Various Flip Out Vol II Agitato (Israel)

A wicked mix here from Oforia, not just made up of good tunes but mixed and massaged to perfection. BLT’s Genetics is moody and smooth-running, with nice timing on the sounds and a good progression through to a cool, sleazy final run. GMS’s Black Hole is again more introspective, and almost progressive tune that still retains their classic formula albeit under a restrained and tecchy raincoat. Onwards to Joti Sidhu’s Downpusher, which is a great example of what he does best, dark and metallic with a high energy factor and spooky-ooky, cinematic vibe. Hamasutrance vs Groove-A Tech’s Life Force is a bit of a gem, escalating into a very switched-on, interstellar groove with escalating sounds, deep textures, loads of acid and an energising effect you don’t come across that often. Electric Universe’s Embrace It, is either something you’ll love or you won’t, but the fluid melodies work well in the mix, and the twist factor is just right. Lemurians’ Identification drops the mix’s pace before building up into a sweet twisty fairground ride, before possibly the cleanest mix ever leads into Psydrop’s Radical Command, which as we said elsewhere this week is “pure goa – 16th bass, daft noises, killer synths, thru-the-roof melodies and bags of samples.” Finally Space Buddha’s I Think Therefor I Am is molten power – huge, thundering, satisfying, a melody that would part a nun’s legs and a final run that’s up there with the biggest ever laid down. A good mix full of call it, ‘intelligent full-on,’ stuff that demonstrates the cutting edge in banging melodic full-on. With the mix being as well thought-out and mixed as this, it all adds up to a pretty damn excellent release.

Eargear Panatlantic Remixes Hadshot (Germany)

DJ Team Eargear (Yak & Ramon) have pitched in a delectable blend of progressive, crunchy psychedelia that’s a taster of their forthcoming album. Trancehouseexpress is up for the remix treatment and believe me this will be doing the business no end this year. Der Dritte Raum are true to form on their mix, a sublime and floaty progressive intro with a snakey bass, adding layers and layers of pads, percussion and poke. A metallic semi-melodic crunch comes in for the lead and rides it out into a nice, DJ-friendly sunset. Ticon’s mix on the flip is a smoother more fluid affair with plenty of groove, a fat bottom-end and a darkly euphoric break. Quality.

Flowjob Super-Duper-Supernova / Fandango Love Sonic Disco (Germany)

We love daft names, so high hopes for this on before the needle even drops. Super-Duper-Supernova is a sweet, laid back progressive chap with a slight New York flavour and nice tucked-under vocal hooks. A mid-set melody comes in and adds a bit of distorted and filtered weaving, the vocal hooks take it back inside itself and the end section is driven by a ferrari-powered monster synthline. Fandango has a captivating bass that sucks you right in, with percussive clatters and stabs around the sides. On a similar laid back tip, it gathers pace nicely and mutates into a sweet, stoned morning anthem that’s reminiscent of Blue Planet Corporations’ most emotional moments.

Tavor Auch Krabben Tanzen Tango

Jum Jam (Germany)

Coming on gorgeous blue vinyl that looks good enough to eat, Tavor lays down three tracks of preposterously quirky tech-trance. Auch Krabben Tanzen Tango starts very low key but quickly picks up beefy pace, in a linear 4-4 almost military stylee. Littered with quirky burps and such, Tavor evidently has a fair old amount of humour pushing it along. It rides out with a hefty, reverbed-out growl that moves around quite nicely. On to Druckkraftverstärker is perhaps a more conventional bit of linear prog-psy, with a bubbly bassline and tight percussion. There’s a lot of pure-techno feel here, but there’s enough lysergic munchkin antics to keep everyone amused. I have no idea what to make of Sleepless, whether it’s a novelty tune or an out and out pisstake... any which way, the old skool beats and rolls fit great under new skool stabs, and it’s littered with what we’ll call “special skool” schitzophrenic acid blobs, twisted melodies, and a completely baffling conclusion.

Teleport Resumption / Sub-Stance PORN (Germany)

PORN is not just a more emphatic version of the word “porn”, it’s also Play Out Right Now,  a new label set up by DJ Matthais ‘Delay’ Göbel. The label’s goal is for an unpidgeonholeable (is that a word? It is now) crossbridge between as many styles of dance music as you can name, and on the strength of this release things are looking good. Resumption takes a detroit techno-inspired loop and proceeds to mess about with it in a way that’s 110% geared to the dancefloors. The breaks are killers, with a crashback that’ll send dancefloors going crazy. There’s elements of dirty house as it escalates and progresses through to a messy patch, reverting sublimely to smooth progressive when the intensity’s peaked. Sub-Stance starts out nondescript, but builds into an almost movie-soundtrack vibe that makes a groove out of partial sounds, noises and accents. Nice.

Funky B.O.T. Let Us Rock / The Drug Thing Mental Arts (Germany)

Listening to this, it’s nice to know this sort of thing’s still being done. It’s not far out, and it’s not that innovative, and it’s all been done before, but these chaps don’t seem to care about that. It’s about escalating higher and higher (and higher still). It’s about muddy festival fields with ‘orrible toilets, tar-textured chai and tripping rather hard. It’s about people with dreadlocks skinning up in the corner, kids with their shirts off popping pills like they’re smarties. Full of spirit, basically – a very long winded way of saying that this is outdoor party music for those moments where the tune doesn’t matter, as long as it rocks and as long as the vibe fits. Both these tunes go on for absolutely ages, Let Us Rock being the fullon dubby mountaintop stuff (if you ever heard Roy Aquarius, it’s similar to that) while The Drug Thing takes the above spirit, adds melodies and spacey dub-house flavours, and crosses it with the theme from Knight Rider. There you go.

“It’s not psychedelic but we got sent it, gave it a listen, and quite liked it” Of The Week

Total departure here - the mere mention here of chilled out lounge jazz-tinged house may well mean that a lot of you no longer want to talk to me, but for those of us with other halves who don't exactly relish the option of getting busy to the strains of cosmosis or paste need something like this. It's got the vibe of expensive chocolate and champagne love-ins, and it's the perfect vibe for chillingby the fire / beach / whatever. So yeah - bit soul-ly, but housey, a few dodgy vocals here and there but mostly pretty good. Available from www.naked-music.com, I'd suggest getting it direct as Naked's stuff tends to attract what's known as the "Trendy Bastard" premium in record stores.

Thanks

Thanks this week go to Boshke Beats for mentioning us on their email newsletter. And to reciprocate, here's a banner for Boshke Beats' new album Chronika, which'll be reviewed here next week (and would have made it this week but we didn't have the time.)

Cheers to the Boshke crew, and if you fancy this much free publicity delivered in such a nice and unassuming way, then drop us a mail and we'll work it out!

NOTE: We respect that as a modern global citizen of the 21st centuary, you get bombarded by advetsing all the damn time and we promise that this will never turn into a "ministry of psy" load of bollocks. If it all gets too much tell us and we'll stop it. And the average person in the western world is exposed to 1200 adverts ever single day. 1201 including the above :O)