Music Review: PTX - Color Your Ears

PTX is back with his second album, released late last month on Noya Records, featuring remixes of Black & White and Etnica, as well as collaborations with Xerox & Illumination and Onyx.

This album follows the typical Israeli psy sound - full on and pumping. What it lacks it subtlety and depth, it makes up for with sheer brute force, pummeling listeners for a solid 60 minutes, letting up only for the final track, Alufa, a melodic piece quality of electro-house.

A good mix of "light" and "dark" melodies, Color Your Ears is a good release both for fans of a more euphoric sound, as well as those who prefer twisted melodies and scarier themes. In fact, a lot of the tracks start happy and melodic and descend into madness, or vice versa.

Like fellow Israelites Xerox & Illumination, PTX seems to lack direction at certain points, discarding melodies altogether and replacing them with an entirely new element, only to bring back the original sound two minutes later. As a result, the music can become incoherent, which can be irritating, but also keeps things entirely interesting.

PTX is not short of a melody either - whether it's typical trancey arpeggios, screeching guitar (actually used well, believe it or not), or dark, bubbling acid, each track has sound that really envelops and sticks with you. Blade (PTX Remix) is the best example of this, employing the extremely catchy melody originally conceived by New Order for their track Confusion, but translated here into a squelchy acid line instead. However, as mentioned earlier the hook drops in and out just a bit too often, and seems to lose the impact that it could otherwise have had.

Black & White - Blade (PTX Remix)

Less "catchy" tracks on the album are also highly entertaining as well, using more complex melodies and sounds, such as Off The Record, mixing light and dark sounds and employing a memorable bass line and interesting vocal sample to devastating effect. This is perhaps the most impressive track found on the release.

PTX - Off The Record (Original Mix)

At times, besides a lack of coherency in the tracks, the melodies can also tend to be a little convoluted, with 3-4 different sounds competing for attention, and detracting from the tune overall. Complexity is admirable, but not when it detracts from the music. In this case, less would be more. However, at times when less noise is present, this record's excellent mastering shines through. Engineered by the very talented and seemingly omnipresent Ido Ophir, PTX's fat bass lines and clean, driving percussion are displayed brilliantly, improving the listening experience markedly.

The percussion is one of the more enjoyable aspects of the album, with clear, raspy hats injecting plenty of rhythm into every track, and sharp clappers often providing energy at the start of a new phrase.

The bottom line: this is a brilliant release that misses the mark slightly at a few points but really deserves a lot of praise. Each track is well considered, well produced and makes clever usage of effects, some of which are rare or never thought of before. However, it's not a mould shattering piece of work. Pumping bass lines, trippy vocal samples and euphoric melodies - Israel has been doing this for many, many years. If you're looking for something different and ground breaking, look elsewhere. However, if you just want to sit down and rock your socks off, pick up a copy as soon as you can. Here is a good place to start.

Below is a preview of the closing track, perhaps a turn-off to big psy heads, but also offering a nice change to the rest of the album for those who enjoy this kind of music.

PTX & Ophir Leibovich - Alufa (Original Mix)

Genres for Genres

I got to thinking this morning about how ironic it is that people are so discerning about their taste in films, yet when it comes to music, some people are content to dance the night away to Fedde Le Grand.

I draw a lot of parallels between movie and music - not least because seeing a B-grade movie is just like listening to bad music - there's nothing wrong with enjoying it once in a while, as long as you realise that what you're listening to is absolute tripe.

This chain of reasoning led me onto wondering how each genre of music could be represented as a film. So, without further introduction:

House

Regardless of what kind of house music you listen to; deep, funky, jackin', soulful or gospel, it's all feel good. Excluding that of the acid variety, house music is almost always happy. Common lyrical hooks can include such inspiring, well written gems as:

"you gotta be strong!"

"keep on moving!"

"higher! higher!"

"feel the love!"

"I'm so overwhelmingly gay it hurts!"

