks. At least with Shango and Into The Infinite... The rest of their albums I haven;t heard before. I DO like Masters of The Universe though.

 

And Koxbox, well, is Koxbox... I love their sound although they are far from my favorite artists. Psychopod is more to my tastes ^^

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I was never into Juno Reactor.

Kox Box is the best thing I've ever heard.

The Great Unknown is my all time favourite album and it still sounds fresh today. Its so good, its timeless.

 

Peace out.

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It's really a big pleasure for me to come back again to the matters concerned with Juno Reactor's activity.

I really praise them! For being used in so many artifical intelligence/computers/technology related real life creations.

Especially for this one:

 

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I really like every single sound of it!! And it sounds so ahead of it's time! So <<<HIGH>>> tech, so spacey and solid at the same time remaining so ethnic and tribal!

Most of nowdays "goa" music sounds MUCH more dated to me if saying so.

But Juno Reactor's sound is an ethalon of how the eternal-futuristic music should sound!

 

 

As for Koxbox.. Just a waste of time.. A childrens circuis sounds.

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I find it quite peculiar when hardcore Psy-heads pick the much more conventional and formulaic Psychopod/Saiko-Pod over the old Koxbox classics. It's not that I don't like the Psychopod Ep's a lot, but I always regarded them as a "poppy" easy-listening version of the real thing - Koxbox.

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I find it quite peculiar when hardcore Psy-heads pick the much more conventional and formulaic Psychopod/Saiko-Pod over the old Koxbox classics. It's not that I don't like the Psychopod Ep's a lot, but I always regarded them as a "poppy" easy-listening version of the real thing - Koxbox.

 

Interesting view. I have always regarded Psychopod-project as the more relentless, complex and crazier counterpart to Koxbox. Faster and heavier... None-the-less both projects are the epitome of psychedelic music imho.

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For me the Juno sound feels evergreen. The journeys the tracks portray are always as intense, vivid and deep. Only transmissions sounds dated, as it is a 1993 product - even then, you can find storytelling and depth in those tracks. The rest of the discography is certainly evergreen though.

 

I absolute adore the music Juno Reactor has graced us. It's nothing like other Goa or other music for that matter. Great atmospheres and journeys.

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Hmmm, the way you portray it penzo makes me really want to dig into Juno again... I always felt them kind of lacking a certain "heaviness", but maybe I really just need to make an effort.

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I find it quite peculiar when hardcore Psy-heads pick the much more conventional and formulaic Psychopod/Saiko-Pod over the old Koxbox classics. It's not that I don't like the Psychopod Ep's a lot, but I always regarded them as a "poppy" easy-listening version of the real thing - Koxbox.

 

I very much agree that Koxbox is less conventional than Psychopod/Saikopod. To be honest I really love the more conventional not too overloaded stuff that might even be close to more minimalistic Techno and which just has a rather small pinch of psychedelic in it. However it is really hard to do this with very high quality and thats the reason why Psychopod/Saikopod is so great: It is psychedelic without stretching it over some limit - which exists at least for me. However, probably everyone has other limits or thresholds. E.g. a lot of progressive stuff is too little psychedelic...it is a very narrow path between boring sounds and too experimental or overuse of effects. Thats why I mostly like stuff inbetween old school "Goa" and more progressive sounds.

 

Some further great examples are: Bus/ Gus Till, Manmademan, older Tristan, Bamboo Forrest, Allaby, Dickster, Tranan, older Ticon, Purple, Synchro, only some older GMS, X-Dreams 'Radio' etc. etc.

 

But of course there are also manifold exceptions, e.g. Posford or the Pleiadians are allowed to overuse everything they want to - as long as it fits so well :)

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A thing you have to give Juno is that they were one of the few early acts that fully embraced the cultural/tribal elements that inspired Goa. In that respect they're actually more true to the source than the majority of the genre.

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Do you dislike The Great Unknown as well? I think that album, though I prefer their material with Peter, was the only right direction they could go. Frank É and Ian Ion always liked the funky proggy stuff, while Peter was the one into the harder and more extreme side of things. They did exactly what they wanted and thus created an amazing and truly inspired album. I do prefer the earlier material, but it's lightyears ahead of the trite Ibiza crap Frank É is producing these days. That shit just makes me sad.

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Do you dislike The Great Unknown as well? I think that album, though I prefer their material with Peter, was the only right direction they could go. Frank É and Ian Ion always liked the funky proggy stuff, while Peter was the one into the harder and more extreme stuff. They did exactly what they wanted and thus created an amazing and truly inspired album. I do prefer the earlier stuff, but it's lightyears ahead of the trite Ibiza crap Frank É is producing these days. That's shit just makes me sad.

 

I don't dislike it, but it's not what I wanted it.

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New Juno Reactor compil/remix - From the Land of the Rising Sun - Inside the Reactor II.

OnT: They are both very good specially, Bible Of Dreams, Beyond The Infinite, Forever After, Dragon Tales and The Great Unknown.

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