Mountain High
Top level Music reviews Chill out/ambient reviews

Author: Per Kristian Slagsvold

Publishing date: 09.01.2004 11:49

Review by PKS
Candyflip Records in Greece goes chilled for a change....

Candyflip Records in Greece are known for mostly heavy full on psytrance releases. Now they try out something new, by releasing a chill out compilation. It is compiled by Alex Candy, who is the label manager for Candyflip Records. For those of you who don’t know what a candyflip is, it is when you combine extacy and LSD. The trip you get is a candyflip...


Mountain High (Candyflip Records) 2003 (CDCF06)

1. Solar Fields – The Sight Is White
2. Vibrasphere – All Green Seasons
3. Indidginus – Spiritual Spearmints
4. Triac feat. Sharon – Anticipation
5. J. Viewz – Untracked
6. Kick Bong – Incense
7. Nada – Numbers
8. Cell – The Bushman
9. Intocyrcle feat. Wiama – Maui Tici Tici
10. J. Viewz – Courage Wants To Laugh
11. AES Dana – Seaweeds Corporate

First out is Solar Fields (Magnus Birgersson) from Sweden who has released two albums on the French label Ultimae Records. The track we get here goes the usual Solar Fields direction, with deep atmospheric floating vibes. Totally relaxed slow ambient music. Track 2 is by the masters of progressive trance, Vibrasphere (Rickard Berglöf and Robert Elster), also from Sweden. They are also known for some really strong dub tracks on their two albums. The track we get here is not on any of their albums. This is a bit slower than we are used to from these guys, but still deep and dubby with good relaxing melodies. Nice one. Track 3 is by Indidginus (Michael Martin) from UK. This is a beautiful track with a tribal female voice, floating sounds, deep dubby bass and a simple melody. Track 4 is by someone called Triac and Sharon (Michael Reznik, Ilan Lanz and Sharon Safanov) from Israel. Here we get more relaxing dubby down tempo rhythms, and a psychedelic floating vibe. Nice one. Track 5 by J. Viewz is a side project of one half (Jonathan Dagan) of Violet Vision from Israel. He has proved great skills in the Violet Vision project, and here he gives us some dubby chill with ethnic influences. Some Balearic guitar and relaxed rhythms with a floating vibe above. Not as deep as I would like it to be, but okay if you want some café chill.

Track 6 is by Kick Bong (Franck Jousselin) from France who has appeared on several compilations lately. The track we get here is a pretty dark, tribal track, with some weird voice samples and a cool mystic guitar alike sound. Track 7 is by Nada (Humphrey Bacchus and Russel T. Davies) from UK, who mostly releases tracks on the chilled side of Dragonfly Records, Liquid Sound Design. Some of the tracks they have released on the LSD label are really great, but the track we get here isn’t as good as those, but not bad either. Heavy dub rhythms mixed with some tribal rhythms. I’m really looking forward to more releases from these guys in the near future. Track 8 is by Cell (Alex Scheffer) from France who has mostly released tracks on the Ultimae label. Here he goes the tribal way, and give us a deep relaxing track with tribal drums and relaxed down tempo rhythms. Could have been a bit more varied, but okay. Track 9 is by some Greek people called Intocyrcle and Wiama. This sounds pretty groovy with some psychedelic floating guitar and relaxing flute. Experimental and interesting. Track 10 is another track by J.Viewz again. Here he gives us a chilled track with guitar and some vocals he has done himself. The rhythm you get here reminds me a bit of house and I feel that the track lacks of something. The last track is by Aes Dana (Vincent Villuis) who also has mastered this compilation. He has released two strong albums on Ultimae Records, and here he gives us a taste of his totally deep ambient soundscapes. Very atmospheric and pretty dark ambient with experimental chilled beats and melodies. Nice finish on this compilation.

This compilation has some good moments, but doesn’t stand out to be more than an average good chill compilation. Nice to hear that Candyflip Records tries out something chilled for a change.
PK (shivapks@hotmail.com)


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V/A - Mountain High (Candyflip 2003) CD
Death Posture 19.02.2004 15:47
V/A – Mountain High

Format: CD
Artist: Various
Title: Mountain High
Label: Candyflip
Cat. #: CD CF06
Year: 2003

Track listing:

01: 07’25” Solar Field – The Sight is White
02: 07’22” Vibrasphere – All Green Seasons
03: 06’51” Indidginus – Spiritual Spearmints
04: 06’43” Triac feat. Sharon – Anticipation
05: 05’59” J. viewz – Untracked
06: 08’48” Kick Bong – Incense
07: 07’44” Nada – Numbers
08: 07’14” Cell – The Bushman
09: 07’01” Intocyrcle feat. Wiama – Maui Tici Tici
10: 05’51” J. viewz – Courage Wants to Laugh
11: 07’45” A.e.s.Dana – Seaweeds Corporate

From the misty mountains of Greece, here’s Mountain High!

