Ovnimoon - Different Lifeforms

[Trance2MoveU]

Artist: Ovnimoon
Title: Different Lifeforms
Label: Ovnimoon Records
Date: August, 2018

1. Astral Dimension feat. E-mantra
2. Alquimistas
3. Alien Medicine
4. The Vision feat. Esterim Patchul
5. Different Lifeforms feat. Etnica
6. Back To This Land feat. Ephedra & Esterim Patchul
7. Retro Sensor feat. Esterim Patchul & Sirium
8. Secret World of the Truth feat. Rigel

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"To show you just how much you don't know.  Open your eyes."

 

Another Ovnimoon album?  When does he sleep?  Or eat?  Or put some dog poo in a bag and light it on fire in front of the door of the neighbor who smells like mothballs who yelled at you last week for listening to that hippie Beatles music. So....with his latest Hector decided to bring in the big guns. 

E-mantra.

Etnica.

Ephedra.

Esterim F*cking Patchul. Or Patchouli.  Who knows?

Yeah.  He's got it like that.  I don't know if that's how he spells his name because Psyshop spelled it two different ways.  Anyone else notice all those guest names begin with "E"?  Weird.  Anyway Hector been on quite the roll lately.  His last several albums have been super hot not to mention he's running his label which seems to have a release every other day and twice on Sunday.  Who would've thought that goa trance would come back in such a way that all the cool kids are doing it?  Well it has and he slaps you in the face with a bit of a scorcher.  Now I could've just listened to this all the way through, but you're not the boss of me.  So I jumped all over the place.  As an enthusiastic student of the genre I went right to the track that has Etnica (Different Lifeforms) on it.  

Actual footage of some rando on the street when I played him that track.  Couldn't help himself, burst into flames.  He's ok though.  He's a trooper.  So then I went to the one with legendary master E-mantra (Astral Dimension).   It was good (how could it not be), but to be honest I expected a little more wickedness from these two mainstays.  Kinda tame.  Clearly the next track had to be the one with Ephedra (Back To This Land).  That joint was shimmery and powerful.  Kinda like coating a unicorn in glitter and shoving it through a wood chipper.

Sorry kid...that was the last one.  Sad face.  The sample was a beat preachy, but it worked.  Up next was the track with Rigel (Secret World of the Truth) for no apparent reason whatsoever.  It's a stormer with nimble melodies stacked in layers.  Nice. 

He's no slouch on his own of course with Alquimistas singing the praises of music's power and Alien Medicine just blowing the doors off the spacecraft.

I know, I know this is all well and good.  But you want to know how the tracks with Esterim Patchuli were.  I can't tell you how much he was involved because Hector forgot to invite me to the studio, but I found Retro Sensor to be more engaging than The Vision but they were both quite good.  Perhaps that's due to another collaborator named Sirian.  Dude what are you doing on this track?  Your name doesn't begin with "E".

Bottom line, it's an album of pure goa trance with long tracks full of melody and power.  Congrats!

Ovnimoon Records Bandcamp

Psyshop

[Redo]

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[Jaza]

Disparate quality across the tracks. The good ones are excellent, but a few feel like filler.

It's like Ovnimoon's take on the 90s rather than being entirely cutting edge. In that respects it's a little bit of a missed opportunity.

Several of these are making it out in to my live sets though. For sure

[Redo]

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[Jaza]

It doesn't sound as crisp as it could. While some neo goa production is intentionally sharp (E-Mantra, most of Filteria's stuff, Imba) a lot of artists choose to have some more 'dull' sounds (for want of a better phrase) to mimic the old school vibe. Good examples are Omnivox, and particularly Triquetra.

Ovnimoon has done a bit of that here IMO. He is capable of razor sharp sound design, but a few of these tracks sound like he's gone for some of the old school buzz. 

On one hand I am happy he's changed it up a bit - I love him but it's only been incremental changes over 6 LPs in 9 years since Geometric Poetry - on the other hand I think he has more to offer. I'd play half of these in a set out live, this is a good purchase, but he has it in him to make an end-to-end stormer.

JBC Arkadii has done a great job bridging modern psy and goa on a few tracks on his new album. Similarly the new E-Mantra LP is very tight on production. I'd like to see Ovnimoon try that next.