Ultravoice - Art Of Voice (com.pact) [review]

[Guest Le Lotus Bleu]

Ultravoice – Art Of Noise (Com.pact)

 

Tracklist :

1. Ultradrive

2. DNA

3. Art Of Voice

4. Action

5. Drop It remix

6. Tactic Mind

7. Flight To Space

8. Dr Trance Rmx

9. Children Of Earth (Ambient version)

 

Ultravoice (Avi Levi) brings us his 2nd album on Com.pact with mastering from Lior Perlmutter (Astral Projection).

All tracks are by Ultravoice except 5 which is an Ultravoice’s remix of an original Bizzare Contact’s track appearing on their debut album Plastic Fantastic & 6 was made with Kyo Log (Leon Gossler).

 

No superflue waste of time with Ultradrive, Ultravoice drives you direct to dance, giving you one oh his best level of production . It’s also an indication of his new style you could expect from him all along this new album which has few things in common with the first one ‘Magic Sound Factory’ & that confirms a new turn taken with his recently released track ‘Dr Trance’.

So in this first one, my only reproach would be the sample ‘and now everybody on the dancefloor’ which seems for me overused , outdated, about the rest nothing bad to add. It’s about a melodic groovy-full on production with acid lead with a quite long floating intro upto the previously exposed sample around 2’20.

 

DNA, looks like a lot in his sounds & rising up to previous one without any floating part but with jerkyer lead & also faster, more nervous ; of course the sample ‘dna’ is present here.

 

Art Of Voice always in the melodic groovy-full on style is different this time with a brassy lead, coming back too to some floating period. You can easily notice here a special trademark from Ultravoice which is remaining constantly more & less all over his tracks : the use of very short backgroundish or leading tones which all finish themselves curtly (i mean a quite brutal cut).

 

Action begins around 0’15 with a echoe-satured rythmic effect, not very long don’t worry, it’s just like when your turn on the contacter or starter to drive your car. The track is easy to recognize with numerous twisted funny tones (metallic &/or brassy) , but especially with the samples ‘Action … Action… Action …’ or sometimes ‘Action or stand by’. Like oftenly with Ultravoice you’ve got a final explosion-climax starting here after the break around 4’20.

 

At first, i didn’t catch too much the remix part of work from Ultravoice on this track as the melody is still played the same way , with exactly the same lead furthermore i didn’t remark a noticeable change in the rythmic.

It’s only around 3’00 in a quite calm part of the track i really understood he confers a slight groovy & bouncy touch in this production but it’s quite subtle elsewhere to realize. It’s just maybe the sign it’s well done & that Ultravoice have succeed in not denaturating the spirit (the qualities) of the original .

 

Tactic Mind is made with Kyo Log & unfortunatly i always dig less when they team up together like they oftenfly do. One more time, it’s the case here due to awful leads i can’t bear at all.

 

Things follow don’t look like each other, Flight To Spaceis one of my favorite. The first times aren’t especially awesome or original for an Ultravoice’s production which undeniably turns into more full on. But as much as i was disliking the leads in previous track, i’m now fond of the one appearing around 3’20, that i would mention as cosmic, morning & floating (jerky too). For the break annoucing the climax, it’s made of cars racing accelerating sample reminding a bit of what happen in Phreaky – Tornado.

 

 

Arriving now the remix of probably the best track Ultravoice has done before cooking this album : Dr Trance. So what’s new here ? I would say indeed not too much changes just some adjustments, some embellishments like backgroundish rythmic added , the use of a larger spectre of sounds (keeping nearly all appearing in the original i think). Just let say we got here a deluxe version of Dr trance now with this remix.

The very nice surprise comes from the ambient version of Children Of Earth from which honestly i wasn’t expecting a lot. More than an ambient stuff i would call it a downtempo instead, you still recognize some Ultravoice’s leads from the original but now you’ve got an exotic rythmic. Ultravoice also plays with detuning a metallic bass tones from around 5’00, a very nice floating & musical journey (for when a whole ambient-downtempo album from Ultravoice ?)

 

 

To sum up the musical content & level quality of Art Of Voice, i would compare this album to an endurance’s runner 800 meters competition in which Ultravoice should the one who starts well but too fast (Ultradrive), burning immediatly majort part oh his energy & lost his stamina. As a result , he needs to calm down a bit in order during several meters (or here tracks :DNA,Art Of Voice) to recover a second breath (or inspiration like in Action & Drop It remix) indispensable to finish the race in a good time by providing a final rush (Flight To Space,DR Trance rmx & Children Of Earth ambient version) to have a chance of rejoining his opponents.

Indeed, i didn’t was expecting an as good album as Art Of Voice from Ultravoice even if he should still better run his musical potential according to me, it’s just a pity the total running time is so short aproximatively 62 minutes.

 

Mark :7,5/10

[Manuser]

Contrary to you Lotus I think 62 mn is enough for this album, too many albums are too long those days when every tracks have the same style. Here you have 8 soft melodic full on tracks + 1 downtempo trance track (not ambient i agree). I was pretty surprised, it sounds pretty simple for psytrance music, simple but I kinda like it, and the last track is really really nice, I love it.