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| AARRRRR, Matey! |
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 Yeah, I know. Usually it's talk of my nation's holiday that begins these July review recaps, but apparently showing such extreme patriotism is somewhat taboo in the eyes of our European counterparts. Go figure. Besides, since I'm currently stuck wearing an eye-patch due to an occular injury, I feel more pirate than Canadian for some reason. Maybe if I got an eye-patch with a maple leaf on it...?
Anyhow, just a couple reviews to talk about here. The big one obviously is John Digweed's latest entry into his Transitions series, this being fourth. If he keeps it going, chances are we'll end up reviewing the sixth as well to maintain our coincidental even-number coverage. Also, a Random Review gave us yet another release from the early 90s, this one titled Radikal Techno. Talk about a name that would have the Detroit purists balking, eh?
John Digweed - Transitions Vol. 4
Radikal Techno
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| Retro: A tad late. |
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Ah, yes. The Late Re-Cap. Remember when it wasn't uncommon to have these done two, three, even FOUR days after the fact? Back then, I blame the, er, extra party indulgences, but with extra responsibilities in the Real World comes extra commitment to keeping things smooth running here. Still, we do have to go on vacation occasionally.
In the meantime, the first half of June has seen a higher yield of reviews from us than we typically see at this time of the year. J' checked out a single from house veterans Christian Smith and John Selway, as well as the long-awaited sophomore effort from trance producer Mirco de Govia Iconic Path. And I had a listen to breaks act Atomic Hooligan's Drugs, Sex & Blah Blah Blah, plus Sasha's 'kind-of album' The emFire Collection. Clicky below to check them out.
Atomic Hooligan - Drugs, Sex & Blah Blah Blah
Mirco de Govia - Iconic Path
Sasha - The emFire Collection: Mixed, Unmixed, and Remixed
Christian Smith & John Selway - Fast Connection / Redeye
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| Finally, a big recap! |
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I'll be the first to admit our output thus far in the year of 2008 has been rather sluggish compared to prior months. Fortunately, with the onset of May comes two things: more free time, and more major releases. Let's have a gander at some of them, eh?
I'm going a bit out of our usual order here, in that I'll tackle our single compilation and single single first. J' carries on our house coverage, with the tenth double-discer from Ministry Of Sound sub-label Housexy and a digital release by Nicole Moudaber. Clicky below to check 'em.
Nicole Moudaber - Boxer Girl / Indecent Exposure
Housexy 10
Alright. Albums. Yeah, we got a few albums here. For our somewhat obscure offerings, I checked out some spacey psychedelia in Distant System's Spiral Empire and some groovy psychedelia in Flowjob's Zentertainment. Also, our Random Reviews finally makes a return, the pick being the self-titled System 7 debut, an album from the group's pre-psychedelia days. And finally, Armin van Buuren's new album Imagine is given the once-over by Alexander (I'm pretty sure this album is completely non-psychedelic).
Armin van Buuren - Imagine
Distant System - Spiral Empire
Flowjob - Zentertainment
System 7 - System 7
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| HouseCritic? |
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| Just go for it! |
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| April Fool's? What's that? |
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Nothing for you here. We'll be back shortly. No, really!
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| Spring is back, and so is trance. |
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It wasn't intentional on our part, honest. Yet we only recently realized that, aside from the odd psy album, our front page has been decidedly lacking in trance reviews for a while now. For a website called TranceCritic, that's quite shocking. Sure, we cover all aspects of electronic music, but when you are the #1 returned search result for 'trance music reviews' in Google, you probably should throw a bone to the genre more often.
So now we end the drought this month, with a whole bunch of trance reviewed. Some is from familiar names like Markus Schulz (in his latest DJ mix Amsterdam 08) and Leon Bolier with Mike Shiver (in a double-disc titled Trance Mission). Others may not be quite so readily apparent, as they aren't from producers you'd associate with trance. Alexander has amusingly referred to the singles from Riley Reinhold and Pig & Dan as 'closet trance.' Although I wouldn't deem that a genre-proper, you'll have to click the reviews for them to find out what he's talking about.
Oh, and we also have a house single from Moodymann reviewed for you too. Enjoy!
Moodymann - Technologystolemyvinyle
Pig & Dan - Deliverance
Riley Reinhold - Lights In My Eyes Remixe
Markus Schulz - Amsterdam 08
Trance Mission - Mixed By Leon Bolier & Mike Shiver
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| Spring hath arrived early-ith. |
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It's pretty clear, isn't it. Oh, not the weather, although it is. I mean commenting on the weather itself. It's the simplest of ice-breakers, and usually only utilized when there ain't nothing else much to comment on. Well, I s'pose I could talk sports, but how many of our fellow readers care about hockey and basketball? Not many, I'd wager (maybe J' should write one of these up, eh?). Politics then? Ooh, touchy subject, even if you don't care about the American primaries (down with Carol James!). And music itself is forthcoming anyway, so let's end this preamble and get to it.
Two singles here. Eric Prydz offers up his latest Pryda release in the form of Europa, while Martin Wheeler offers up his latest Vector Lovers release. On the album front, we dip our toes into something the indie kids are all ah-gah-gah over with Hot Chip's recent album Made In The Dark, and J' scoped out Joey Negro's contribution to new the Lust: Art & Soul series. Links below.
Hot Chip - Made In the Dark
Joey Negro - Lust: Art & Soul
Pryda - Europa / Odyssey
Vector Lovers - Lateshift / Babette
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| The Winter Slog Continues |
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You can never count on this time of the year for big releases. Oh, for sure sometimes a big single is released around now, though hardly a predicted one; rather, one of those super-underground hits that suddenly makes its presence felt at Winter Music Conference, and is jumped upon by every band-wagon DJ within earshot. Do we have such a release reviewed here? Perhaps...
Still, in honor of the American political primaries, we've decided to pull our own version of flip-flop for the opening half of February, and take a gander at a bunch of singles, leaving the compilations to the side for the time being. Alexander gets one from Donnacha Costello, thyself has a look at a collaboration between The Hacker and Eric Borgo, and J' scopes out a debut from RJ Productions.
Donnacha Costello - Black Bag Job
The Hacker & Eric Borgo - Zone
RJ Productions - 526
As ever dutiful though, we still have a pair of albums, albeit somewhat older. Fluke's spiritual second-act -2 Bit Pie- fell into the hands of J' recently, while I dipped back into the prog psy waters with Ace Ventura's debut. Clicky for the reads below.
2 Bit Pie - 2 Pie Island
Ace Ventura - Rebirth
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