Month: April 2019

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THYX – The Way Home (2011 album)

Album links

Bandcamp: n/a

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/thyxmusic/sets/the-way-home-5

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0jqzq1zmNqeqgp5EPAetfF?si=bwrhPyAXSaG-t-WPMDv2Rw

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mUzWpLoCPvTdb8vHEcrnwQh9LFcsmJJjo

 

Í̶̢̮͇̟͕̫̹̹̔͑̍̿͑n̷̡̜̘̮̠͚̺̫̭̼͉̓͌̓͑̓̉̕t̸̨̢̬͈͍̗͕̥̟͓̅̉̀̽̂͌̊͂͘̕͝r̵̨͙̟͖̜̪͖͖̿͑̾̈͌͗͑̍̒̿͆͛ó̸̺̖̠̱̀͛̒̿̕͠d̴̬̦̀u̷̢̨̫̠͍̜̯͎̯̠̽͌͐́͜ͅc̸̛̯̋̿̎̀̈́͆̒͊̀̚͝t̵͉͓̳̅į̴̛̹̱͎̪͎͕͉͓̲͚̥͎̱̅̏̀͗̕͝ò̷̢̮͖͓̻̈́͆́́̈͒͒̆̈́͊͝͠n̸̗̼͓̦͕̱̳̾:̶̧͉̳̪̟̝̳͚̯̅̀͌̕ͅ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L̸a̷s̶t̴ ̸t̸i̵m̸e̸ ̴o̸n̶ ̷T̴h̴y̶x̶:̵ Ẁ̷͙ả̵̠i̸̳͌ṱ̷́ ̵͓̦̍͝a̴̖̋͠ ̴̝̀s̴͔̀̓e̷͕͔̐c̵̨͗̄o̸̼̪̒n̶̙̈̓d̷̮̿ ̷͕̓w̶̺͕͒̽h̶̜͂y̶̤̗͊̍ ̴̦̌͗a̴͕͒̔m̶͉̑ ̵̘̈̈́Ï̸̛͚ ̷̛̭͔͘d̶͎͌̀o̶̻̍͘ȋ̸̧͓n̸̠̂̆g̷͇͋ͅ ̷̞͚́̄t̶̜̿͊h̸̨̪̔̀ĩ̵̘̘s̷̤̪͑?̶͇̆̈́ ̷͖̐͛ I̵̝̝̳͙̒͊̕͘ ̸̑̃ͅh̷͙̩̊à̶̜̜̱̲̀v̶̘̙͗e̵͉̥͇̳͝n̴̝͌’̵̯̺̩͕́̚t̴͉͈̀̒̓̓ ̷̱̎ṛ̶̤̦͆̂̚e̶̖̾͝v̵͕͍͚͈͘ǐ̶̺̈̏̕e̴̙̎͝w̶͉͉̌e̵̺̲̖̘͑̇d̶̘̩̥͌͝ ̶̞͙͉́Ț̶̪̮̘͘̚h̵̲̪͐̀̐͗y̴̧͗̕ẋ̵̢̞̤͂̆ ̷͖͉̖̒̌͗̕b̷͇̲̜̆e̷͙̤̓͘f̴̢͓̮͂̍́ͅo̶̖̫͕͕̓͂́͠r̶̢̬̞̫͑̒̕ḛ̶̀̔̌…̶̟̻͎̓̂ ̴͔̺̦́͒͘ t̸̲͕̖̪̰̳͒̏͌̄̀͋ḧ̴̪̹̝̌̎͑̊ḙ̵̠̈́̂͘r̷̨̫͉̙̮̰̓̊͂̓͠e̸̪̝͇̼̥͋͂̉ ̵̧̻̬̺͐ǐ̶̹͔̏̑͛ṡ̶̭͗ ̴̝͙̪͒̽͆̐͛͑ǹ̷͉̫̦̮͚̄͜ó̴̲̋̿̃̈́̈́ ̶̹̟̜̙̤̺̐̆̈́̀͘l̸̡͈̘̥̲͒̓̈́̓̀̚͜ä̴́̈́̀͜s̷̲̾͘̚ţ̷̡̡̤̣͔̈́̉̆ ̷̢͕̥̱͋͐͊͑̄t̸̜̗̟̺̟͋̔ì̶̡̬̖̠̦͇̉m̵̨̦̥̱̓͝ė̷̢͈͈̟͖̜̈́͑̀̾̚…̴̟̟̘̠̦̫̚

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction: THYX isn’t a new artist. The name is new yes. You’ve never seen it on this site before. But I started reviewing the man behind this name all the way back in early January. Perhaps the whole introduction/last time/introduction bait and switch at the beginning of this review has keyed you in on exactly where this alternate alias comes from. It’s Mind.in.a.box, the artist behind the narrative of Black getting caught in the struggle between White’s Stalkers and The Friend’s Sleepwalkers.

 

But as established in the last Mind.in.a.box review, Stefan Poiss hasn’t devoted all of his time to the Mind.in.a.box narrative. After the singular non-canon album that is R.E.T.R.O., Poiss decided to create an entirely new alias for the songs that don’t quite fit into the story. Boasting four albums so far, the THYX discography is a neat little side project that I really haven’t spent enough time listening to.

 

Of course, since reviewing these albums requires me to listen to many of these song on loop for a extended periods of time, that may be about to change.

 

THYX – Spoil (7): Now then, I’m not going to avoid comparing this to Mind.in.a.box. Such comparisons would be inevitable and it’s only right to highlight a few nuanced differences between the two sides of Poiss. There is a lot of overlap seeing as their source is the same. The vocals are no different from what I’d expect from Black’s story. Perhaps a bit cleaner in tone, but it’s clear that the man behind the mic is still Stefan and he still expresses many of the same existential themes in his lyrics (more on that later). The music also still has a huge focus on arps that reflect a technological soundscape. This song in particular has some great guitar riffs that are in no way foreign to Mind.in.a.box. Just take a look at Machine Run and every song related to it by using the same riff pattern.

 

Unfortunately, from a reviewing standpoint, any differences between the two aliases are a bit too subtle for me to be sure how to describe them. The sound is, from what I can tell, a slight bit cleaner than most of the Mind.in.a.box songs. Oh yeah, there’s still some grit there. The drumbeat is actually above average grit for Mind.in.a.box despite the rest of the song being a bit on the chiller side. And there’s a bit more variety in that drumbeat as well, constantly switching between half-time, four on four and syncopation not keep anyone listening on their toes. Other than that, it’s just the usual fantastic technological soundscape I love.

 

The lyrics in this one are a bit tricky. There’s the chant of either “Get to me” or Come to me” for starters. I’m not sure which one it is, but I’m pretty sure there’s very little difference from the meaning of the end result so it works. The rest of the lyrics, however, speak of spoiling… something. Someone somewhere screwed up and brought another person to fall. There’s some implied regret in there, but honestly, it’s kind of tricky to visualize the scene that’s painted here.

 

Song still sounds good though so there’s that.

 

 

THYX – My Own Little World (8.5): I must say that as far as the music goes, this reminds me more of R.E.T.R.O. than canon Mind.in.a.box. There’s no connection to any Commodore 64 games and an entirely modern tone to it, but the bassline seems to remind me more of R.E.T.R.O. than the other 6 albums in the Mind.in.a.box discography. The bassline is especially responsible. Mind.in.a.box seems to tend towards incredibly fast arps for its bass or slower smoother basslines for its calmer tracks. This one appears halfway between, somewhat similarly to all of the video game covers from R.E.T.R.O. Either way, the bassline is only really relevant near the beginning of the song. I barely notice it later on as it takes a backseat to everything else.

 

Everything else has some decent development to it as every instrument intensifies as it goes on. The drumbeat starts off rather calmly with a few beats here and there, but by the end of the song, it has a strong prominent syncopated pattern. Not overwhelmingly energetic but still stronger than where it began. Also, the main melodic instrument of this song, I mistook for a simple ambient element, but by the end of the song, it morphs into a full-on guitar solo (less energetic than most, but still much more powerful). Even the vocals start with a whisper and end in a passionate cry.

 

And those vocals tell a fantastically relatable story. Not an overwhelming narrative story as in the other alias, but instead focuses more on the themes of Black’s journey without delving into the specifics of the Agency and the Sleepwalkers and everything else my favorite artist throws at us. Think of this song as an accompaniment to the themes of Machine Run and Redefined, though not nearly as powerful as the connection between those two greatly heighten my enjoyment. Plus, it’s focused more on the isolated sense of self one has in a crowd full of people. In my experience, the overwhelming pressures of society often cause me to keel under my own suffocated desires and isolate myself into any form of escapism I can. It’s the easy way out, but it’s not the healthy way out.

 

I too desire to renounce my habit of isolation that only poisons me slowly as I shut out even the projects I value (like this blog I find myself procrastinating on too often). I too, desire to change.

