Various The Secret of the Thirteen Crystal Skulls Tip.World (UK)

With the first Crystal Skulls compilation seemingly having some strange property that makes it impossible to remove it from your CD player, the second installment has been pretty high on the average Joe Psychedelic wichlist for some time now. And here it is: seven more revelations. Eat Static open things up in a delicious style, with their top notch poduction lending itself well to the start-of-album, start-ambient-then-pick-up-de-pace slot. Cyberbabas are up next, and in the same vein; nice swirls giving way to a get-up-and-dance kick. Alien Project’s Third Revelation is, um, well it’s Alien Project’s LSD and its inclusion here, while it’s a perfectly fine tune, seems a little out of place. Skip on to Astrix, who canes the phuck out of the crysal skulls concept with the Fourth Revelation, and what a killer tune. From a downtempo beginning, it progresses and builds tension into a wickedly danceable 4/4 midsection... before another breakdown and a sonic catapult into a REALLY outstading final run that’ll have their knees way up around chin height. Talamasca and 1200 Mics’ tunes are fine but kind of missable, and Shpongle’s epic final cut is kind of just what you’d expect from Shpongle – Posford’s accoustic guitar forming the base, morphing into a nicely twisted bit of trance hock full of soul. Somehow this CD doesn’t quite reach the high watermark of the first album, but nevertheless it’s a deep and addictive set of tunes, and testament to Tip’s unshakeable ability to mix psychedelic in with spiritual vibes.