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Music reviews
Review by PKS
Solstice Music is out with a new compilation full of famous psytrance acts...
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Solstice Music is out with another trance compilation full of top acts in the scene. As usual they bring us a great cover art and music by some of the most known trance artists out there. This compilation was first released on Solstice Music in Japan, but luckily Solstice has made an office in Europe too (France) called Solstice Music International and Solstice World, so that the Solstice releases is available for the rest of the world too.
Holographic Memory (Solstice Music 2003) SOL-WCD006
1. Crunchy Punch – Enjoy
2. The Antidote – Voodoo
3. Mexican Trance Mafia – Aquario
4. Dino – Narco Sleeping Desease
5. Etnica – Starship 202
6. Quadra – Vociferous
7. Orion – Halluweird
8. Eat Static – Race To Space
9. Alien Project – Nitro
10. Bio-Tonic – On The Rox (GMS Rmx)
First out is a track by someone called Crunchy Punch. Maybe an unknown name for most people, but this is actually Ari Linker (Alien Project) from Israel and Jean Borelli (Orion) from Denmark in collaborating. This sounds very much like the style we are used to get from these guys lately. Since Orion is involved, it is probably a bit darker and has some more psychedelic sounds than the usual Alien Project track. Track 2 is by one of my favourite trance artists out there, The Antidote (Serge Souque). This track is much more minimal than usual from this guy, but it has the typical Antidote drift. Not among my favourite Antidote tracks. I was curious of who the Mexican Trance Mafia was. It is two guys I haven`t heard of before (Mario Garza and Daniel Gradilla). They serve track 3. A pushing fast trance track. Dark rolling rhythms pushing in a fast way. A very drifting track, but not very varied.
Dino Psaras is still going strong, djing all over the world. I really miss his Cydonia project, but he still makes music. He serves track four, a track he has made together with Steve Reeve. A fast pushing track with an intense melody. A pretty dark trance track, not as varied as before, but the little intense melody give you some of that old goa trance feeling. Etnica was one of my favourite groups once, but the last couple of years they have really disappointed me with some very minimal boring trance. Do you remember the great Etnica track called Starship 101 released on the Alien Protein compilation (Blue Room Released 1996)? Here they serve us Starship 202! And finally! After years of boring trance, they give us a great track with the good old melodic Etnica style! Not as melodic as before, but much better than any tracks released on their latest two albums (Nitrox and Chrome). They have a very banging rhythm in all their tracks they make these days, almost too banging, and you get this in this track too, but the melodies saves the track. You get some of the same melodies as the old track, so maybe it is a remix?
Next out is an artist from Los Angeles, USA, called Quadra (Ido Liran). This is surprisingly one of the better tracks on this compilation. Full on and melodic, but not in a too cheesy way. Jean Borelli (Orion) serves track seven. One of the most talented trance acts out there. This track is no surprise. It sounds very much like most tracks he has made together with Alien Project the last couple of years. But it is a bit more varied and psychedelic. A kind of dark sound picture a lot of cool sounds. Surprisingly Eat Static is represented too in this compilation. Those old veterans is still releasing a lot of tracks, like for example on various TIP.World compilations. This track is a hard banging trance track. Not among my favourite tracks from Eat Static, but it is pretty cool. They have their own sound. The track changes the last couple of minutes and become really melodic. Pretty different from what most other trance artists release these days.
Alien Project is everywhere these days. He gives us track 9. This time he has joined Raja Ram, who plays his beautiful flute in this track. It starts very pleasant with Shpongle alike flute by Raja Ram, before the typical rolling Alien Project rhythms starts pushing. It goes like this all the way, with a few breaks where we get some flute. It sounds very similar to all his other tracks, except for the beautiful flute parts. The last track is by Bio-Tonic who has released two albums on Solstice Music (Elektrik Colors 2001 and On The Rox 2003). They released the latest album this year. Here we get a track from the latest album (On The Rox) but in a remixed version done by the growling mad scientists Riktam and Bansi. Pretty good full on trance, but I prefer the original.
This compilation was a bit disappointing compared to the other compilations released on Solstice Music. When they release something, it uses to be a bomb. I think a lot of the tracks on this compilation sound too similar to a lot of trance we have heard millions of times before. But there are some strong tracks here too for those of you who doesn`t have much from these artists from earlier releases.
PK
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