 

THYX – The Way Home (6.25): Titular track! Let’s take a look…

 

The last two songs had rather harsh beginnings. Gritty drums. Strong basslines. This song however opts for something calmer. One echoing simple melody. A mysterious way to start this song for the first 15 seconds before getting that bassline (and technological arp of course) introduced. Unfortunately, from there, the song doesn’t go through too many changes. It definitely sounds good, but instead of morphing over the impressive seven-minute duration, the song is really just easily divided into two sections. The first half being the upbeat 4 on 4 section (which I already just described) and the second half being a slower paced calmer vibe where the vocals serve as the main highlight. The second half is an appreciated change in pace, but it isn’t especially musically remarkable, and it doesn’t provide quite enough variety to justify the seven minutes.

 

The lyrics that those vocals present to us though, are incredibly cryptic and all too difficult decipher. I really wanted to try and scrounge up a meaning, but it all seems to be some sort of hallucination or dream (web?). There are some mentions of destiny and the world passing by which are neat concepts that are explored better elsewhere. But there’s no real narrative or message between them here so I guess we’ll move on.

 

 

THYX – Underdive (8.5): Kicking the album back into overdrive, we have the song titled Underdrive (don’t ask questions, just go with it).

 

Underdrive marks one of our peak for upbeat on this album. There are a few others that are fantastically upbeat too, but there’s only one that comes even close (which I’ll obviously talk about later. but this one does serve as one of the most energetic outings of THYX’s debut. There’s an incredibly solid kicking pulsing from beginning to end without a break. It doesn’t really tire though as the rest of the song provides plenty of variety (including a snare to keep the drumbeat bit more interesting). Plus, Poiss adds some signature arps which only increases that drive to new levels thanks to the rapid progressions. There’s also a bassline in there that’s a bit interesting, but it doesn’t really contribute to the drive of Underdrive so I’m going to pretend it’s irrelevant (my excuse for not having much to say about it other than it’s interesting).

 

So, the music is nice and simple. Easy to sum up and yet quite solid. Are the lyrics equally simple? Well they certainly aren’t as cryptic as The Way Home, so they’re at least simpler to look through. However, that does mean I actually have more to talk about seeing as there’s some actual meaning to this one. This soul-baring track is all about delving deep into one’s own soul. Trying to make sense of the inner workings of one’s mind while also making sure to keep a hold on the outside world. You can dive deep into the unknown soul for some time but you must always come up for air by finding what’s real. The journey of self-discover never truly ends and it’s important to keep a level head throughout.

 

Oh and one last odd thing to mention is how sometimes when Poiss sings “Back on track” it sounds like he’s bleating like a sheep. This doesn’t really affect my rating of the song in the way. I just find it to be amusing.

 

 

THYX – Black Hole (7.5): Following the incredibly driving song known as Underdrive, we have a song named after the enigmatic black hole, an area in space that bends reality to a point where its gravitational force sucks in everything around it, including light itself. Obviously, such an intense unrelenting object from beyond the stars would be one of the most intense song on the album, right?

 

Well, as Underdrive has shown, titles can be deceiving. Black Hole is actually one of the slowest and least energetic songs of the album. Compared to the last song, every melody and drumbeat here is progressing at a crawling speed. Looking at the arp alone, you can easily hear the beginning and end of each note. But that still doesn’t prevent the chord progression from moving smoothly from chord to chord. This arp takes the brunt of the music in this song alongside some soothing pads and a drumbeat that joins the song halfway through. These drums do give the song a slight bit more of a drive, but it’s still incredibly slow paced compared to the rest of the album.

 

However, while the tempo doesn’t fit the title Black Hole, the song isn’t fully false advertising. A Black hole isn’t just defined by a dead star that bends reality with its own gravity. It’s also a void of complete and utter darkness. And these lyrics are the bleakest this album has to offer. Even the vocals themselves sound as if the singer (almost said Black but had to remind myself this isn’t in any way canon to that auditory universe) has completely given up hope. And the lyrics? Even bleaker. Black Hole is about regret and the inevitability of failure. It declares life to be dark, cold and hopeless. And yet, somehow as the song closes, there’s one last bit of false advertising. “Together we will find another place… I will bring us home.” Hope may seem lost at certain points in life, but sometimes one just needs to move forward to find a new place to find peace. There is always hope.

 

THYX – Awesome (6.5): Continuing with the trend of false advertising, we have Awesome. Awesome isn’t awesome. Oh, it’s not a bad song, but it doesn’t really stand out in the slightest. Really just run of the mill for the album. Solid drumbeat. Good bassline to accompany that drive. And a melody to add a little bit of flavor to the rest. Overall, the song is pretty groovy. Not much variation, but the song is short enough that it doesn’t matter. Plus, it has some great robotic vocals that allow it to stand out among the other songs (which mostly use cleaner vocals).

 

The lyrics are a bit odd though. Poiss keeps on switching between three different vocal sections. The first is a conversation two robots have between themselves on how awesome the song is. I personally find awesome to be a stronger adjective than necessary, but these robots don’t think it’s strong enough, so they make sure to strengthen that adjective with some choice intensifiers that cause this song to be labeled explicit. Probably the most amusing of the three lyrical sections.

 

The second vocal section I hesitate to call lyrical, because it sounds like it’s made entirely of chopped up vocals so that they can be used as more of an instrument rather than a vehicle for words. Or maybe there are lyrics in this part too… I can’t make them out… and no matter where I search, I can’t find any sources that give me a hint of what could possibly be said.

 

The cleaner vocal section is a bit clearer though it really just sounds like the singer just wants to be told whatever it is that he wants to hear. Apparently what he wants to hear is endless ramblings on how this song is awesome. Oh… and he also wants poison… ok…

 

This song is not awesome but it’s good enough

 

THYX – Snow in July (8.25): Ok, not false advertising really, but it doesn’t snow in July. Or at least it shouldn’t. But it snows in April up here in Wisconsin so hey it’s a possibility. An unwanted possibility but a possibility, nonetheless. As far as I can tell, snow in July is an inconsequential concept to this song other than in title so hey maybe it is false advertising in a way. Not sure what it was advertising, but I don’t think we got it.

 

Snow in July is one of the most enjoyable songs to listen to on this album. It’s got plenty to offer and plenty to love. The variety in this song stems from how it becomes more powerful over time. It’s not quite as dynamic as My Own Little World, but still notable. The intro probably has the most rapid change as it starts out quite completely calm with the bass and the vocals echoing in the distance. But as time goes one, the drumbeat draws the vocals and bass closer together, reaching a passionate high as the singer (again, not Black, old habits die hard) declares he’s not better than the rest. From there, the song continues to build more as it introduced more melodies, more syncopated drum patterns and the most technological vibe in the album (or at least I find it to be the closest to the usual Mind.in.a.box style)

 

Oh and before I go on to the lyrics, I wanted to make sure I mentioned how much I adore the way the Poiss pushes the upper limits of his vocal range. I think I’d mentioned this in a previous review but a sudden increase in pitch in male vocals makes a song incredibly enjoyable to sign along to. They’re challenging their vocal range, so perhaps I shall too.

 

While the music is definitely enjoyable, I find the lyrics to be a bit iffy. Oddly, when I was first listening to this song while preparing for this review, I had the impression that this song was about finding your place in society as you reach your goals, making this one of the more inspiring songs of the album. I was partly right. Yes, there are glimpses of the inspiring aspects I mentioned (which was probably what threw me off), but there is an unfulfilled tone to it all. Yes, goals have been reached, but immediately after he claims that nothing has improved and nothing matters. He’s just another face in the crowd no better than anyone else. You know. Typical existential despair.

 

 

THYX – In the Past (7.25): Really not going to spend too long talking about the music this time. It’s a rather simple song with medium tempo and a nice groovy arp and the occasional guitar riff. Plus, it has a decent melody at the end that reminds me of classic Aviators (who you probably don’t know but I plan on reviewing him next week, so you’ll know soon). That’s pretty much it. Really not much variety in this one. That’s fine though. At least it’s not overwhelmingly long

 

Plus, we’ve got lyrics to make the song a bit more interesting. This song is a bit of a grab bag. The song starts and ends with themes of misplaced anger, a man wanting vengeance and yet no knowing why. He’s forgotten a piece of his past I guess (strangely similar to the Mind.in.a.box universe, but again, this stuff isn’t canon). There’s also a few lyrics in the middle of the song that reflect more on the isolation that was introduced in My Own Little World. And for a fourth theme, Poiss’ favorite theme, we have change, escaping the monotony and trying to find a way to move on to the next chapter in life. Change will happen, but it’ll happen more quickly if you work for it before the doors close around you.

 

This song has a lot of great ideas as you can see, but it’s so eclectic that I feel it would be a bit better if there was more focus. Thankfully, there’s plenty of other songs in this album and the Mind.in.a.box discography that do a lot better

 

THYX – Into the Realm (8.25): Into the Past, Into the Realm. Regardless of the song, we’re going in.

