The Flashbulb – Arboreal

I’ve only heard the tip of the iceberg as far as artists put in the IDM genre go. Kettel, Secede, Wisp, Venetain Snares and that’s pretty much it (I know, no Aphex Twin, but I will try something very soon). The Flashbulb is not new to me, I have Reunion, which was a decent album, but pretty forgettable. I decided to give his new album a listen to see what else he has to offer.

The opening track is a very beautiful piece, one of the best on the album. It sets a good mood for the journey you’re about to begin. The second track is also excellent. I especially like the vocals, they blend in perfectly. As the album goes on it gets a bit more aggressive. The tracks are not really harsh or anything, but we drift away from the melancholic pieces from the beginning. And then starting with the seventh track we go back to the calmness the album began with.

The second part of the album is pretty standard chillout, nothing innovative or that I haven’t heard before, but it sounds just beautiful. I especially like the piano and guitar throughout the album, great to hear instruments in this kind of music. The second to last song titled Skeletons has a guitar section that took me by surprise, but it was an interesting moment. I am not too fond of the vocals on this one though, they are not necessarily bad but there is something annoying about them.

Overall I am really surprised with how good this album came out to be. It has very few weak points and overall it’s a very good and relaxing release. It’s also very listenable. The first time I gave it a listen I played it three times in a row and I could do it many times more. I guess it’s more ambient than what he used to make, but he should keep on the path he’s on now. While waiting for a next album I will probably give his older releases a try and let you know what I thought of them.

Final grade: 4.2

Pros: Piano and guitar use, atmosphere

Cons: Some vocals can be annoying

Tracklist:
1. Prayer
2. Izel
3. Out Of There
4. This Way (Live Edit)
5. Subconcious
6. Gaia
7. Times A Billion
8. Smile
9. Metamorph
10. Impulse
11. Dark Dub
12. Biocircuit
13. Raining Dub (Special Breaks Edit)



Label: Alphabasic
Country: United States
Released: 8 Jun 2010
Genre: Ambient, IDM, Chillout

Links:
Discogs
Official

Kuba - Bringing It All Back Home

Chillout artist Kuba is back with another album. I admit I haven't heard the middle two yet, just Inside Out which was a cool experience. Before I even got to listen to Inside Out enough for it to grow on me and pick out the best tracks on it I found out he's out with his fourth album. As I haven't heard the other two I won't compare this to his other work.
The album opens with a very chilling Monk Dust. It's a really nice piece, with "tribal" vocals repeating throughout the track. Not very psychedelic or dubby, just good old chillout. The next track is a bit more dubby. Sounds very similar to what I would expect from Kaya Project. Just great. After the first two we get something different. Heavy dub sounds, a psychedelic vibe and reggae vocals. I am not a big fan of this kind of vocals in chillout music, but here they definitely sound good. And as if there wasn't enough happening the listener gets some magnificent flute playing as well. Really cool track, not the best vocals, but they fit well. Track number four is titled They All Went To A Party and it's totally different from the previous three. It's pretty upbeat, almost trancy and a bit monotone, but still one of the best on the album. Perfect soundtrack for a rainy day train ride. The next track is a pretty simple one. Uplifiting guitar playing, flute and a lively beat make it one of the most chilled tracks on the album, but it's a bit on the cheesy side. Still nice to hear. The next track features guitar as well, but I like this one much more. Not as uplifiting and a bit more ambient, very beautiful. Soft female vocals are a very nice addition. The following piece is titled Mushroom Daddy In Dub and it has a lot of reggae influence. Really nice sounds, Kuba really shows how varied his styles can be. Make Me Water is the second trancy track on the album, not really impressive, kind of simple, but still worth a listen. Next on the list is Keep Walking, which has hardly any beat at all and keeps on building up and right when you expect it to climax it dies down and ends. It's very good though, great sounds Kuba offers us. Track number ten is a dubby chillout tune with an ethnic sound. Good one. Next is Maria From Huddersville which has a very heavy feel to it. Not sure what is it about it, but it's one of the best on this release. The outro track is an ambient piece with some vocals, a good ending to the album
This album is an amazing experience. Psychill, trance, dub, reggae, ambient. You hear everything on this one, but none of those styles stands out at any point. Maybe it's a bit inconsistent, but all tracks are at least good. Very positive and uplifiting vibes, perfect for anyone feeling down. While I usually prefer the darker side of electronic music, Kuba knows how to deliver without being cheesy. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4.5/5

