Psionic Religion

I don’t want to call this “Darkpsy” but it’s with respect to that particular subgenre that this album stands up best. Think of it as crunchy, quirky outdoor music that flirts with the early evening, and provides nourishment through the wee hours. Yeah, that’ll do.

Safi Connection takes on a new incarnation for Give Me Gitara – a far cry from his melodic and fluid stuff that dominates his Spliff label, this is bloody nice – a timestretched ragamuffin vocal is pitched over a backbone that’s frankly wonderful – tecchy, heavy, escalating into an oldskool freakshow for the finale. As if that was the starter, the main course commences with Damage’s Just The Fucking Bomb, which certainly lives up to its name. Beastie Boys’ vocals that get cutup and mashed about, a hectic brainbending bottomend, dazzling acid and a finale that crunches your testicles like they were Coco Pops.

Space Tribe teams up with Psywalker for Future Life, the product being more or less what you expect from a collaboration between Space Tribe and anybody – but with more discord. Olli is on top of his game at the moment following the rather nifty ESP project, and this is up there too – well-rounded, kaleidoscopic stuff that’s menacing enough to fit well on this compilation. Audialize’s Guideline isn’t bad, there’s a lot of activity in the midrange and while it moves along nicely enough, it lacks that little sparky something that holds the attention. Multistate’s Legoland takes a step further in the darkpsy, pixie-bothering forest stakes. It’s decent and it’s got plenty of little surprises – we like. Electrypnose continues, All In 1 being a solid romp through mushroomy darkness. The textures are amazing here – the sounds cling together without really combining, lending it a spacey, trippy feel.

Blisargon Demogorgon & Wizak’s Wake The Dead is, you hardly need me to tell you, bloody freakish stuff, that makes Doof Records sound like Astrix. Next up, Dark Nebula & Talpa with Dark Vortex. This is the first I’ve heard from Talpa since his album – and it’s quite different. Much heavier, much darker. A few too many samples perhaps, and a bit stop-start, but the good moments are bloody fantastic – the drop at seven minutes or so is a delight. With the quirky Infected-like Frozen from Miraculix bringing the album to a close like the first rays of dawn, it’s been quite a ride.

Over the last couple of years the darkpsy thing has been neglected, then feasted upon, then became saturated, then it became stagnant; and despite all this, Digital Psionics have pulled out an album that’s fresh, quirky, danceable and – most importantly – faithful to itself. Good job.