 

This song’s calmness rivals the relaxation of Black Hole, spending much of its time devoted to the ambient chords and a simple drumbeat and bassline. None of it is intrusive, but for the first bit of the song, none of it significant either. I actually don’t care much about the music of this song until after it breaks the mold of being relaxing. Around one and a half minutes, the song quits rivaling Black Hole with its utter relaxation and offers up a more upbeat chorus. The song still uses a rather medium tempo with only a tiny bit of syncopation, but it’s enough to break the silence it once shared with Black Hole. The song still remains relatively chill though. Just not the chilliest it could be.

 

And that’s fine. My opinion of Into the Realm is mostly about lyrics anyway. This song rivals Black Hole in another way by diving into some extremely bleak themes and ideas. And this time around, Into the Realm wins (Black Hole isn’t the darkest song on the album? False advertising!). Like a few of the other songs I’ve gone over in this album. Into the Realm is about isolation. But this song is the most broken of the bunch. The whole song is apathetic to existence, tortured by the monotony, trapped in an undesirable place in one’s life, and closing the entire world out, suffering alone…

 

This song is the darkest I can go without spilling over into overly edgy Ashbury Heights territory. And these days, it’s hitting me a bit too close right now.

 

THYX – No Voices (8.25): Just as Into the Realm attempted to rival Black Holes in its calmness. No Voices attempt to rival Underdrive in its intense drive. It’s not completely upbeat during the entire song, but that doesn’t prevent it from winning the battle. Not only is the BPM faster i ngeneral, there are several elements to this song that reach heights of speed that make them sound slower than they really are. Makes sense? Probably not, but maybe I need to be more specific. Look at the arp. It may be difficult to notice it’s there at the points, not only because nearly everything else is so loud, but because the notes play so undeniably quick. The song is already at 160 BPM as it is. And seeing as the arps sound like they’re made completely of sixteenth notes, that means that the arp is at a speed of 640 BPM. Not to mention the hats, which when present also seem to blend in with each other due to their speed.

 

Other than the insane breakneck speed this song has, there’s some other elements that make the song stand out among the rest. The song sounds the most experimental overall, as many if the instruments sound crushed and glitched. The bassline is quite odd from the beginning, as it sounds like it’s made of several layers of overly distorted noise, though hit does so in a way, that is strangely pleasant to my ears. There’s some synths that reach a pitch that could very nearly be piercing, but they barely skim the upper limits without breaking the painful threshold for me. The chord progression is rather simple, as it simply climbs upwards repeating the same four chords again and again, but it really adds to the intensity to the track. And lastly, the lyrics are repetitive, but the vocals are not as it sounds like every iteration of “No voices in my brain” has a different tone to it. It’s all unique and it all works.

 

No voices in my brain. Sounds like a good thing to me. Don’t know about you, but if there were voices in my brain, I’d find that a little bit horrifying, especially because in many narratives, voices that intrude on one’s brain tend to be of the malicious variety. I guess, if it was a friendly voice that just spoke nonchalantly of pleasant things, some of them being direct encouragement and others being just general fun things that the voice was interested in, I’d be totally into the company. A shame that this song implies that such a voice isn’t there. It certainly isn’t there in my life. Or maybe the voice is more subtle. What if the voices refer to thoughts themselves, the internal train of though in which we speak to ourselves in our head: neutral voice that sometimes ends up positive, sometimes ends up negative, but most importantly, the voice that truly represents our own true identity.

 

I don’t want to lose those voices…

 

THYX – Crack It (6): The conclusion of this album is kind of underwhelming. It’s not bad, but it also pales in comparison to many of the other songs, especially because the second half of the album is quite high quality. I guess part of it has to do with the fact that there’s no lyrical content to rely on, yeah there are vocals, but all of it is chopped up and nonlyrical, so there’s no unique message that could possibly heighten my experience. However, I guess that does serve to make this song a bit more unique. That’s really all the song has to offer though. The rest is rather unremarkable. It’s slow but not relaxing. It’s absolutely repetitive. And it takes way too long to fade out in the end.

 

Honestly that’s all I have to say on this song though. Bit of a lame ending in comparison to what preceded it, but they can’t all be winners.

 

Conclusion: The Way Home was quite an interesting album to review as I went in here completely blind (just haven’t found the time to listen to THYX for some reason despite being aware of the alias). Overall, I do enjoy the divergence from Mind.in.a.box. It has a slightly different feeling than Mind.in.a.box as this album did not stray from the technological instruments in the slightest, while Mind.in.a.box has been consistently using pianos and guitars. I do miss the narrative and that is part of what’s preventing this album from being solid like the Mind.in.a.box albums I reviewed, but it’s still a well-enjoyed experience.

 

Final Score: (7.5/10)

 

 

Posted on

Infected Mushroom – Converting Vegetarians (2003 album) pt 2/2

Part 2 – Other Side

 

Album links

Bandcamp: n/a

Soundcloud (Other Side only): https://soundcloud.com/infectedmushroom/sets/converting-vegetarians-the

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3LbcBylGvC80f5OTeQaVuM?si=DRj2Ry1zQ1qfIxNXrcvF9A

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL718C82948CE653CE

 

Introduction: Alright! Time for the Converting Vegetarians review part 2! Not to be confused with the Converted Vegetarians part 2 review. That comes much later.

 

Anyways, we’re in for something a little different today. Last week was all psytrance so it felt a lot like one of the other Infected Mushroom albums I reviewed. The other half of the album however… the other side… It’s absolutely completely different. I guess I’ll let the music do the talking. I’d written the first half of this reviews if I’d release it all at once along with the Trance Side but that didn’t happen. So let’s just dive right in and let my words on the song, Converting Vegetarians tell you about the album, Converting Vegetarians.

 

Infected Mushroom – Converting Vegetarians (7.5): When the titular song of this album introduces itself, it ends up slightly jarring. The first ten songs all shared a common theme and together formed the “Trance Side” of the album. The “Other Side” has no theme to it. Unless you count the perpetual state of being odd in general to be a theme. Because a healthy portion of these songs are simply odd. Even if this was how the album began without over an hour of trance setting a precedent, the song is such a strange mixture of textural instruments and distorted vocals, that the majority of listeners might be initially put off by the vibes that Infected Mushroom is introducing in this album

 

I, however, love it.

 

I’m all for variety and this song definitely delivers on that front. There is such an interesting variety of carefully placed chaotic patterns to keep the song fresh and engaging throughout. Instead of catering to the psytrance side that Infected Mushroom has been known for up to this point, this song explores every corner of Infected Mushroom’s sound design, deconstructs it and reconstructs it into something new. The song takes on a slower pace with plentiful basslines, some a little too screechy (only true negative of the song in my opinion) and others that have a very deep unique groove. My favorite instruments in the song have to be the fully vocal ones though. The broken scatsinging in the background as well as the various voices used to display these lyrics (ranging from calm and slightly distorted to a cleaner voice belting out the lyrics without concern of losing his voice).

 

Those lyrics though… Oh boy do I have some lyrics to decipher. I mean, the likely goal of this song was to make a statement that the two of them aren’t limiting themselves to just the one genre any more. They shan’t sell out and give the people exactly what they want and expect, but instead explore other areas of their soundscape. It’s a song about transformation. And those that had been solely consuming their psytrance shallf be converted from their vegetarian diet (apparently psytrance contains no meat), to larger variety of genres (some of which is likely steak, I would like some steak right now, thanks).

 

However, I do find the mention that they’ve been converting these vegetarians since 1996 to be rather odd. If you remember back in my first review on this site, their first album dropped in 1999. Previous to that, they did release a song on a compilation 1998, but that’s still not back in 1996? What could have happened in 1996? I was born in 1996… Perhaps my meat looks so succulent that any vegetarian that looks at me suddenly wants to eat meat… Cook me up and take bite after bite of my flesh…

 

Oh wait. Erez and Duvdev started making music in 1996… They just weren’t Infected Mushroom at the time. Thank Wikipedia for easing my fears of sudden cannibals gazing hungrily at me (please don’t eat me).

 

Infected Mushroom – Elation Station (6.75): As we move deeper into the Other Side of the album, we’re met with many of the most relaxing tracks in the entire Infected Mushroom discography. Up until this point, most of the discography has been hard-hitting psytrance (and whatever that last song was).

 

For much of the song, Elation Station’s main focus is a simple piano melody. It’s the sole instrument at the beginning of the song and it isn’t until a good thirty seconds that any other significant instruments enter into the song. Some relaxing guitar, a calming arp, a slight bassline that’s more on the smooth side rather than funky or bouncy with a drumbeat to match. All relaxing elements.