Standout Tracks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 11
Genre: Chilout, Dub, Psychill, Reggae, Ambient

Release info:

Label: Chillcode Music
Country: Germany
Released: November 2009

Tracklist:

1. Monk Dust
2. Where's Fragga
3. A Shoe String (Spaff Mix feat. Shaky)
4. They All Went To A Party
5. The Sky You Are (Feat. Tiago Coimbra)
6. It Keeps Us Down To Size (Feat. Michele Adamson)
7. Mushroom Daddy In Dub (Feat. Charlie Shuttler)
8. Make Me Water
9. Keep Walking (Feat. Michele Adamson)
10. Bringing It All Back Home
11. Maria From Huddersfield
12. A Tangerine World

Liquid Stranger - The Intergalactic Slapstick

The American producer Martin Stääf, aka Liquid Stranger, is back with a new full-length album. The first album was an amazing journey through his sounds, very heavy in dub and overall just a very chilling experience. On his second album he continues to give us a very heavy dub sound. This time however we don't get as much ambient and vocals are present on most tracks.

The album starts out with a minute short intro track. The two following tunes are really awesome psydub. Just what I like  in this kind of music, heavy beats with a psychedelic twist, just awesome. Seb Taylor plays steel guitar on His Fully Automatic Wheelbarrow. Following the first two we get the first vocal track. The reggae sounding vocals are the main focus of the track, but it's much less complex than the first two. It continues like this through the next few songs. Heavy dub beats, reggae vocals, but unfortunately they lack the psychedelic twist I mentioned.  But even though less complex than what I like to hear, the music flows nicely. The vocals can be annoying at times and at other times they are enjoyable. Tantrum and Bodily Needs are examples of tracks where I couldn't stand the vocals. Tantrum had a reggateon feel to it which I absolutely hate and Bodily Needs, while it's a decent track overall, has some terrible vocals towards the end, both lyrically and in the way they sound. Then the album finishes off with two great tracks. Lotus is a very calming piece with softer beats and beautiful female vocals. Dew Point is the most ambient track on the album and a beautiful finish to it.

This album is something different compared to The Invisible Conquest. More focused on the vocals, it loses some of the psychedelic beauty. Two or three bad tracks are equaled out by the standouts making it a good album, with some minuses. While the change of style is interesting and enjoyable for the most part, the tracks most similar to what we hear on his first album are standouts.

Rating: 4/5

Standout Tracks: 2, 3, 12, 13
Genre: Dub, Reggae, Psychill

Release info:

Label: Interchill Records
Country: United Kingdom
Released: 16 October 2009

Tracklist:

1. Hiding In The Morning Mist
2. His Fully Automatic Wheelbarrow
3. Dancing On The Petals Avoiding The Nettles
4. Soundboy Killa
5. Full Mental Jacket
6. Tantrum
7. Dub Missile
8. Mutants
9. Rough Road
10. Hexed And Perplexed

11. Bodily Needs

12. Lotus

13. Dew Point 

Links:

Discogs

Last.fm

Myspace

Artist Profile: Sebastian James Taylor

For those who don't recognize him by his real name he is also known as Digitalis, Shakta, Kaya Project, Hibernation and also for his collaboration work, most notably as Angel Tears with Lior Miller and Momi Ochion. If you still don't know who am I talking about then you're missing out. Seb Taylor is one of the most versatile electronic music artists, often compared to Simon Posford, but unfortunately not as well known His music styles range from pure goa trance through chillout with world music influences to IDM.

