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Samothraki Dance Festival has become well known in the trance scene all over the world after two success full festivals at the beautiful Samothraki Island (Sola Luna 2001 and Samothraki Dance Festival 2002). As a celebration of this festival, a new Greek label called Oktava Records was born last year and released a compilation called Argo. It was supposed to be released at the first day of the festival last year, and it did, but it was only available at the festival. Now, almost a year later, it is finally more available for everybody. All ticket sellers for the Samothraki Dance Festival 2003 are selling this compilation. This festival is known for hosting big leading artists in the trance scene, and that`s what you get on this compilation. It is compiled by dj Mario (Etnicanet). All the artists on this compilation played at Samothraki Dance Festival 2002.
Argo (Oktava Records) 2002 (OR001)
1. Dino Psaras – Daisy Cutter
2. Bamboo Forest – Element
3. Total Eclipse – Jadran
4. Dino Psaras – The Dervish
5. Orion – Body Baloons
6. Tristan – Dark City
7. Etnica – V.C.O.
8. GBU – Skol
First out is a track by Dino Psaras who runs Atomic Records. He is also known for Cydonia. He has changed his style a lot by the years. The track we get here is pretty dark, but with a funny almost synth pop alike melody. Very weird and different from what most other trance acts do. Track 2 is by Bamboo Forest who played really well at the festival. This track is typical Bamboo Forest with a very trancey/drifting sound picture, somewhere between progressive trance and full on. You get a hard pumping style together with light melodies. Nice one. Total Eclipse was the surprise band at Sola Luna 2001. At that live set, they played nearly only old goa tracks from around 1995-96. Wonderful! At their live set last year, they played mostly their new style, which you get a taste of here. Not as much melodies as before, but still you get some of that great Total Eclipse feeling from the rhythms. They make it much more minimal these days (maybe because Serge Souque isn`t in the band anymore?), but hopefully they will go back to more melodies after a while. Then we get one more track from Dino Psaras. He sure likes it weird. The track starts like a break beat track, before some really hard pumping rhythms comes in. Some dark psychedelic sounds, but away from that, the track is pretty minimal.
Jean Borelli (Orion) from Denmark also delivered a great live set very early in the morning at the festival last year. He follows the Alien Project style these days, and that`s what you get here except for a bit more dark sound picture in this track compared to most Alien Project tracks. Orion is a great producer who has been in the scene for many years. He has released two great albums on Symbiosis Records and Phantasm Records. Then we get a track from Tristan Cooke who is one of the most famous psytrance djs out there. The track we get here (Dark City) is to be found on his mixed compilation (Twisted Sessions Vol. 1) released on Twisted Records last year. A very dark twisted track, with a deep bass line and strange dark sounds. Pretty minimal as always from Tristan. Etnica was my favourites in the early nineties, but the style we get here and on all the other releases they come out with these days doesn`t fit to my taste. Very hard pumping minimal trance that for me sounds totally boring after a few minutes. But the track we get here isn`t among the worst I have heard of their latest releases. Where did all their fantastic melodies go? The last track on this compilation is by the three talented guys in The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (GBU). This is Serge Souque, most known as The Antidote and Total Eclipse, Frederic Holyszewski, most known as Deedrah, Synthetic, Transwave and Dado, and the talented dj Dimitri Nakov.In their studios at Ibiza they come out with one dance floor filler after the other, and they will hopefully release an album later this year on Solstice Music. The track we get here is pretty funky, hard pumping and drifting. Not among the best GBU tracks I have heard, but not bad. They were the second live act to play on last years Samothraki Dance Festival.
This compilation is pretty good if you are after some memories from the main stage at Samothraki last year, or if you just like these great artists. Nice selection of top acts.
PK