 

And then that other synth comes in at one and quarter minutes in. I’m not as elated about this synth as the rest of the song. It feels a bit unfitting to the relaxing vibe that’s displayed in the beginning of this track as well as the end. The song would be a bit higher in rating if this synth felt a bit more polished, but it doesn’t distract too much from the relaxation, so I’ll give it a pass.

 

The middle, however, isn’t relaxing. It’s something else entirely. You may remember that the bassline this song introduces at the beginning is merely smooth. No funk. No bounce. The bassline introduced for the middle third of this song is the complete opposite of that. It’s all funk. This song is a funk sandwich with nearly relaxing bread. A funk sandwich that I would gladly assume is meat (not sure what kind of meat, funk is, but I’m going to eat it regardless). It starts out funky enough 2;20, but it only grows funkier as it goes on. Take a break to focus on some horns? It only gets funkier. Distort them a second to make them an octave lower? It only gets funkier. Get rid of the bassline entirely and return to the near relaxation the song started with? Well, the bassline doesn’t return after that, but I’m sure if it did, it would be incredibly funky.

 

Infected Mushroom – Drop Out (7): I’d say Drop Out is a strange song, but that could be said about nearly every song on the second half of this album, so I’ll try to restrain myself from saying such obvious things in the future.

 

It is quite strange though.

 

Let’s start with the overall feeling that this song has with the music. A lot of the song, especially in the beginning and the end has a lot of focus on a calmer glitched out vibe, not as calm as Elation Station, mind you, but still overall more relaxing than intense. And while the glitches with the drumbeats and strange arps and vocals do somewhat conflict with the relaxing mood, I feel that this song strays from the relaxing vibe in so many ways, that the glitched out behavior of several of the instruments (and those vocals) becomes the new overall feeling the song has. It’s not relaxing in a soothing way. It’s relaxing in a trippy mind-bending way. Regardless, this song’s relaxation works.

 

One part of the song that stands out, fitting perhaps the pure relaxation parts of this song, would be the guitar section in the middle. I don’t have much in particular to say about this, but I will make sure to mention that the guitar does a great job of providing a break between the strange vocals and other glitches, allowing one to get lost in the beauty of the simpler elements of the song. The more rock-oriented guitar near the end of the track serves a similar purpose, though I find it slightly less enjoyable and relaxing (It’s rock. rock is less relaxing than acoustic. That’s just how it works).

 

Speaking of the beauty of simple things, let’s take a quick look at the little lyrical content this song has to offer. When it comes to the lyrics, my original guess for the meaning of this song would be about dropping out of school as I have an innocent mind that views that quote of breaking free of the restrictions of thinking that the modern education system seems to enforce on the progressing generations as time goes on.

 

However, seeing as I’ve discovered this sample comes from an LSD documentary, it’s probably about dropping out of reality…

 

Via drugs.

 

Sometimes, you can’t escape the psychedelic messages songs of this genre display

 

Infected Mushroom – Avratz (7.75): Avratz passes by Dancing with Kadafi, becoming the longest song in the discography (up to this point). Beat it out by an entire second. Fantastic lead, I must say. When it comes to lengthy songs like this one, I must always ask whether or not the song uses enough variety to justify its length. In other words, does it count as a journey through sound? I’ll say yes in this case. It takes a long while for the song to pick up momentum on its journey, but the second half of the song has enough elements that make up for the slow beginning.

 

And I mean slow in two different ways. Not only does the song take a lengthy amount of time to get started, the music at this portion of the song is incredibly calm, focusing almost entirely on one simple melody that repeatedly climbs up and down. For the first two minutes, that’s all there is. Maybe a drumbeat here and there, but that variety isn’t looking quite good so far.

 

Thankfully, the conclusion of those two minute brings in a new piano melody. It’s a small change, but it’s entirely necessary to prevent me from losing my mind to the numb unchanging status quo. That being said, it does allow for some beautiful elements to be added to that melody the plays throughout much of the song, even beyond the halfway mark. It starts out quite beautiful though it does get distorted halfway through, but distortion is somewhat of a main them in this album so that’s to be expected.

 

The second half of the song is a bit more upbeat than what’s been shown so far. This upbeat switchup is where the song really kicks it up a notch. I don’t have time to go into every single element that this song throws into the mix so here’s a quick rapidfire rundown. We’ve got the more upbeat drumbeat with the introduction of a bassline that’s been missing for far too long. We’ve got some distorted vocals added in early on in this second half as well as bringing the song towards its conclusion (the latter being my preferred vocal bit). We’ve got a good progression of the bassline and the drums becoming more intense as the song goes on. We’ve got a sudden half time portion with a combination of a slightly more guttural bassline and a new relaxing guitar melody. We’ve got strings. We’ve got oddly unique arps that contrast with the rest of the song (in a good way unlike Elation Station). We’ve got a bassline that feels pleasantly broken as it builds up towards the conclusion of the song along with those vocals I mentioned earlier. And then there’s the bookend throwing back to the melody that started it all. Playing the song on loop makes it tricky to determine where exactly the song ends and starts anew.

 

All in all, this song is incredibly relaxing to the point where I almost fell asleep several times trying to review this song. Or maybe I’m just tired…

 

Infected Mushroom & Michelle Adamson – Blink (6.25): Blink is a strange song. I know I said I’d stop mentioning that, but when Michelle Adamson (spent a bit of time searching for that vocalist’s name, but I think I got it right) joins in to provide her vocals, it’s hard to say it just blends in with the usual oddity that makes up this album.

 

And I do believe that Michelle adds the most to this strange feeling this song gives my gut. After all, much of the music matches the vibe I’ve been getting used to as I listen through the Other Side. The bassline is slightly groovier, but it isn’t really groundbreaking in the same way that Elation Station’s is. The song has a solid halftime drumbeat that isn’t quite as glitchy as in Drop Out. There’s several mysterious synths that have somewhat of a relaxing feel to them, but Avratz has more. Converting Vegetarian’s vocals are much more heavily distorted.

 

But that doesn’t matter because Michelle’s vocals are more unsettling and discomforting with minimal distortion. I don’t dislike them. I just find them a bit… odd. The bridge especially sends chills up my spine. Her whispers as she talks of conquering demons and ignoring lizards feel as if they might be distorted, but it sounds so natural that I’m nearly convinced she might be some sort of otherworldly being herself.

 

As for the lyrics, it’s incredibly cryptic, but I’m not fully certain there was truly “no smoking or drinking” as they were being written. I’ve already mentioned the demon conquering and lizard whisper ignoring as I talked of the vocals. But there’s so much more in here that raises strange questions. There seems to be a song in her head leading her towards death. Then again, does that even matter because she also said she’s already dead (maybe inside?). And then there’s speak of bonding one’s mind in an intimate transcendent experience

 

Yeah, this one’s probably about drugs too. The Infected Mushrooms are not exactly subtle this time around.

 

Infected Mushrooom – Shakawkaw (7.75): Shakakaw is a short fun song with an entirely different feeling than Blink (especially in the vocals). Much of the song keeps a chill atmosphere to it, somewhat similar to the first half of Avratz with a simple melody dominating much of the song. That’s where the similarities end. Thankfully, this song develops much more quickly, adding more variety in the first minute that the calmer portion of Avratz did in its entirety (this song is over before Avratz really got going).

 

The simple melody is quite nice, but the instruments introduced to compliment are quite enjoyable. The bassline has a slight funk to it, most staying in the background, but definitely driving the song forward. There’s a couple of synths that contribute to the odd environment that’s integral to any song off of the second half of this album. Oh and the guitar.

 

The guitar definitely steals the show in its brief tenure. That seems to be typical on this album. Whenever, a guitar comes in, it’s the best part of the song for that moment adding in some beauty to the otherwise gritty oddity that is this album.

 

But the guitar isn’t the focus of the song. As awesome as it is, it’s not the most memorable part. The most memorable part would have to go to the vocals and their fantastic “lyrical content.” Ok, actually it’s just some guy yelling out the amusing title of the song, but that’s really the heart of what makes listening to this song so fun. Even when the “lyrics” stop, you can hear the singer who sun his heart out laughing as the song fades away. And rightfully so. This song is ridiculously amusing.

 

Infected Mushroom – Pletzurra (8.25): Pletzurra develops quite interestingly, especially near the end. But in order to truly appreciate the development of a song like this, I must first tell you of the trippy ambience at the beginning. There’s a pad whispering in my ear as the drumbeat begins and the piano joins in. Eventually, the oddly ominous gets covered up with all of the other instruments that make up this song in an attempt to send it back to the eternal abyss it came from. But just as the abyss is an eternal construct that we stare into throughout our life, the ominous pad is also eternal and never truly leaves the song. It’s always there.

 

Always waiting.

 

For something. Not sure what. It’s kind of just there.

 

Not exactly as ominous if nothing happens.

 

Unless something is happening and I’m just not noticing it.

 

Now, that’s ominous.

