It's very easy to confine yourself, to fall into that place of music listening where one acquires new stuff, but only stuff in the same musical genre or "type". Pursuing vastly different mental states created by music is a perishable commodity. So it's nice from time to time when something completely different falls down through the mailbox for review. This is exactly what happened when a bright yellow digipack dropped on my floor one day. Waveform Transmisisons 2, a compilation that concentrates on dub influenced psychedelic electronica. But the music can be quite diverse, in it's own circumscribed area. Featured among others are renown artists as Pitch Black, Warp Tecnhique, Capsula and Master Margherita to name a few.
Overall the production and composition and general feel of the music is really top notch, fresh, positive and happy. This music doesn't force you into intentional states, brings ideas or conceptions in your face, and that is what is so great about it. There is a lot of music within psychil, neo classical, downtempo and ambient that brings about a notion, an urge to understand reality and to get deeper knowledge about what it is being alive and being human. This music doesn't even make that question arise, there is no need, just enjoy life here and now.
The main theme is the near relationship with dub-influences but with a great many different approaches to this genre. There is cocky, heavy bass driven dark psydub as in Paddy Free's Lali (T1) and Warp technique's Wonderland(T5), a track driven by an extremely prominent heavy and dark bass line, seasoned with crisp twisted sounds. Also Capsula is featuring with a gloomy and intricately layered track 'I still know that I know'(T6) from his album Sense of a Drop. If you like panoramic psydub, and have a preference for an always ascending type of musical experience stained with a touch of insanity then Warp Technique – Wonderland(T5) might be the track for you. If darker more uptempo tracks isn't your cup of tea you can always relax with Intentional Observer – Quiet please(T7), a track coming on with a more loungy oriental approach with an airy character built up by tribal drums and a lot of acoustic elements, or Third Ear Audio – Up In Smoke(T4), a spacey mid tempo composition sprinkled with heavily synthesized sounds, while maintaining a continuous base where you can ride along. Master Margherita gets the finale with Antaris(T10) from the album Hippies With Gadgets, at first glance a meditative and heavily oriental influenced track but as the music progresses the tempo is lifted resulting in a quite strange but somewhat appealing ending. |
