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A sentimental favourite and a superb techno romp

Rinchen Choesang | Melbourne, Australia | 12/12/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"
Given that I am much more interested these days in the darker side of ambient and chill (Steve Roach, Lustmord, Pan American and Labradford to give a few examples), or the machine-driven music of Autechre and their ilk, I could have rated this at four, but sentiment wins out! This is another example of Tetsu Inoue's prodigious talent - a glittering gem that just magically appeared before me in a trawl through a music store's techno-trance bins in the days that genre appealed to me most.



I won't attempt to categorise this to the degree the other reviewer has (I'm no expert on musical styles, but I know what I like). This is certainly tending towards the ambient side of techno trance, but I don't know of many other artists who do techno, or indeed any form of electronica, as well as this (Steve Law as 'Zen Paradox' created the brilliant 'Eternal Brainwave' album, which is a worthy peer of this album, but the rest of his offerings fail to excite my neurons to the same extent, while Tetsu Inoue has left his talented imprints on various other projects).



There is not a dud track on this album. My only slight reservation is on 'Here Comes the Sun', which has an annoying high pitched accompanying squeak that permeates the track, making for uncomfortable listening on headphones. My personal favourite tracks are: 'Physical Reality', which very skilfully uses a woofer-warping inverted rhythmic pulse to mark the re-introduction of the main theme after a brief central interlude, which leads to a radiant, more spacy ending that organically fades into nothingness; and the superb 'Virtual High', which builds from an almost industrial opening ambience to a superbly driven trance romp, with a similar organic ambient fade. This is techno produced for the head, rather than the body - I wouldn't insult it by dancing to it!



The more ambient, spaced-out offerings that close the CD - 'Be Here Now', 'Big Chill Out II' and 'Ectoplasm' - bring a radiantly vibrant, pulsing album to an organically satisfying close.



THERE IS ENOUGH GOING ON HERE TO BRING SMILES TO THE FACES OF AMBIENT TECHNO TRANCE LOVERS, TETSU INOUE FANS, OR ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS A PENCHANT FOR ENGAGING BEAT-DRIVEN AMBIENT ELECTRONICA. HARD TO GET THESE DAYS AT A REASONABLE PRICE, BUT SOME AMAZON PARTNERS HAVE COPIES AVAILABLE AS I WRITE."

Ambient Goa?

jmcpherson14 | San Diego, CA USA | 01/09/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When this CD first came out, it was in my top 20 or so,
and I still give it a listen now and then ... especially
tracks 3 (mind-spirit opening), 5-7 (early rave?), 10
(psychedelic), and 11 (mind-warping :-). In those days,
I was listening alot to The Orb and Orbital, to give you
an idea of the kind of stuff I was into then.
This fit right in. The CD self-description says "deep trance ambient
experience", which sounds reasonable to me though I might
go further and say that it's kind of an ambient/spacey pre-Goa.
The beats are often fairly fast (135-145 bpm), but they're
not as "driving" as more modern Goa trance ... and the songs
tend to be much more melody- and effects-based than beat-
based. Several of the tracks are danceable, but all tend
to favor more-relaxed listening. This music seems to be
a direction that Goa trance could've gone but didn't ...
or maybe it's of a genre of electronic music with which
I'm not familiar (if you are, do you have some other
recommendations? :-) If the samples appeal to you, and/or if you like trancey
music from the early 90's (when raves were still unspoiled?),
then you'll probably like this CD. All tracks were produced by Tetsu Inoue, all but track 7
include Dennis Ferrer, and Biodream is listed on tracks 3
and 7. Special thanks were given to Peter Namlook (I have
a couple of his CDs), Atom Heart, Xelibrium, DJ Denard, etc. Errata: On the CD, track 10 is named "Big Chill Out II"."