 

Maybe.

 

Ominous distractions aside, I’m glad that many instruments come in to cover up the ominous bits. Not because I hate that pad. I find it quite interesting. No, it’s because everything that this song adds to the mix from this point onwards is quite a pleasure. Or should I say Pleasuretzura? (I’ve decided I shouldn’t have said that. Forgive me for not leaving this pun alone). The piano in this song is one of the first things to start covering up that pad, providing the most beautiful melody on the entire album. With the help of a slight bassline, they cover up the ominousness almost completely. At least enough so that it’s no longer infecting my brain.

 

From there, the song takes a step back in quality, briefly being played through a lower filter, almost as if we were listening to a recording of the song being played on the radio. You can even here the tape spinning as the vocals begin to introduce themselves. The vocals sound pained at first but slowly develop over time to a more confident melody. None of it has lyrics of course, it’s merely a manifestation of overcoming pain with a choir to back it up. Probably reading too deep into it with that last sentence, but that’s the roll I’m on right now. Eventually the deep singing grows to be quite beautiful, the drums and the bassline do return to an ominous vibe. Thankfully though there’s a second melody and strings to cover it up as the song brings itself to close, proving itself to be an overall relaxing piece of music…

 

PSYCH! This song has a BANJO! And it’s AWESOME!

 

Infected Mushroom – I Wish (9.25): Undeniably my favorite song on the album. I’ve been listening through this album a lot as of late, trying to learn these songs inside and out and out and every single time this one comes on, I can’t help but sing along with that chorus over and over and over again. I guess I sing along to Shakawkaw too when it comes up, but that one’s more amusing than anything else. This one actually has meaning behind its lyrics. And unlike the trippy songs featuring Michelle Adamson (yeah there’s another one I’ll get to in a bit), I find these lyrics to be both decipherable and inspiring.

 

But music first. The music is great too. This time it’s all about the bassline. Well I guess there’s some other cool things too, a good chord progression, some syncopated drums with a few variations here and there. There are some slight whispering vocals in the background for a bit. And uh… the rest is bassline. And the bassline is great. The bassline has two elements to it. There’s the swinging more heavily distorted bass spotlighted best at the beginning of the song as well as after each chorus. And then there’s the more constant arpeggiated bassline that underlies the song’s drive. Together, these two parts of the bassline keep this song moving for the three minutes it exists. Not too much variety, but that doesn’t bother me too much. It’s the vocals that stand out.

 

First off, while I’d love to get into the lyrics, I did lie a little bit when I said this song is all about bassline. Sometimes, under certain circumstances, I’d consider vocals to be an instrument of their own. And this song is definitely one of those circumstances. These vocals are the most heavily distorted on the album. The immediate stuttering as soon as the first verse starts. The way each note seems to dance up and down, constantly wavering in tone. The end of each line being held perhaps a fraction of a second longer than you’d expect half the time and completely glitching out the other half of the time. It all comes to a head with the extremely catch chorus. Not only is the music best here because of the prominent chords, but the vocals are almost clean here except for a couple of perfectly placed accents at the end of some of the lines. The way the pitch slides upwards on “game” and “rain” is absolutely fantastic. I have a fondness for when male vocals suddenly soar in pitch without any pretense.

 

As for the lyrics, this song is about fresh beginnings (funny how often that message comes up in reviews of my favorite artists, wonder if that’s why I like them or if that just means I’m extrapolating my own meaning in order to match my innermost values). I Wish compares life itself to a game, a game that we won’t stop playing until the end of our time. Now, exactly how this game has gone in the past is a bit unclear, but there is something to look at through the singer’s desires to play the game without fears and regrets as well as his desire to rewind and kick it from the start. It’s clear that his past experience with this game has been… less than stellar. But like I said, he wishes to abandon those fears and regrets and start again with a fresh game. A game in which he takes control of his life and gives it his best possible. Sure, rewinding time would be nice (I’ve desired to do so more than once), but sometimes the main focus should be to be to push through the game, letting the rain ash away the flaws that hold you back.

 

Again though, I am likely extrapolating. Much of what I’m getting out of this song is somewhat vague. I enjoy it regardless.

 

Infected Mushroom – Ballerium (6.75): It’s always difficult to review a decent song after a spectacular song. Comparatively speaking, Ballerium certainly has nothing on I wish, but I still feel it’s an alright track. Has a good groove to it at points and it does stand out as one of the more minimalistic songs on the album, especially near the beginning. It has an ok variety to it, but much like Scorpion Frog from The Trance Side, most of it just kind of happens.

 

I think my main problem with this song is just how minimalistic it is. There are several points in the song where it feels empty, no ambience, just a couple basslines and a drumbeat. And while the basslines are relatively decent and the kick and snare definitely are stronger compared to many for the songs on this album, they don’t really hold up the song on their own.

 

Thankfully, the song does get better in the second half as there’s more melodies introduced here as well as a couple guitar riffs that add some nice flavor. The best addition to the song comes towards the end for we have a build-up from nothing featuring some gorgeous vocals spotlighted as all the other instruments have faded away. The way the bassline progresses (which serves as the build-up from the build-up from nothing) is also quite interesting during its brief stay before being taken over a bouncier outro. The last bit of the song’s vocals serves as a nice journey even if the song is a little lesser overall.

 

And that’s all there is to say.

 

Infected Mushroom – Selecta (8.25): It seems that on this album, even the most upbeat songs usually start out with a calmer section to build up to the upbeat. This song, despite being upbeat, isn’t one of those songs. No, Selecta wastes no time in getting that 140 BPM tempo out there in the open. Almost sounds like it should be on the Trance Side. It shouldn’t be though. I’ll show you why at the end.

 

The beginning of the song does differ slightly from psytrance. The psytrance bassline isn’t quite as prominent as usual, though the bassline it’s replaced with is still quite fast-paced. Plus a lot of the instrumentation does have a good balance between Trance Side vibes and Other Side vibes as it incorporates a lot of the new sound design without going overboard.

 

However, while I wouldn’t describe the introduction of this song as chill, there are some moments in this song that are a bit more relaxing than most. In particular there’s the middle section of the song winding down a bit after the two-minute mark. The drumbeat doesn’t change at all and the bassline is still there, but somehow the beauty of the new pad, overwhelms all of the energy and provides a soothing relaxation without eliminating the drumbeat entirely. Yes, after about thirty seconds there is a short bit where the drum is replaced by a simple melody instead, but that “nothing” part of the build-up from nothing only lasts a short bit before the “build-up” of the build-up nothing quickly returns.

 

The conclusion of this song is where things get a little bit iffy. This song does not belong on the Trance Side. Because out of nowhere, we have a funky little tune that feels more out of place than the banjo in Pletzurra. There is a piano appearing seconds earlier that might hint towards this little tune, but it sure ain’t an amusing little ditty like this one right here. Also, no horns. No funky little melody. This ending is just different…

 

Yeah, this doesn’t belong on the Trance Side and all.

 

Sure was fun though.

 

Infected Mushroom & Michelle Adamson – Illuminaughty (7): Michelle is back for round 2. Of course, that means we’re going to get into some whispery vocals with cryptic mysterious lyrics, but that can be an interesting divergence sometimes.

 

Now, I’m really tempted to compare the music of this song to Blink, but that’s technically not fair, because despite having the same singer, Blink and Illuminaughty sound like completely different songs. Blink was much slower paced and concentrated more on a funky bassline. Illuminaughty has a much more mysterious instrumental and I must say, I enjoy this one more. A lot of it has to do with it meshing better with Michelle’s mysterious vocals, but there’s also a lot more subtlety to this song in comparison to Blink. The ambient pads and the arps mesh together well when they’re alone and the bassline and drums enter smoothly onto the scene whenever it’s their turn to shine. Blink was by no means bad, but Illuminaughty brings it up a notch.

 

As for the vocals and lyrics, there aren’t quite as many whispers as in Blink, but the song is still the same level of unsettling, again raising the odd question of whether or not she’s truly human. An odd fantastical conspiracy theory that’s likely ridiculously untrue, but she does do some good convincing that she’s fallen from some other realm into ours. However, I’ve been looking over these lyrics and I find them to be so incredibly cryptic that I have so little to analyze. There’s mention of tasting the fruit which likely refers to the Garden of Eden (though in a completely different tone than in Andy Hunter – To Life to Love). And she also continues to walk the line between life and death, committing to neither side. Other than that, I have absolutely no idea what to say.

 

Infected Mushroom – Jeenge (6.75): This song immediately starts with the guitar that often steals the show in the other songs that present the stringed instrument. This time, it doesn’t really steal the show so much. That’s because whenever it’s present, there is no show to steal. The song instead opts for minimalism again. Though this time there’s absolutely nothing interesting in much of the front half of the song except for the guitar. The bassline is ok, but it doesn’t really stand out until the midpoint of the song.

