01. Two Dots
02. Silent Running
03. Phutures
04. Options
05. Wednesday
06. Groove Moderator
07. Magnetic Force
08. Apollo
09. Going down in Chinatown
10. Tron
The year 2002 is deemed to be an interesting year with album-releases from many of our top acts. "Phutures and options" perhaps being a focal point as the leaders of the genre pull forward. This new release comes after a matching name-change, apparently because saiko means "great" in Japanese. As the era of minimalistic tech-trance comes to an end, attentive listeners are reporting of a current trend among DJ's as to blend in regular trancy house. It seems a move towards more funky and downtempo tracks is in the offing. Hopefully, if there is to be any uniqueness left from the original psychedelic intent, (-being distinguishable from plain progressive house or minimal techno), more artist and DJ's will have to favour such profound and imaginative approaches as the Saiko-pod album clearly presents. The future of psytrance, and whatever options we shall have ahead, is clearly dependant on the willingness of producers to stay away from a blatant merger with other styles of techno and house, even as chances of making the same big bucks are perhaps far from close. Therefore, I'm very glad to witness how long time synthespians Ian Ion and Frank E deliver a set of full-flavoured and original psychedelic music, with the delicious taste of detail as always present. A clear progression and development of ideas reveals itself, unaffected by the current simplistic domination. However, this is not the duo's most advanced set of tracks as to date. Instead, the focus is on a groovy dance-oriented unhasty sound (mainly around 135 -140 BPM), as most of the tracks have shuffled rhythms and a funky feel, something not so common in psytrance until now. The choice of sounds is interesting and often unique, naturally subsequent of brilliant programming skills. I presume the presence of real analogue, virtual analogue and FM-assisted synthesisers. Unlike most minimal producers today, Ian and Frank are the kind of guys you can count on to bring out the possibilities in modern synthesis to a fuller capacity.
"Phutures and option" will probably come across as being a little less layered than earlier Koxbox and Psychopod creations. Some of the tracks might even be picked up by non-psy DJ's. But I'm not complaining. We have had a fair share of complex mind-twizzlors from these guys, and it's nice to see their talent pilot into new directions. Recognisably, some of the former features are still being applied, for example the characteristic short melodic phrases as in the tracks "Silent running", "Groove moderator" and "Magnetic Force". This is something that may seem easy in the making, but in Saiko-pod's design comes off as intelligent musication. Likewise, the filter envelopes (sweeps) are used expressively in short passages, and not in long phrases (because there are almost none), clearly a continued surpassing of the common language of goatrance (read: long and dull filtersweeps). The overall sound I would define as broad, transparent and balanced, taking care of the whole audible spectrum. As expected, the bass is not over-dominant or distorted, but the aim is rather to have a spacious sound as the selected basses subsist in the mid-tones region. The RMS (average volume) is mostly around -10 dBFS, meaning the tracks are not heavily compressed, thus leaving room for dynamics. The top-region is vivid as usual, and the percussive elements are supporting the flow nicely without being the focus of attention. Furthermore, the sound effects are not as drastic as earlier stuff has been. Instead, heavy reverbing is sometimes used, making single-shot sounds stand out from the otherwise well-defined elements.
Some of the most bouncy and pumping tracks on the album are "Two dots", "Apollo" and closing title "Tron". These workings share some resemblance to "6 cells" and "Crunchy moles" from the last album. Very danceable music. "Magnetic force", another groove-bop'er, has the added value of comedy and chaos, probably designed to get big grins going on the dance-floor with its persistent samples of monkey-laughter. Totally zoo! I'm not sure how it relates to magnetic forces though... The album also comes with a couple of other nice surprises, like the nifty no-kick tracks "Options" - being a funky warm bass-driven tune with a smooth and small, almost undetectable change in BPM, and later on "Going down in Chinatown" - being more of a chords and single-synth vivisection with a small breakbeat dropin at the end. "Wednesday" has a lovely mellow touch of "mid-week" aloofness, similar to much of the Saafi Brothers material. One of my favourite tracks is "Groove moderator", a loopy hypnotic shuffler with a nice closing build-down. I must admit to smiling from ear to ear the first time I heard the voice sample at the end... saying something about the future of music. I'm sure whatever happens, saiko will be there.
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