Taylor started out in the early 90s producing goa trance under the alias Digitalis. Sometimes described as breakbeat goa or psybreaks his work as Digitalis is pretty unique stuff, often being pure breakbeat. He's still producing under this alias with the last EP released in 2008. In 1996 he started his pure goa project for which he is probably best known, Shakta. With tracks like Silicon Trip or Lepton Head Part III he guaranteed himself a place in the goa trance history. His sound with this alias is pretty hard and heavy sounding goa. Around the same time he also released as Somaton, also goa, but in a little lighter melodic form. It never gained as much popularity as Shakta.

But even though he is an amazing psytrance/goa producer what impressed me the most are his chillout productions. He is one of the core members of Angel Tears which started out in 1998. Wonderful chillout, with calming melodies, amazing flute playing and hypnotizing vocals. Lots of indian, arabic and african influence here. Some tracks have a bit faster beat, but overall Angel Tears offers very calming, meditative music. We hear a lot of authentic instruments like indian sitars, arabic violins, tibetan flutes etc. After Angel Tears, Kaya Project followed. Pretty similar by definition, but with a more natural, "dry" sound. It's hard to explain what makes Kaya Project unique, but just give the latest album a listen and you'll know what I mean. Really passionate music. Just when you would think Seb Taylor can't do any more styles he released an IDM album as Hibernaion. Well maybe not pure IDM, but very different from his other chillout output. You can hear some influences from the days of Angel Tears, but it's something completely new. Let's hope that's not the last he has to offer as Hibernation.

In the sixteen years of producing he released 13 albums, 9 solo and 4 with Angel Tears, and numerous EPs. Everything I heard so far is just amazing music and he keeps on evolving. And what's most important he hasn't gone commercial. We can hear passion in his music and as long as he is passionate about what he does we can only wait for another masterpiece.

Solo Albums:
Somaton - Future Memories (1997)
Shakta - Silicon Trip (1997)
Digitalis - The Third State (1998)
Shakta - Enlightened Ape (1999)

Shakta - Feed The Flame (2004)
Kaya Project - Walking Through (2004)
Kaya Project - Elixir (2005)
Kaya Project - And So It Goes (2008)
Hibernation - Some Things Never Change (2008)

Collaboration Albums:

Angel Tears - Angel Tears (1998)

Angel Tears - Angel Tears Vol. 2 (2000)

Angel Tears - Angel Tears Vol. 3 (2002)

Angel Tears - Angel Tears Vol. 4 - Vision (2005)

For his complete discography go to Discogs. He has many more aliases and collaborations with only a few tracks for compilations or one or two EPs. I only covered the most notable projects.

Links:

Discogs

MySpace

Kaya Project - Official

New releases update plus the promised goa playlist.

The new Shpongle album is coming up very soon and it is available for pre-order from Twisted. I'm really excited about this one and I refuse to listen to any samples until it comes out.
I gave a listen to the new Bodhisattva 13:20 album. I'm not really a big psytrance fan so my rating for those albums will always be lower than some other styles (unless it's a real masterpiece), but this album is pretty good overall. 3.5 out of 5 for me. Worth checking out, but nothing amazing. It's a bit on the dark side, but you can't say it is a darkpsy release. The California Sunshine album will be an interesting listen, I'll put up a review soon.

Releases for the next week (both due October 23rd):

Kalumet - Burlesque (Halu Beats Records)

Easily Embarrassed - Planet Discovery (Cosmicleaf Records)

The new Easily Embarrassed album is one of the highlights of this month. The first one had some very interesting tracks and they sure showed they have talent so this should be good.

I also created the neo-goa playlist which I mentioned in my article. Over 52 tracks from the artists from my list. Enjoy!

Adham Shaikh - Fusion

As I promised I'm reviewing an older album now. Sorry for being a little inactive lately, I had some more important business but now I should post as often as before.