 

That’s when things get a bit funky. The bassline has a more dynamic bounce to it and allows for a bit more variation it develops over the next four minutes as it bounces against other melodies and basslines. My favorite part of the song has to be the bass pattern introduced about five and a half minutes in. Not only does it have a nice swing to it, but every four bars it has a quick unexpected variation with shorter notes. It’s a fun moment, but unfortunately the front half of the song isn’t quite as fun.

 

 

Infected – Mushroom – Elevation (7.75): Final song on this all too lengthy album. Having 23 songs to review is a bit much for me, so I’m glad that there’s a divide in the middle of the album between Trance Side and Other Side. It made this whole review so much easier to handle. This album ends with its most relaxing track, it’s all ambience, piano and strings and all of it is soothing in comparison to the trippy textured instruments that clustered the rest of Other Side. Unfortunately, such a relaxing track doesn’t leave me with much to say. Maybe I’m having review fatigue…

 

The most important thing I can think of to say is that all of the elements in this song really have a beautiful feel to them and some of them mesh so nicely with the rest of the song, that I didn’t even notice them a first, though they do have an important supporting role in the song. The bassline especially fits this description as it’s always covered up by the higher ambience and strings whenever it’s present. The drums have a bit of a complex vibe too, made up of many of the same distorted synths we’ve seen on other songs, but they’ve been chilled down several notches, so they feel not that unlike a simple drumbeat. Though once I did notice them, I did enjoy the meaty flavor that they added to the song. The ambience also transforms into a stronger synth at some points, but it all feels so natural and relaxing that it fits along the more physical instruments without feeling out of place in the slightest.

 

A beautiful conclusion as we finally bring this alum to a close. Speaking of conclusions…

 

Conclusion: And so, concludes the two-week journey that has been Converting Vegetarians, a fascinatingly interesting album that serves as a transition into the expanding variety in Infected Mushroom’s discography. There’s plenty to offer in this album, but I think the Other Side suits me best. Then again, I might just be saying that because I Wish is on there. I love I Wish.

 

Well, regardless, the variety here shall lead into many fantastical developments in the journey through sound that is Infected Mushroom’s entire discography. We may be exiting the first phase of said discography, but there’s still plenty to catch up on…

 

 

 

Final Score of Trance Side: (7.25)

Final Score of Other Side: (7.5)

Final Score of Full Album: (7.25)

 

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Infected Mushroom – Converting Vegetarians (2003 album) pt 1/2

Part 1 – Trance Side

 

Album links

Bandcamp: n/a

Soundcloud (Trance Side only): https://soundcloud.com/infectedmushroom/sets/converting-vegetarians-trance

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3LbcBylGvC80f5OTeQaVuM?si=DRj2Ry1zQ1qfIxNXrcvF9A

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL718C82948CE653CE

 

Introduction: Ah yes, if I were a vegetarian, then the first thing that would entice me to join the meat-eating side would surely be a human brain skewered on a fish hook. All that knowledge ripe for consuming. Absolutely delicious. Sign me up!

 

Please ignore my odd tastes in… taste as I delve into my much more relevant slightly odd taste in music. Specifically, my taste in Infected Mushroom. The last three albums I’ve reviewed from them have been purely psytrance. This album changes that. Oh yes, the first half, referred to as Trance Side is definitely psytrance and alone would seem much alike the previous three albums (except ten songs instead of nine. How adventurous!)

 

The second half, however, is referred to as Other Side. I’d talk about it here, but I actually haven’t finished reviewing the Other Side yet and so I’m going to be posting this review as a two-parter. I’ll introduce the Other Side next week. This review is going to be long enough as it is.

 

Infected Mushroom – Albibeno (6.5): Alright, let’s dive right in to the first song of the trance side. We’re starting out with a quintessential psytrance song. It has the perfect 145 BPM tempo. It’s got that quick paced bassline that almost feels like a slow arp. All of the synths involve have an unusual trippy vibe to them. What more is there to ask for?

 

Well, when it comes to Infected Mushroom, there’s always a little extra icing on the cake. This track’s layer of icing is a bit thin, but it still has some unique elements that cause it to be held above any ordinary psytrance song. The most substantial of these is definitely the synth at the beginning that almost sounds like a technological arp. Usually when I say technological I end up saying “Oh gee this could be in a Mind.in.a.box song! That’s my favorite artist!” but eh this one is a bit different. And yet, I enjoy it on a near equal level. It has a good haunting vibe to it as it introduces the mysteries this album has to offer. The second appearance of this synth is my favorite moment of the song, specifically because of its incorporation of the bass rumbling in the background, which allows for some suspense to take over for a short while.

 

Other than that, I don’t really have much to say, there’s some other melodies in here that are decent, but they don’t really diverge increasingly much from Infected Mushroom’s established style (though there is the occasional melody that seems a little bit closer to the newer style). This song could definitely have used a bit more variety and I’d have given it a bit of a higher rating if it did, but I find that it still stands out well enough above your typical psytrance song.

 

Infected Mushroom – Hush Mail (6.25): I have no idea what that animal at the beginning of this song is doing but I’m afraid to ask. Whatever kind of diseased creature is making that noise, I’d like it to hush. It’s disturbing me deeply.

 

This animal does remain present throughout the song, but thankfully, the creature spends a significant amount of time buried in all of the other much more enjoyable elements of the song (plus it wasn’t all that bad to begin with, just a little odd). Such coverup elements include some quite industrial drums, your psytrance bassline (plus variations) and another more animalistic distorted instrument that doesn’t disturb quite me as deeply. Altogether, these instruments provide an enjoyable experience along with a few melodies that aren’t special enough to note. In fact, the non-noteworthiness of every thing in this song means that I shall be spending as little time reviewing this part as possible.

 

The animal gives one final growl at the end. Whatever, its issue or activity was, it seems to be over. As is this song.

 

Infected Mushrom – Apogiffa Night (6.75): Apogiffa Night sees itself as such a special song that it starts with its own cinematic introduction to announce its arrival. This just means it puts its best moment at the start of the song. Well, I guess that best moment does return a bit later and it’s nearly equally as good there (nearly because I feel it just works better as an introduction rather than simply being inserted in the middle of the song).

 

Is it special though? Well, compared to that cinematic intro, not excessively much. The intro does definitely improve my overall opinion on the song, but the rest of my experience is admittedly underwhelming. This is the problem when a song puts its best foot forward, but then lets a bunch of slightly above average feet walk on the rest of the song. There are some good moments here and there like the fantastic textural bassline that dominates the song for about half a minute around 5 minutes into the song. But that’s about all that strays from the general path. Most of the song simply trudges forward with decent unrisky psytrance. That’s fine. The duo will make plenty of risks later, and they shall surely pay off.

 

Infected Mushroom – Song Pong (7.75): Song Pong is the song that should be proud enough to warrant some hyped up in an intro, as this is the one that really starts this song on a trend of 7s and greater (with only one song interrupting this pattern near the end). But instead of pumping the song full of energy with a cinematic intro, Song Pong opts for a calmer more soothing vibe in its introduction. There are slight signs of the energy that’s to come, but the main focus of this introduction is the automated pad that fluctuates in pitch as the song progresses. But the most important part is the arp that appears midway through this introduction. This arp is a core element in the essence of Song Pong.

 

There’s a reason this song starts off so soft and smooth. And it’s because, as in actual pong, this song has a tendency to bounce back and forth. Specifically, it bounces back and forth between two moods. The first is calm and soothing providing a chance for the heart rate to relax a little, but this contrasts with the other mood of the song, which is a bit more energetic and upbeat. This beautiful arp serves as the first transition between the two vibes. From there on out, the song does focus mostly on the upbeat vibes of the song, but it does take several short breaks for its 8 minutes of existence, often focusing on introducing new instruments and melodies to the table. Most of them are admittedly not as calm as the introduction, but they still allow for much more variety than the previous songs.

 

Seeing as the upbeat sections take up the brunt of the song and are more or less self-explanatory, I’m going to take a specific look at the calmer portions and how they develop the song. What better way to go over the most significant instruments? The first return to calmness happens at 2:15 and gives a slight nod to where the song started while giving a chance for a new melody to see the spotlight. It had technically already been introduced not long before this calm, but it’s barely noticeable and only becomes significant after the calm that highlights it.

 

Our second break comes in at about 3:45 which introduces a brand-new melody. Yeah, it still has the same texture as the melody that was introduced last time, but the variation is significant enough to highlight. I think I do prefer the first one as the one feels as if it has too much space in between the short notes and it doesn’t quite flow as well with the rest of the track.

 

Heralded in by my favorite arp is the break that at about 5:50 that cuts out many of the melodies briefly, leaving just the kicks and bassline. Of course, the true focus here is the melody that’s introduced shortly after. While the second melody was a downgrade from the first, this one easily is the best in the song. It’s a nice happy medium between the first two melodies (Goldilocks would have said the first was too fast and the second was too slow).

