California Sunshine - Bicycle Tune LP

[Tsotsi]

Artist: California Sunshine 
Title: Bicycle Tune LP
Label: Spiral Trax
Release: October 19, 2018

Tracklist:-
1. Shining Star
2. Deep Noise
3. Horizon Trip
4. Delusions
5. Bicycle Tune (Adrenaline Drum Remix)
6. Alegro Vivace
7. Backwards
8. Night Shift
9. After Shock

I suppose I'm a good person to review the new California Sunshine LP. Having not experienced the wonders of his tracks in the hay day I would say I'm not jaded or doe-eyed. With 4 tracks done with 'The WonderBoy' I would expect a lot of us to be more excited than I've seen. But I'm not the old school guy of the forum so I only know what I've read.

To begin with I can't compliment the cover. I can however criticise it. Did a bot auto generate this? The only way I can say that it makes some sort of sense is if it was meant to contain some sort of message of artwork moving from 2d to 3d and then real life. I don't know, I only mention it because I would rather anything else so that I might be able to expect something more from this.

Now without any prejudice I might say that the album is not in any way bad. if you want truly fat kicks, solid un-muddled production and easy to follow riddims then you might find yourself enjoying the album. 

My qualm however is that I'm certain it will be left behind in most peoples 'to listen' list as I just don't see how it would fit into a set or stand up to the quality of trance we see today. It's not quite daytime trance and really at night time I would be much happier listening to something else. What I mean is that this wouldn't make me run to main stage after 34 minutes of convincing my mates to come with me. That leaves another issue, is it main stage trance and if not where does it fit? Well it's not quite main stage material, the kicks, baselines and drive all make it feel that way while the rest of the elements say otherwise.

The tracks sort of require you to listen to them from start to finish but have that full-on (mix this to keep me interested) vibe going on. It might be Goa but it just doesn't have enough of the Goa elements that I enjoy to say it really fits in. I mean the production is fine, its chunky and hard hitting but where does it take you?

There are of course some notable tracks such as Deep Noise and some parts in Backwards which have a pretty great leads, but overall I feel like the tracks don't keep me entertained for long enough due to them not keeping focus on the parts that make them good. Most of the tracks here, while being enjoyable at parts simply take to long to get to a special place or never get there at all. For this reason I guess this album will be placed pretty low in peoples 'buy list', largely due to a significant output of trance albums over 2018.

 

https://spiraltrax.bandcamp.com/album/california-sunshine-bicycle-tune-lp-spit144-spiral-trax