Various Bakkelit Spiral Trax (Sweden)

I always fear that using the word “minimal” in the first half of a review will turn people off... but this is minimal in a new way, which kinda makes it maximal, ahem; the way the sounds move and slide around is what we got used to with the whole minimal / prog vibe, but this has an extra certain something I can’t quite pin down. Antoine’s Straight starts it all out with nonchalant, shrugging melodies and detroity stabs, giving way to the bouncier Rocket Ride from Logarhythmic. Watcher from the alphabetti-spaghetti-named ‘R’ is disco stu, rolling bass that works a treat under evil snarls and escalation into an odd and soupy groove. Noma’s Moonstomping is as sweet as the name suggests: spacey, magnetic, and sounding great in the sunshine. Chromosome’s Calming Fender, I love to bits: tad cheesy maybe, but has that grin-n-stomp thing taken care of, and if you love that positive-groove old-skool stuff then this’ll have you creaming your space tribe fluoro spandex pants like nobody’s business (though psyreviews concedes that the guitar part is one cowboy too far). Professor Kompressor’s Eter is deep and tribal, Birtik’s Sunshine Science is classy with a warp fader acid backbone, giving way to Artak’s floor-shaking finale, Shang Hayad. Hats off. 4