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

Fourth week of October update.

I want to thank everyone for your visits! I really appreciate it, without you I would stop writing.

New Easily Embarrassed album is out now! You can buy it here. I'm finished with my review of the new Liquid Stranger album. I will post it soon. There is no releases coming up this week that caught my attention, but the following week should be much more exciting.

Because of the lack of news this week I'll go a month back in time to the release of Imaginary Friends by Ultimae. Those of you who get their newsletter must have heard about it, but for some it might be news. According to Ultimae it features "a melange of styles, different facets of ambient electronica infused with neo-classical moods, acoustic sensibilities, epic melodies and impressionistic textures and tempos for a vibrant and overall warm feel". Sounds impressive. I'm not sure what to expect from this release, but I thought I would mention it here since Ultimae hasn't released a single bad album (or compilation) so far.

A new psychedelic chillout review website by Trwolfe is up. He has one review so far, a nice collection of links and a very useful artist list. Check it out at http://psyreviews.trwolfe.com/.

With the month of October coming to an end I made the October compilation of my YouTube videos. You can see it here or on my channel. A few IDM tracks again, I'm really getting into that genre now. Also featuring a track from Liquid Strangers new album.

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

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

Release updates.

New California Sunshine album was released and a Liquid Stranger album is coming up soon. Here is the full list:

October 10th:
Para Halu - The Future Sound of Para Halu (Psylife Music)
California Sunshine - The Dark Side Of The Brain (Ultiva Records)
Bodhisattva 13:20 - Equations (2TO6 Records)

October 16th:
Shotu - Conception (Hadra Productions)
Liquid Stranger - The Intergalactic Slapstick (Interchill Records)

A review for an older album is coming up before I review something recently released. From last month's releases I listened to Open Source's album and I thought it was pretty terrible. A score of 2 out of 5 for me, not really worth listening.

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

Slackbaba - ...And The Beat Goes Om...

Here is my first review. I don’t have much experience so sorry if it’s very amateurish, I should improve as I write more :)

I’m always up for checking out an artist I have never heard of, especially when they are known for making psychill. Slackbaba was recommended to me on Last.fm so after a while I decided to listen to his album.

...And The Beat Goes Om... is an easy to listen to album and is very re-playable. On my first listen I wasn’t sure what to think because it is a little lighter compared to most albums in the same genre, but it grew on me very fast. While none of the tracks actually stand out that much the whole thing melts perfectly together. The album is pretty up-tempo compared to other psychill releases and you won’t find many ambient moments except for the first track which has a very beautiful intro. The only minus is that some of the tracks are a little too repetitive, but I guess after three listens in a row you would get that impression with any album. Expect some very interesting samples. Psychill and dub lovers will find everything they like about this kind of music on this release and some more, because unlike some other artists Slackbaba has his own distinctive style. This is definitely one of the best psychill/psydub albums I have heard in months and deserves way more recognition. Let’s hope he will release another album soon because this one is a real gem.

Rating: 4.5/5
Standout tracks: 1, 2, 8
Genre: Psyschill, Dub

Release info:

Label: Liquid Records
Country: United Kingdom
Released: June 2006
Credits: Artwork By - rich@purpleproject.co.uk
Mastered By - Kevin Metcalfe
Producer, Written-By - Jonathan Smith

Tracklist:
1. A Drop in the Ocean
2. Drink More Tea
3. Sea of Green
4. Long Sunny Daze
5. The Golden Apple
6. Metatron’s sugar cube
7. And the beat goes om
8. Fruit of Mahoot

Links:
Discogs
Last.fm
Myspace