The first track by Adham Shaikh I heard was Opal. And I loved it right away. It's just one of those tunes that get you entranced by themselves. The flute (more specifically it's a bansuri) played here is amazing, the beat is just right, everything works. So after hearing that I didn't wait long and decided to give the whole album a listen. Adham Shaikh takes you on an amazing journey, listening to his music feels like you leave the place you are in and travel somewhere far. The most amazing thing about this album is the use of flute, how Adham mixes it in the tracks. The first two tracks are probably also the two best ones, or at least the most entrancing ones. The beat here is pretty fast, but nothing too crazy. Then we get into the more dubby part of the album with the excellent Dubfire which sounds like it could be an Ott track. From then the tracks are pretty much chillout with an indian sound, but they are very entrancing as well. The last few tracks are more trancy again, Shake It (Shaikh It) is pretty much a dance song. Which doesn't mean they are not good, everything sounds just perfect. The album finishes of with Rabbit Hole Raga (Spore Mix) on which we get to listen to some more flute playing.

This album will please psychill, chillout, ambient and maybe even trance fans with a great mix of all these genres. The great thing is that unlike the majority of producers Shaikh uses real instruments on most of these tracks and mixes them in with the rest. And fortunately here we can hear them because often if lets say a guitar was used it's sound is changed so much you can't really tell it is a guitar. It was definitely worth checking out, amazing music.

While in my opinion this is his best release his other three albums are great too. Journey to the Sun is much more ambient but the other two are very similar to Fusion.

Rating: 5/5

Standout tracks: 1, 2,5, 9

Genre: Chillout, Dub, Trance

Release info:

Label: Sonicturtle Records
Country: Canada
Released: October 2004
Credits: Producer, Written-By - Adham Shaikh

Tracklist:

1. Opal
2. Flying Beyond
3. Dubfire
4. Infusion (Bombay Mix)
5. Ohm (Transfix Mix)
6. Gayatri Mantra Shuffle
7. Somptin Hapnin (Ganesh Mix)
8. Shake It (Shaikh It)
9. Newborn Shuffle
10. Rabbit Hole Raga (Spore Mix)

Links:

Discogs

Last.fm

Myspace

First month of my blog. September release summary and albums coming in October.

Thanks to all of you for commenting, following and visiting my blog. I managed to get nearly 500 pageviews which is much more than I expected. Hopefully the numbers will continue to grow. I posted three reviews so far and that's what I am planning on doing every month. September has been a very intense month as far as new releases go. I still haven't listened to Banco's new album, but when I do I'll post a review. Here are the releases from last month that caught my attention. If I listened to them I added my rating.

Banco De Gaia - Memories Dreams Reflections

Capsula - Sense Of A Drop (4.5/5)

Argaman - My Little Forest (3.5/5)

Side Liner - Missing Pieces Of A Puzzle (4/5)

Union Jack - Pylon Pigs (5/5)

Smiley Pixie - Chillout Moods To Urban Grooves

Open Source - Uncultured (2/5)

Soundaholix - Soundaholix Annonymous

Way Out West - We Love Machine

Heyoka - Gate Code

Lokesh - Utopia

DarkShiRe - Breakdown

Vishnudata - Vishnudata

And the first week of October watch out for (all due to be released Ocober 2nd):

Radical Distortion - Psychedelic Dreams (Suntrip)

Rawar - A Journey Through Time (Wild Seven Recordz)

International Observer - Felt (Dubmission)

Union Jack - Pylon Pigs

Union Jack is back with a new album, fourteen years after the release of There Will Be No Armageddon and twelve since their last single. Clasudio Giussani left the group and was replaced by Paul Brogen (also known as Pob). This is probably in my top three most awaited albums of the year because Union Jack, alongside Art of Trance, has influenced my taste like no other project.

