DeathPosture Posted June 19, 2004 Share Posted June 19, 2004 Dark Doors – Newzoo Format: CD Artist: Dark Doors Title: Newzoo Label: Spiritual Beings Records, Israel Cat. #: 965-90472-2-3/SPB002CD Year: 2004 Track listing: 01. 09’10” Newzoo 02. 06’27” Low Pressure 03. 06’22” Chinese Drums 04. 06’19” Philosopher’s Stone 05. 06’33” Acrobat 06. 06’52” Photosynthetic 07. 06’13” Dreamell 08. 06’34” Other Planetness 09. 06’41” Rush Hour 10. 08’06” Ultra Review: Tel Aviv based trance veteran Ilan Ifrach is out with his debut album on the independent Israeli label Spiritual Beings… Modern cheap technology has enabled just about anyone to start releasing stuff on their own labels – and Spiritual Beings is a good example of a group of enthusiastic people doing something that they believe in… Hats of to them for having the balls to release something into the vast, endless pool of trance-releases nowadays… Let me take you thru the tracks… #01: First up is Newzoo, which is a pretty minimal track… It starts with an interesting, organic intro and is soon carried away by repetitive “lazy” beats and an overall feeling that something bigger is in the offering… Unfortunately nothing more happens, and this track doesn’t really do anything but bore me… #02: The beats are crispier on this second track – it’s darker in nature with metallic-sounding percussion and monotonous beats… There are however more uplifting elements as well, I kinda like the acid-belches and the water-effects… Oh, and the computer-game-like FX are nice too… I wish Ilan had worked more on those – that would have raised this to more than just a decent track… #03: Ahh, finally a decent bassline… The bass on this one is phat – very groovy, yet the percussion in the first half of the track seems to follow the same predictable pattern as the first 2 tracks… What save this track are in fact the Chinese drums that sound very cool – deep and tribal… Mixed with the Atari-like sound FX, it actually evolves into a nice tune! #04: And what have we got here? A Tracker/Fruity Loops show off intro…? I have no idea what this is… I hear a boring old bassline, some metallic sounding percussion and a synth run thru some kind of filter… Is that supposed to be a melody? Sorry, I don’t like this at all… #05: Luckily a twisted acrobat comes along and saves the day… ;o) From the start you feel the psychedelia ripping through your eardrums… Old-school pitched-up voice sample, a sharp polished bassline and some really cool twisted melodies… Very dance floor friendly dark full-on material here… It was about time this album packed a cool track – but this surely is a cool track! #06: The ambient track that was eaten by a vicious bassline! Pace-wise, this follows it predecessor, but this is much more minimal in structure… There are not really any melodic parts here, though somewhere in the far distance there is a melody lurking, trying to surface – it just never succeeds… It’s mainly a big old gritty mix-up consisting of distorted bassline and random noisy percussion FX… I think this was supposed to be the scary track, but to be honest; the only thing scary about it is how much it bores me… #07: Thing are picking up again.. Well a little anyway… It’s still minimal and noisy, yet slightly more interesting than the previous track… Ugh, what is that sound – sounds like an electronic mosquito!?… Smash it! I like the way this track “teases” the listener… That subtle “lazy” bassline… You keep waiting for it let loose, and when it finally does you wiggle your toe… Decent track! #08: The lazy bassline is back – and this time it’s accompanied by some old school twisted effects… Acid-farts and digital drops… Ilan opens up his bag of experimental tricks here… I like how he plays around with filters and tweaking effects… Interesting track, without being revolutionary… #09: The bassline has been tweaked to a funkier level now, but still you’re constantly waiting for it to really rip… My fellow reviewer Pavel talks about “dense and nervous sounds” here, and that’s a pretty good description… The sounds are sharp and “pointy” and it has that overall anxious feel to it… Kinda intoxicating really… Ok track… #10: Another dark and gritty track… A very simple bassline and more predictable percussion… There is a voice sample somewhere in the background that could’ve been interesting if only it ever surfaced… Seasoned with psychedelic bleeps and beeps – however, they are sprinkled around way too randomly, and don’t really fit the mood that this track wants to adopt… So, why wasn’t this album picked up by a “professional” label? I’m gonna go out on a limp here, and say that parts of this album sound down-right amateurish…I mean, I’ve listen to a lot of music over the years, and it seems to me that huge parts of this album is just random playing-around-with-music-software… I don’t produce music myself, so I have no technical background for saying that… It just sounds that way to me… I could be, that I’m totally missing the picture here, and this is some kind of divine sound, that I’ve completely missed – I don’t know… All I know, is that this left me disappointed… And don’t even get me started on the cover-art and the packaging… It’s not all bad though – Ilan does manage to create groovy, funky bits that make me bob my head and wiggle my toe… Those moments are just way to scarce on this CD… But it all comes down to taste – I’ve read some pretty enthusiastic words about this release, and I’m sure some people will enjoy this… Hooray for diverse musical tastes! *sS* But personally, I’d advise you to listen before you buy it… 5/10 Favourites: 5(!), 7, 8 DeathPosture External links: Spiritual Beings: www.spiritualbeings.org Psyshop: www.psyshop.com (Audio samples available!) 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Guest dee Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 i dont want to have it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
somarobotics Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 Excuse me for being rude, but this album is terrible. Bad production, bad melodies, I can`t even listen 30 secs of it... I hate it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rain Posted September 13, 2004 Share Posted September 13, 2004 I like that album but perfectly understand if you don't like it... ... it's more background trance... there is not much to analyze or enjoy... but it doesn't annoye me and I don't know why still gets a little bit boring at the end...but that's fine to me... lots of releases get a little bit boring at the end these days... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seraph Posted May 1, 2005 Share Posted May 1, 2005 DARK DOORS - NEW ZOO 2004 SPIRTUAL BEINGS 1. NEW ZOO 2. LOW PRESSURE 3. CHINESE DRUMS 4. PHILLOSOPHER'S STONE 5. ACROBAT 6. PHOTOSYNTHETIC 7. DREAMELL 8. OTHER PLANETNESS 9. RUSH HOUR 10.ULTRA After seeing cover for it which is pretty clever and intelligently done and after I saw tracklisting I thought, huh, here is some new album that actually sounds promising and I don't know anything about it. In fact, it is not that interesting, at least for me cause no matter that I can get into few minimal albums, this is not the one. This is first israeli minimal album I've heard. It has very minimal kick and bass line and few effects thrown here and there. It is basically repetitive album with few tricks and twists. First track NEW ZOO is pretty interesting and it actually goes somewhere. PHILLOSOPHER'S STONE is another interesting one and it has some mind work. ACROBAT is nice but nothing more than that. PHOTOSYNTHETIC is third good track here and it doesn't even have minimal structure but rather psychedelic. So, all in all, this is not such interesting release and I though it might be. I can only give 6/10 if not less cause there aren't any hit songs on it or at least one brilliant one... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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