If you would ask me to choose a single word to describe Guy Gerber's debut album, I would grind my teeth and would finally say: psychedelic. If you give me another one I would say: psychedelic trance. Many might argue that Sven Vath's Cocoon is far from being a psychedelic trance label, and that Gerber plays to crowds that are very different from psytrance crowds, and yet, with 18 years of listening to trance and dancing to its sounds behind me, I can describe it in no other way.
Gerber has been around for quite a long time and his tracks and remixes have been on vinyls and CDs since 2002. Some of his tracks floated in my direction in the past, and I always liked them, but since I'm not much of a vinyl man, I never really got to know his music. This year I got hold of Belly Dancing and was grabbed at first listen. So when I saw the album about to be released I pre-ordered it at once. I have it now for more then two months and it just gets better and better. The last time a trance album has been spinning at my stereo so often was a long long time ago. It took Gerber 5 years from his first release to get to his debut- and what a wise move that ended up being- I wish more would follow.
Gerber cooked here a rich highly psychedelic and highly hypnotic musical stew. It is very very musical, working on you with melodies, harmonies and atmospheres rather than the contemporary too abundant kick-bass combination. The grooves are devious and totally irresistible, and the whole thing has a hidden disco feel to it. The psychedelia has a 70s flavor and could be a great soundtrack to Fritz The Cat (the AMAZING cover would fit in perfectly as well). It is all very diverse and I find it very hard to box the different tracks into genres, however different they are from each other- always a good sign. The album has a beautiful moving mellow, almost melancholic, and at the same time optimistic, streak going through it. It manages to be an optimistic and melodic emotional album without ever touching kitsch, another rarity these days. |