As such, the logical movie partner for house music is the romantic comedy; effortlessly happy, relentlessly optimistic, and often very annoying. The two are such an uncanny match I hardly believed it myself. Romantic comedies always seem to follow the same pattern: guy meets girl, falls in love, messes it up big time, then triumphs in the end with a grandiose gesture that wins her back. House music is the same - vocalist falls from grace, finds God, then returns to "see the light!".

Colin Firth & Hugh Grant. Yuck.

The last nail in the coffin is a convincing one. What kind of people willingly watch a romantic comedy? Women and gay guys.

What kind of people enjoy house music? Women and gay guys!

Love Actually, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones Diary, You've Got Mail, What Women Want

Techno

This is a tough one, because, like house, techno can encompass a wide range of different feelings and styles, from Detroit to Schranz - though I'd say one feeling is more ubiquitous than any other, which is "my music is much cooler than yours".

Yes, tech-heads see themselves as a cut above the rest, better than those glowstick-loving ravers, anyway. The sheer amount of snobbery commanded by techno purists is enough to make even Lord Thistlethwaite the III drop his monocle in fright.

Of course, techno is often passed off as "intelligent music", but I don't think there's much intelligence about it at all - it's simply less fluffy than trance and house, and less twisted than the harder genres. The word "conservative" comes to mind.

So? What kind of film correlates? One that thinks it's smarter than it really is? Well, if we're talking about slower techno and tech-house, it's surely "the heist" or "thriller" film. You know, the one where the clever thief and the lead investigator play the sophisticated cat and mouse game, each trying to appear more at ease than the other?

"I know you stole that painting, Pierce"
"You think you know, so what are you going to do about it? "
...and so on and so forth.

If it's the harder type of tech we're talking about (Adam Beyer or Chris Liebing), then you've got yourself a murder mystery of course - same kind of thing, two characters jostling for position, each trying to outsmart the other - a sheer battle of wills, much like trying to explain to tech-heads that their music isn't the best thing ever, really.

The Thomas Crown Affair, Seven, Ocean's Eleven, Entrapment

Trance

Did I just say a dirty word?

Trance, you either love it or hate it. If you hate it, it's generally for one of two reasons:

1. You don't like flying over rainbows to magical happy land on the back of a unicorn.

2. You think trance is too fast, too hard, and pretty much the same as Gabba, in which case you've never really listened to it in the first place.

Trance is a music composed of WONDROUS melodies, overblown euphoria enough to make Willy Wonka cringe. Most of the people who listen to it are living in dreamland, riding on cloud 9, entranced by those shiny lasers and ascending arepggios. What fun!

Thus, trance can only be one thing: a fantasy movie.

Trance crackers are a lot like your average fantasy movie fan; they're lost in their own little world, oblivious to the aspersions being cast on them by others, and they like to dress up in stupid clothes too. Whether you're an Elf Mage dressed in a goblin-repelling green tunic, or a dirty raver wearing female-repelling phat pants, your head is in the same space - not on this planet.

Nice ears.

Tech and hard trance are a little more grounded, with a repertoire of harder beats and less of that namby-pamby, 20 minute breakdown, hands-in-the-air crap. As such, they embody darker tones and arguably cooler themes, which is why they are a Sci-Fi movie.

Bigger kick drums, harsher percussion, faster beats = robots, spaceships, aliens and lasers (of the destructive, killing kind of course, not the kind you reach for at 3am). Duh. Still, though Sci-Fi is generally pretty cool (think Arnie in Terminator), just like hard trance, it's also kind of gay - ala Star Trek.

Lord Of The Rings, Beowulf, The Matrix, Aliens, Merlin, Harry Potter

Hardstyle/Hardcore/Gabba/Hard NRG/Happy Hardcore/Hard House

Don't try and tell me there's significant differences between the genres, because there's not. They're all as stupid as one another - ear wrenching synth stabs, melodies that sound like they were composed by a monkey dancing on a synthesizer, and that blistering BPM. Music for infantile minds, really.

The movie choice is so easy I shouldn't even need to spell it out - schlock horror.

Like horror movies, the "hardcore" genres are meant to be scary, enjoyable purely for shock value. The people who consume both these types of media pride themselves on their "harder than thou" attitude, but don't realise that everyone is laughing at them.