 

And as many of the songs of the first half of this album, this one does a quick bookend with exclusive focus on the pad with the fluctuating pitch, bringing this song to a close.

 

Infected – Mushroom – Chaplin (7.25): Chaplin’s main strength is shown right at the forefront. And this time around, that’s okay. Unlike Apogiffa Night from earlier in the album and Sailing on The Sea of Mushrooms from way back off the Classical Mushroom album, this strong creepy melody is here to stay. Well, it’s not eternally present, but it does return at a couple of instances in the song and that’s plenty more than the other two songs I mentioned. There’s something about this melody that makes the blood in my veins chill ever so slightly each time it reintroduces itself. And yet, I also feel as if the melody is somewhat soothing. It’s as if the melody is putting me into restful mood but I don’t trust it because it’s planning on killing me in my subdued state. I know that’s not actually going to happen, but there’s an instinctual part of me that still fears this melody for no apparent reason.

 

Other than that, this is a good psytrance song that plays a little bit into Infected Mushroom’s more modern distorted vocal style of sound design, while still keeping to the old school psytrance roots that had dominated their discography in the five years preceding this album. Because of that, this song has a fresh groove that is very welcome to the Infected Mushroom discography. However, because my first impressions of Infected Mushroom happened in 2014 with Friends on Mushrooms Vol 3, I have this urge to compare these distorted vocals to the ones of Rise Up and Kipod, the songs that drew me into this discography in the first place. It’s an unfair comparison and I’ll do my best to say that these are pretty solid for their time considering what I’ve looked at so far in these reviews. It’s just that the sound design gets much better over the next decade and beyond. Actually, to be perfectly honest, their sound design undergoes a huge transformation 40 minutes from now, so maybe we should use that as a benchmark.

 

Infected – Mushroom – Echonomix (8.25): Echonomix is a great mix of sounds that have an echo to them. It’s also the study of money and how we use it and all sorts of things (I never studied economics so don’t blame me if I screwed that up).

 

While the latter of those descriptions of the song is a bit irrelevant and not actually very true, the part about this song being a mix of echoing sounds is incredibly true. Every single instrument and melody here has an odd tone to it, much of it due to echoes and phasers. Now, that isn’t entirely unusual for Infected Mushroom, but I feel like it sticks out more distinctly here than many of the other songs in their discography. Let’s do a quick look at each of the echoey instruments that overwhelm this song (which is most of them).

 

The very first moments of this song contain a harmony that has undergone multiple phasers as the echoes of subtle melody scatter in the background. As the song progresses this harmony undergoes multiple transformations, but the echoes are always there. It would be wrong if they weren’t. There’s also a melody introduced in a short break in the song at 1:45. It ends up becoming the highlighted melody for the rest of the song. A plethora of other echoing melodies are introduced at the midpoint of the song, though most of them are just subtle little accents for the song. Really, a lot of them are just notes that happen to have an echo attached to them (they only seem like a melody).

 

There are a few other melodies and arps and drumbeats that don’t echo, but they don’t echo so I’m going to ignore them. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a subtle echo on them that I’m just not noticing. If so, nice job. I wish it was a bit more noticeable.

 

Infected Mushroom – Scorpion Frog (7.25): I’m not entirely sure what a Scorpion Frog is, but it sounds quite deadly. A slimy creature with a scorpion’s tail that can quickly hop towards me? No thanks.

 

Anyways, I painstakingly scoured through the last three albums to see what song these introductory strings are referencing. I could’ve sworn that one of the songs in the last few albums had a nearly identical melody and I thought it would be neat to show off such a little Easter egg. Instead I merely showed myself I was absolutely crazy and delusional. Bust a Move and Dracul have string melodies that sound mildly similar but it’s a strenuous connection at best. Ah well, regardless of where the melody does or doesn’t come from, it sure does have a very similar feeling to the strings that have been displayed throughout Infected Mushroom’s discography so far. Hopefully that was the intention.

 

The rest of this song is one of those journeys through sound. The mood changes from moment to moment and the variety keeps the mind interested and engaged. This is admittedly one of the lesser journeys through sound as the variety, while present, isn’t quite as dynamic as others. Plus, I hate to say this, but very few of these ideas are very interesting on their own. I never feel surprised whenever the song transitions to a new stage. I just think to myself “Oh that’s different than what we’ve been doing, ok.”

 

I’ll divide this song into 5 stages so I can quickly go over each change the song has.

  • Stage 1 is the strings. I already talked about the strings, they end at 1:25. They are strings and they’re great and remind me of older Infected Mushroom. Good vibes here.
  • After that we have stage 2, the glitched out bassline. This one’s ok. It goes through a couple of iterations and does have a decent bouncy groove to it, but it never really grabs my attention.
  • At about 3:20, we enter stage 3: the best stage. This one focuses on a calm, yet slightly off-putting vibe as the bassline rebuilds itself from the ground up. This melody is probably the second-best part of the song after the strings. It’s somewhat similar to the main melody in Chaplin, though it doesn’t quite reach the same heights of unsettling.
  • Stage 4 is the oddest of the bunch starting at 4:30. The psytrance bassline that has been building is traded for a phasing bass similar to the one at the beginning of Echnomix, but it’s not quite as good. There’s also a subtle melody that seems to be using some retro (or should I say R.E.T.R.O.) sound effects which rounds up this section nicely
  • Stage 5 takes up the last 2 minutes of the song, taking the phased bass from stage 4 and overlaying it with a bouncy bassline to provide a final build-up for the song (which works quite well might I add). Eventually, the strings from the beginning take over, wrapping up this song nicely.

 

Overall, this song is good, but it pales in comparison to what it could be.

 

Infected Mushroom – Deeply Disturbed (8.25): Deeply Disturbed is the only lyrical song on the trance side of this album. It is likely because of the lyrics that I remember it most clearly over the other nine (though I might have Scorpion Frog embedded in the depths of my memories somewhere what with that throwback mixup). The lyrics of Deeply Disturbed are… disturbing. If you’re looking for an uplifting feel-good song, then this isn’t really the place to look. In fact, you should probably tread all of my reviews with caution if positivity is what you want. I have a tendency to enjoy songs with darker themes (up to a point). Themes that might deeply disturb some. Themes that might make some deeply unhappy.

 

Actually, as dark and bleak as these lyrics are, they’re so out of context and so vague that I find it rather amusing more than anything. That’s probably not the right reaction to have and it probably reflects negatively on my sense of humor and internal psyche. But that’s it. That’s the entire song. He’d deeply disturbed and he’s deeply unhappy. What’s disturbing him? What’s sapping away his happiness? Is this man simply insane? We shall never know. But hey at least we get a good song in the meantime.

 

My memory of this song is also likely heightened by the overall music quality of this song. It’s certainly not the most complex song on the front half of the album, but sometimes it’s the simple things that prove to be the most enjoyable. My enjoyment of this song comes almost entirely from the guitar. Every single moment it’s there (which is basically any time the singer isn’t expressing his deep disturbance and unhappiness), it steals the show completely. Whether it be the ascending plucks played in the introduction of the song or the more melodic sections played shortly before each chorus, the guitar is truly the most enjoyable part of the song.

 

Of course, that doesn’t mean the guitar is the only good part of the song. The song simply wouldn’t be the same if the ambience didn’t give off that peaceful sense of dread at the beginning of the song. It wouldn’t be the same if the bassline didn’t have such a rolling groove to it. It wouldn’t be the same if said bassline didn’t become harsher in the chorus, while smoother elsewhere. There might not be a huge variety of instruments to work with in this song, but what’s there blends perfectly.

 

Infected Mushroom – Semi Nice (6.5): Semi Nice is the most playful song on the Trance Side of the album. It starts with an accordion of all things, which I find to be quite odd. It’s just not something I hear very often as my tastes usually don’t include the type of music an accordion would be involved in. But there is at least one exception. It’s this. This is the exception.

 

The song does stick nicely to that introductory playful mood to it. The sound design focuses mostly on the textured basslines. The typical psytrance bassline is there of course, but that’s not the one I care to talk about today. It’s there, being a consistent good as always. The bassline that stands out is the other bassline. For the first half of the song, it just gives a few notes here and there. Not too much in particular. But that playful vibe is definitely present when we reach the midpoint and the bass (now played at a bit of a higher pitch) starts to swing between notes. This funky middle section is probably the closest the song gets to matching the fun accordion intro. Shame that accordion wasn’t reintroduced

 

Instead, the last third song concentrates more on the less interesting elements of the song. There’s a new bassline playing exclusively lower notes with no experimentation whatsoever. And there’s a new simple melody with a few minor distortions, but that’s really just minimal experimentation if anything. Nothing wrong with this last third. Just nothing right with it either

 

Overall, this is a decent song. I’m still kind of in the middle when it comes to my opinion on it. The accordion definitely makes it stand out and I do think it would have been better off continuing to explorre the playful tone that the accordion introduced. Maybe reincorporating the accordion for later. It’s still a nice song, just not quite up to par for Infected Mushroom.