Mountain high? Clever little play on words, eh? Nicey nice… Anyway, here’s a bunch of chilled tunes from Greek label Candyflip – compiled by top dog Alex Candy himself. Mastered by Huby & Vincent from Ultimae – which is a quality stamp in my book!

This is supposed to be a journey-compilation. Starting at the bottom of the mountain, and then progressing thru the tracks ‘till the mountain top is reaching with the last track… How nice a concept… Let the journey begin…

#01: The soundtrack to the first steps up the hill is this little wonder, by Solar Fields. Nothing complicated going on here, this is minimal ambient… Beatless grooves and mellow soundscapes… Pure ambient… Magical!

#02: Vibrasphere – The kings of progression! Does it get any better? ;o) This is dub territory folks… Easy going atmospheric soundscapes, deep groovy beats and brilliant little melodies – all very intelligently put together into one amazing work of art!

#03: Ahh, this one is so damn cool… Indidginus nailed it! The perfect chilled, moody ambience is there from the get go, with organic sounds – wind, water, chanting… Accompanied by a gentle keyboard playing a simple melody… And then, a deeeeeeeeep, dubby bass slowly pokes its head out…. How beautiful!

#04: Triac continues in Indidginus’ footpaths, up the mountain. We’re still at the very mellow part of the… ehh… mellow scale! Dubby beats, organic sounds, smooth percussion… Man, I like this part of the mountain! Electro trance melodies chilled to perfection! Nice track!

#05: J.viewz the downbeat alter-ego of Jonathan from critically acclaimed Israeli sensation Violet Vision… And the talent we all know clearly shines through on this experimental piece. Yes, we’ve moved north up the mountain and the focus is slowly going towards more tribal, housey dub… This track has some of the most interesting voice samples… Repetitive, eastern inspired chants cut up and looped… Very intoxicating. Another nice track!

#06: Kick the bong and light some incense! We’re getting even more tribal now… This percussion based track slowly builds into something that could be the soundtrack to some tribal ritual… Characteristic is the use of a minimal acoustic guitar… Or perhaps even a sitar? Can’t tell, but it sounds so good… I’m lighting some incense right now! Very ethnic, very slow, very nice!

#07: “Numbers go on!?” Rrrright, so further up the mountain, we’re getting just a little tranceier now… But just a little. The bass is a little sharper now, and suddenly we have drum loops… This is ethno electro dub, in its purest form… Also this track showcases good use of percussion with all kinds of nice rhythms… However, I feel it kinda lacks a sense of direction. Average track.

#08: Going further up, we encounter a bushman… Wow, jungle-influenced tribal beats alongside distant floating melodies and the random voice sample of a woman thrown in here and there…This is one funky bushman… Though, he tends to be stuck on the same note for a short while…And what’s with the abrupt ending? Decent track

#09: Ahh, things are picking up now… This dubby, electro piece has an instant wiggle-your-toe effect on you… All kinds of percussion are used here… Drums, bongos, claves, etc… Also we’re treated to a simple, yet beautiful melody that occasionally pops up… And again – a short sample of a woman sayin’ something in a foreign language… Very cool track!

#10: Takin’ it down a notch… So we’re going down the mountain now? Second track from J. viewz, though the style is somewhat different here… We’re going dubby again – I’d even go as far as saying heavy dub – With Raja Ram-like flutes… Eventually, the track reaches some kind of peak where we get some well crafted, slow electric-guitar sounds… Decent track!

#11: We’ve reached the top! This is Vincent of former Asura-fame – and man, does he know his shit! This is by far the “darkest” track here… Extremely well-produced dark, ambient here… Immensely psychedelic – trance-inducing in nature… Truly a worthy last track… This is amazing!

This is truly a magical journey. All in all, this is a huge, amazing, eclectic ambient compilation. The production is crystal-clear and the most of the tunes are so very good. Perhaps I would have changed the order of some of the tracks, to ensure a 100% flawless flow, but that’s really nitpicking… Also, despite the beautiful artwork on the cover, my digipack seem to be of low quality as the plastic-bit holding the CD has already detached itself from the actual digipack. That’s a shame ‘cause generally this CD oozes quality all the way through!

This album gain so much with headphones so put them on, close your eyes and climb that misty mountain! It’s a journey you’ll not soon forget. Highly recommended!

9/10

Favourites: 1, 3(!!), 6, 9(!), 10(!!)

DeathPosture
External links:
Candyflip Records: http://www.candyflip-records.com/
Psyshop: http://www.psyshop.com/shop/CDs/cfr/cfr1cd006.html (soundclips available)
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