Hockey mask: an effective cure for low self-esteem stemming from one's aesthetic deficiencies.

Paper thin plots, shonky acting, unconvincing scariness and questionable entertainment value, they all translate perfectly to hardcore. Paper thin melodies comprised of shonky sounds coupled with stupidity rather than scariness, and so on and so forth.

Resident Evil, Nightmare On Elm St, Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer

Psy/Goa Trance

To the amateur ear, psy-trance sounds a hell of a lot like hardcore. Fast tempo, big, scary bass lines, twisted, random noises and plenty of stupid vocal samples about drugs. Right?

WRONG.

Yes, Psy-Trance is still like a horror movie, but it's one with good acting, genuine moments of fright, and a believable plot.

Saw: twisted shit.

Still - you have to wonder about the minds of these people. House heads might be gay, tech heads pretentious, trance crackers off in la-la land, and hardcore aficionados missing two or three chromosomes, but what kind of sick mind enjoys this deranged, scary music, or spending three days listening to it out in the wilderness without a shower for that matter?

Saw, Identity, Psycho, Silence Of the Lambs, A Clockwork Orange, The Ring

Indie/New Wave/Electro House

Where house is outright flamboyant, indie considers itself playful, with such awe-inspiring vocals as: "disco, disco, disco, disco, disco, disco, need to disco!", and quirky themes about girls who like to go ten pin bowling.

Really, the genre is pretty much as stupid as hardcore, though it's lacking the "scary" element, and doesn't take itself nearly so seriously either, thus making it the brainless comedy. See here for more detail.

Dumb & Dumber, Night At The Roxbury, Anchorman, Billy Madison

Jungle/Drum 'n' Bass

Drum 'n' Bass is a very closed scene (at least where round these parts), with people outside of it largely clueless as to the kind of people who attend and where the parties are held.

Like trance, it's listeners are very much wrapped up in their encapsulating world, but much more aware of what the hell's going on around them. Their dark, fast music scares others away, making entry to the scene relatively difficult for most.

Thus, DnB's dark tones, fast pace, and strange sounds are much like that cult sci-fi movie which you've never even heard of. The background is impossible to grasp unless you've read up on the internet, the story too intense and long-winded to bother with, and plenty of stuff about futuristic vampires, clones and espionage. Definitely entertaining if you know what's going on, but otherwise just a crock of shit.

No examples here: they're all too underground for me (maybe Blade).

Dubstep & Grime

A close relation to DnB, Dubstep is a gritty, underground genre which fuses many elements, often using them to good effect, but sometimes missing the mark. It's accessible to the masses, due to recognisable elements such as MCing, or it's deep bassy synths. When done well, it's not too bad. 99% of the the time, I'd rather stab myself in the eye with a rusty fork instead.

Snatch, Lockstock & Two Smoking Barrels, Fight Club, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction

Leftfield/Trip-Hop

Now, here's a genre which you won't hear me slagging off. Surprisingly, this is a style I admire massively for it's innovative approach, artist integrity and emotional feel, yet rarely listen to. Why?

It's boring as hell, that's why. Where's the energy lads?

The best thing about the genre is the fact that by it's very nature, it can't be bastardized. In EVERY genre, there is good and bad music, and a selection of tracks made by talentless producers simply for fame or money. Left-field strives to be different from anything else, and thus doesn't seem to suffer so much from "cookie cutter" generic elements that other fields do.

It's unique, clever, and emotional all at the same time. It's an art house movie!

Just like art house, it's brilliant when you're in the mood, but if you're not, it's tiresome and you'd rather watch anything else, even Resident Evil or Night At The Roxbury.

American Beauty, Babel, Shawshank Redemption

Music Review: Digicult - Out Of This World

Digicult is a fledging full-on psy act consisting of Bert De Becker & Davy Piessens, based in Ghent, Belgium, which seems to be hosting a lot of talent right now.