 

It’s Semi-nice.

 

Infected Mushroom – Yanko Pitch (7.75): Concluding the Trance Side, we have Yanko Pitch. With the exception of maybe Deeply Disturbed (which cheated by using the mantra of a madman for vocals), this is likely the creepiest trance song of the bunch. That also makes it one of the best trance songs of the bunch. When it comes to Infected Mushroom’s more psytrance side of their discography (I haven’t gone over anything non-psytrance yet, but I’ll definitely be doing so next week), the creepier songs are often the better ones. Probably because of all the emotions to be expressed through psytrance, fear is the easiest to convey. And a song that gives off a greater emotional reaction is a song that’s well-enjoyed (unless the reaction is utter disgust, then maybe don’t enjoy that one).

 

This song starts off right with the oddest creepiest ambience on the entire album. Deeply Disturbed had a great intro with the guitar that serves as one of the song’s core aspects, but this intro is incredibly trippy. The first twenty seconds are made completely of distorted synths that sound like the remaining echoes from a previous non-existent synth located in the negative area of this song’s duration. But now it sounds like something ominous is coming.

 

The rest of the song doesn’t quite match up with the creepy vibes the song starts with, but that’s mostly because the bar was set a little too high at that beginning. The rest of the song isn’t bad or disappointing. It’s just hard to live up to the expectations that intro sets. Not going to hold it against the song though because the song still maintains a relatively dark atmosphere and it does have some good unsettling melodies here and there. There’s a melody three quarters in that really stands out in the song, giving it some fresh upbeat variety as the general creepiness begins to go stale on its own.

 

That being said, it is admittedly a more simplistic song than the nine other trance songs on this album. The next thirteen songs, however, are a bit different…

 

Conclusion: We’re only halfway through this album due to its length, but it’s clear that the trend of Infected Mushroom’s quality continues to improve. Not all of the songs are winners, but they’re all consistently above 6, which is more than I can say for the past few albums. Plus, you get an extra song instead of the usual nine, so that’s a neat bonus. Of course, if I’d reviewed the full album, there’d be 13 more songs added into the mix and absolutely none of them would be trance, which I think would be an even better bonus. I’ll finish that up next week…

 

Final Score of Trance Side: (7.25)

Final Score of Other Side: (TBD)

Final Score of Full Album: (TBD)

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Daily Hat Track Roundup: March 2019

April has started so let’s reflect over the Daily Hat Tracks of March.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 1 (Ginger Runner – Deception of Light and Shadow): When I saw that there was a new Ginger Runner track I was prepared for some good chill jams but the DnB drop took my by surprise. Loving this.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 2 (Au5 & Danyka Nadeau – Eden): Best Au5 since Snowblind (so second best Au5)

 

Daily Hat Track: March 3 (Way Out West & Hendrik Burkhard – We Move in The Dark): Funky tune from Way out West. There may be some odd existential pondering in there but a lot of it is cryptic so it’s hard to say. The groove is clear though and for now that’s all that matters.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 4 (I am Waiting for You Last Summer – Lights Go Out): Perhaps I’m remembering incorrectly but I’m pretty sure I am Waiting for you Last Summer usually gives off rather chill vibes. Ah well, this DnB rock fusion works too.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 5 (Mr Fijiwiji, Laura Brehm & Agno3 – Pure Sunlight): Throwback to perhaps the best collaboration in Monstercat history. Definitely the golden age of the label in my opinion.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 6 (Azedia – Requiem for a New World): This incredible journey through sound gives a unique contemplation of existence over ten minutes. A religion could be based on this song. Actually this song is most likely based on a religion so never mind that. Still great.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 7 (Rotersand – Not Alone): Daily Hat Track: March 7 Capitalism Tm is my favorite Rotersand album but that’s mostly because of Hey You and Not Alone. Both have fantastic development with great inspiring vocals. This one is my preferred of the two at the moment.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 8 (Ghost Rider – Make Us Stronger): I can’t be the only one who hears Carol of the Bells at the beginning of this one. Anyways, this is your usual decent psytrance song with clips of an inspiring speech pondering life. The second half is pretty cool musically.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 9 (Worakls – Entrudo): The fact that there’s an entire Worakls album now is incredible to me as he’s only released singles previously. Haven’t listened to the album in full yet but hey you should definitely check it out.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 10 (Invocation Array – Hypogeum (Live in Studio): Invocation Array is an interesting duo of two women creating a great crossover between rock and EDM (my favorite kind of crossover) and some great vocals. Final chorus in this song is my favorite part of their discography.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 11 (Covenant – Call the Ships to Port): This another one of those songs where I visualize a music video, this one being about the destruction of a supernatural oceanic prison via a ritualistic funeral for those who are thought to be dead long ago but are only dying now.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 12 (Mind.in.a.box – Timelessness): This song from the fifth chapter of the Mindinabox story (which is a long ways off) is among the catchiest of the discography. The chorus gets into my head the easiest of many songs. Not the best but great vocals and good groove.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 13 (Joachim Pastor – Eternity): I’ve posted some Worakls before, but this is my second favorite artist from the Hungry Music crew (A trio of the best prog house artists). The marimba in this one is the highlight of this particular track.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 14 (N’to – Trauma (Worakls remix)): I’ve definitely had an appetite for Hungry Music as of late. Here, Worakls transforms one of the lesser Hungry songs (though no bad Hungry songs actually exists) into something incredibly new and infinitely better.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 15 (Worakls – Nocturne): Hungry music never ends! But how does it begin? This Worakls track was my very first Hungry song and the orchestral progression here remains my favorite.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 16 (3force – Resistance): This kicking synthwave journey was what started off my morning today. It’s now 13 hours later but I still love every moment of this. Feels much longer than six minutes, given it’s variety.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 17 (Inofaith – Nocturne): Inofaith’s discography is small, but all of it is incredible immersive and relaxing. This song in particular is my favorite as it really speaks to me as a creative.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 18 (Ben Prunty – Night Zen): Last song to speak of this evening is a song of night zen. Well that’s the title. The song itself isn’t as relaxing as Nocturne though. Much more suspense to this one. Really was my favorite discovery today.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 19 (Feint, Boyinaband & Veela – Time Bomb): Throwing back to early Monstercat days with a DnB song about time travel (my favorite storytelling concept). Also has some great vocals from Veela (Who is among my favorite female vocalists). Feint’s best work in my opinion.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 20 (Miracle of Sound & Sarah Murray – Force of Nature): I’m not a huge fan of Miracle of Sound but the first track I heard from him caught my attention with its majestic orchestras and Sarah’s gorgeous vocals. Sadly, Sarah isn’t a regular, so the other songs are a bit underwhelming.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 21 (Kebu – To Jupiter and Back): To Jupiter and Back huh? Sounds like white a journey. This one has a nice balance between beauty and playfulness.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 22 (Niteppl – Meat Grinder): This song’s got a weird creepy vibe to it. But mostly because of the implications of what exactly goes into that neat grinder…

 

Daily Hat Track: March 23 (VNV Nation – When is the Future): I’m currently reviewing the oldest VNV Nation album so here’s a song from the newest VNV Nation album dissecting the passage of time and questioning it’s flow. Where is the past? What is the present? When is the future?

 

Daily Hat Track: March 24 (Infected Mushroom – Slowly): Slowly is just Franks (the previous song on the album), but played in a slower manner. And I can’t help but enjoy that.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 25 (Ed Harrison – Scrap I/O): Running a little late on Daily Hat Tracks so here’s a song that switches between a beautiful piano and strings combination and some upbeat breaks that also includes some slightly glitched vocals.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 26 (PYLOT – Enigma): I really need to get back into PYLOT’s discography. The narrative seems to be improving and developing quite nicely. It isn’t Mindinabox levels yet, but we’re getting there.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 27 (Botnit – Ex Cathedra): Honestly, I find this song a bit amusing with its overhyped 80s praise. I’m sure the 80s were great or something. I wouldn’t know. I was born in 96. “SORRY BETAMAX” gets me every time.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 28 (Covenant – Happy Man): For a song called Happy man, the lead singer of Covenant sure sounds sad… I seem to relate to this song though… What does that say about my mental state?

 

Daily Hat Track: March 29 (Timmy Trumpet – Oracle): So this appeared in a trance playlist on Spotify today. I sincerely did not know Mr Timmy Trumpet did a psytrance song. Short, but it’s interesting enough.

 

Daily Hat Track: March 30 (Andy Hunter & D’Morgan – Technicolour): Best vocal performance of all Andy Hunter songs. That is all.

 

 

Here’s the full playlist of Daily Hat Tracks so far.