I was afraid even these guys would succumb to the new trends in music, but fortunately they haven't. They haven't forgotten their roots, most of the tracks sound like goood old school trance and just like on their first album we get a few chillout gems. Blink stands out a little stylistically sounding more like modern trance, but it's still a very good track. The acid sound is a little less noticeable on this one, but it's still an acid trance album, something extremely rare these days. The trance tracks have a very hard beat for the most part, lots of acid and a dark sound. Unlike most albums the chillout tracks are put in between the trance pieces which is a pretty good idea. Instead of cooling off after hearing the whole album we get a calmer track more often. The cover is pretty interesting, but very different from the old style Platipus cover art. I liked the old ones more, but this is nice too. It's really hard to find a minus on this album. Even though it sounds old school it's much fresher than all the stuff that gets called "trance" these days. Union Jack does not sell out and gives us another trance masterpiece. It's been a very good year for Platipus records. Six new releases, an Art Of Trance collection and a few compilation albums show that the label is back in the game.

Rating: 5/5

Standout tracks: 1, 2,10

Genre: Acid Trance, Chillout

Release info:

Label: Platipus
Country: United Kingdom
Released: 14 September 2009
Credits: Artwork By - Kiosk, Gemma Winter 
Mastered By - Paul Brodgen 
Producer, Written-By - Paul Brogden, Simon Berry

Tracklist:

1. Papillon
2. Submerge
3. Triclops
4. Longhorn
5. Mainlining
6. Blink
7. Lifeblood
8. Vowel
9. The Dark Major
10. Funnelweb

Links:

Discogs

Last.fm

Myspace

Argaman - My Little Forest

My Little Forest is the second album by the Israeli producer Itai Argaman, but first under this alias. He's known for making psytrance, but like many produces he also decided to make some psychedelic chillout...

The cover is pretty interesting and it caught my attention. It looks more like a cover for a Disney DVD than a psychill album artwork, but I actually like it's cheesiness. They say "don't judge a book by it's cover", but in this case I couldn't resist. Especially if it was released by FairyTales Records... After listening to the album it's obvious all this cheesiness is intentional as the music itself has many "fairytale" moments. Most of the tracks have some light dub and classical mixed together with "magical" music which gives it an interesting and very unique sound. There is a lot happening in every track so they never get boring and they are not repetitive. It's pretty weird stuff though and one or two times I was about to skip to the next track. I cannot say this is my favorite style, but I have to give him credit for having some cool ideas and most of all for creating his own style. Most of the time when I hear something new there is always some other artist or album I can compare it to, but this is something new. I've been hearing good things about this album before my first listen and even though it's not really for me I know many people love it. Seeing what Argaman comes up with in the future will be interesting.

Rating: 3.5/5

Standout tracks: 1, 4,9

Genre: Chillout, Dub

Release info:

Label: FairyTales Records
Country: Israel
Released: 4 September 2009
Credits: Artwork By - The-Pash

Mastered By - Itai Argaman
Producer, Written-By - Itai Argaman

Tracklist:

1. LSDing Camping
2. You Will See
3. InHarmonic Symphony
4. WierDUB
5. Don't Leave Me Alone
6. The Old Times
7. It's Not For Money
8. The New Vibe
9. Concertina
10. The Silence

Links:

Discogs

Last.fm

Myspace

"Memories, Dreams, Reflections" released! New releases update.

One of my most awaited albums of this year, Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Banco de Gaia was released on September 11th. You can order a copy here. It's not really a regular artist album, but as he stated on his blog disc one is is remakes of a few songs that influenced him plus remakes of his old tracks and the second one is a "selection of live recordings taken from over the years". Maybe not as exciting as an album full of new tracks, but still something to look forward to. My review of it coming as soon as I listen and analyze it.

Sense of a Drop by Capsula was also released on Waveform Records on September 8th and My Little Forest by Argaman was released on September 4th.

Side Liner - Missing Pieces of a Puzzle is due to be released tomorrow, September 14th.

Lots of new stuff in one week. Check back for my reviews of those.

And here is a taste of Flooting Grooves (another September release) on my latest YouTube upload, enjoy.

Upcoming albums for September

Upcoming releases confirmed to be released in September. Full length artist albums only.

Banco de Gaia - Memories Dreams Reflections

Capsula - Sense Of A Drop

Argaman - My Little Forest

Flooting Grooves - Psydeburns

Side Liner - Missing Pieces Of A Puzzle

If you know of any other releases let me know :)