Dacru Records is one of my favourite at the moment; label boss De Becker, also known under his pseudonym "DJ Nemesis", and his co-founder Eskimo, (not to be confused with the son of John "Phantasm" Ford!), have a great ear for music. In particular the Orientation series CDs compiled by De Becker are quite good. The music on this label is by no means deep, but it's not cheesy either. It's music made for dancing and enjoying, not analysing.

With that in mind, step into the world of Digicult and see what they have to offer with their second album...

The first thing that struck me about the release was the artwork; fantastic! The image above doesn't quite do it justice. Inside the cover is no different, with a clever sketch of an audio waveform clearly saying "Out Of This World".

The title is apt because each and every song is themed around space, aliens, interstellar travel and the like, right from the cosmic tones of the opening, Star Travel, to the last track, The Return, featuring Fatali. While I admit a deep love for "themed" albums, I feel that this one went a bit over the top. Every track contains a copious amount of "space" vocal samples, with a vast majority being taken from American documentaries, the speakers clearly being geeky astrophysicists or the like. This I didn't enjoy at all. It's good for samples to have a certain mystery or strangeness surrounding them, and these satisfy neither criterion.

Also grating is the sheer over-usage of samples - every song has one. Like huge emotional breakdowns in epic trance, these feel like they are more there because they "had" to be rather than for actual artistic merit.

On the upside, most of the snippets seem relatively unique, though the nice female "we are now charging..." sample heard in Domestic's Limited Addiction rears it's head again. I'd be interested to know where this originally came from if anyone knows.

However, samples aside, this is a generally pleasing album.

It's more trance than psychedelic, with "rolling" bass lines being the only real link to the psychedelic scene. I think this is a good transition album for someone wanting to make the jump between the two.

The opening track has a distinct "cosmic" Euro feel to it, not unlike PPK - Resurrection (cringe!). However, rather than use a cheesy hook and weak percussion as PPK did, Digicult takes it up a notch, adding a delicious bass line, minimal hi-hats and loads of gorgeous melody in various forms; string plucks, synth stabs and raucous arps. It would be incorrect to call the album "formulaic", but all the tracks are cut from much the same stuff as this. The lead sounds are engaging, mostly eventuating in medium-intensity builds and bass drops, though it's clear that the producers are wary of making things too epic, and the energy is maintained right from start to finish as a result.

Some different flavours can be heard in tracks six and seven, my favourite two on the album, with Awaken The Dream having a faintly Indian feel to it in the second half, a nice nod to the roots of the genre and a great dancy track to boot.



Following this is Magic, which dedicated psy heads will no doubt hate with a passion, but which I think is pretty cool. Infected Mushroom have copped a lot of flak for trying to combine guitars with psy, and I think in some cases it's warranted, but Digicult have done a good job here in my opinion, using 80's style guitars that sound like they've been lifted from a sitcom's opening theme. Sounds horrible, I know, but listen to the sample to hear otherwise.




All in all, a nicely rounded album with perhaps lacks depth, but makes up for it with consistency and doesn't take itself too seriously. Digicult won't win any accolades for inventiveness or originality, but that doesn't mean this album isn't worth listening to. On the contrary, it's highly enjoyable if you can get your head past the annoying samples.

Rest In Peace

Quick note: selections will be up tomorrow. I've been crap at updating recently, I know!

It's been a while since I've had to say goodbye to a favourite producer, whether through retirement, the dreaded "sell-out", or even...(eek) death.

Today I sadly welcome another to the ranks, and salute his past genius.

The person I'm talking about here is Ido Ophir, or Domestic, which are two names I've mentioned a lot as being marques for the full-on psy-trance genre.

For you see, on the whole, full-on psy-trance is complete and utter shit. Like electro-house, it's been used and abused, whether by Infected Mushroom's vocoded vocals, ala Cities Of The Future, or with cheesy melodies, as heard in Yahel's whole Around The World album. Thus, it's not hard to see why a lot of traditional psy and goa fans are disdainful of this facet of the genre.

In my eyes, Ophir changed this. His brilliantly produced 2006 album, Art Making Machine, was nothing but raw energy, minimal, yet catchy hooks and brilliant fade out/fade in intros, with an enormous sense of coherency to not just every song, but the whole album. Listening to it today, I literally wondered whether another album will ever be produced in my lifetime that even comes close to topping Art Making Machine - in any genre.. That's an absolutely ridiculous statement I know, but I mean it.

Ophir showed me what full-on psy-trance can sound like when done properly, and I can't say I've really found any other producer that even comes close to making something decent in this field. Black & White, Xerox & Illumination, Hujaboy, Pixel, Wrecked Machines, X-Noize, Electro Sun, Basic, Cosma (R.I.P - I mean it this time) - they've all shown sparklings of potential, but no consistency, and certainly nothing that could seriously change my belief that Ophir's work stands alone as a hallmark for the genre. (Zen Mechanics and other quality artists do good full-on of course, but what I'm talking about is the highly energetic kind, almost like hard trance in some ways).

Hence my disappointment today to discover Ophir has given up on this sound. I feel like an entire genre has just been felled in one foul stroke, cut off at the head.

After ferreting around discogs and beatport today, I found that the Domestic moniker is firmly on the backburner, and Ophir is instead producing progressive house and tech under his own name.

His latest production was a mere fortnight ago, with a remix of Beckers and Hatfield - Keep On, and prior to that, an original release in November 2007 called Symphony/Warehouse, with someone called "Velkro".

The productions aren't all that bad, but the problem is that they aren't all that good, either. They're well produced, but generic and uninspiring. In the current climate, where tech-house is dime-a-dozen, I feel Ido's talents would be far better spent in a genre that actually needs him; indeed he seems to have had a hand, in one way or another, in a vast proportion of Israeli psy releases over the past five years, whether mastering, writing or producing. (1,2,3,4)

I feel like a ship has just lost it's captain; now doomed to drift aimlessly around for years until someone else is able to step up.

R.I.P Domestic.

DJ Review: Tom C.O.S.M (live)

Track Selection: 40/50

Often labelled as psy-trance DJ, New Zealand's Tom Cosm has an extremely unique sound. His various sets on the internet (such as this one) display his wide range of influences and good ear for music across a wide range of genres. Sometimes starting with tech-house, he'll move through progressive or techno before ending with psy, which I suspect is his true love.

Thus, going to see his live show, which is composed entirely of his own productions, don't expect to be treated to an hour of trippy Posford-esque acid lines, pounding Israelite-influenced bass lines or even blissful Iboga Records style melodies. On the contrary, Cosm's brand of psy-trance is completely unique; barely psychedelic, and even far less trance-influenced, making it not really psy at all, were it not for the usual chunky bass line.

However, what really defines his brand of music is Tom's techy melodies. Whereas most psy-trance uses "trancey" melodies, his melodies are far more reminiscent of electro-tech man Roman Flügel, with squealing, blippy notes and tricky about-face melodies worlds apart from the euphoric build-ups and "rolling" nature of most trance fare.

His productions are very solid technically, though for my tastes a little disjointed, with breaks in unexpected positions and vague ideas that don't really seem to eventuate. However, it's still perfectly danceable and pleasurable to listen to.

If you're looking for an idea of what I'm talking about, you're in luck, because Cosm is unique in the dance world that, rather than sign his music to labels, he gives it all away. Free. To anyone who wants it, which I see as incredibly generous.

Tunes can be found on his website, here.

Technical Skills: 29/30

Armed with a laptop and Ableton, Cosm's equalising and beat matching was predictably flawless, but suffered from some poor phrasing in a few patches which threw me off a few times.

Effects usage when noticeable was very well executed.

Set Flow: 8/10

His progression is generally admirable, however based on both last night's set and some live performances found on the internet previously, his build speed is a little slow for my taste, with sets often seeming to hover in the one place for a long time.

Showmanship: 3/5

Like a lot of digital DJs, he keeps his head down mostly, but when he's not focussed on his computer his head is up, bopping along with the rest of the crowd and smiling.

Consistency: 5/5

Haven't heard any bad reports yet.

Overall Score: 85/100

Review based on one set in March 2008.