V/A - TRANCE EUROPE EXPRESS 2 [Volume]
1. MICROGLOBE Trust 7.38
2. SPEEDY J The Fun Equations 4.32
3. PAUL VAN DYK Today 5.35
4. ANALOGICAL Camillo 6.30
5. THE IRRESISTIBLE FORCE Lotus Position 7.27
6. A POSITIVE LIFE Pleidean Communication 6.54
7. SALT TANK Dreams 7.09
8. DAVE ANGEL Life's Little Pleasures 7.02
9. EAT STATIC Element 115 6.44
10. MEGALON Symbols 7.31
11. PRESSURE OF SPEECH Aphelion 4.43
12. SECRET KNOWLEDGE Afterworld 7.42
13. FFWD Lucky Saddle 6.47
14. SCANNER Safety 6.57
15. NEW LONDON SCHOOL OF ELECTRONICS The Frenchman 8.35
16. RICHARD KIRK Oneski 6.41
17. PENTATONIK Real 6.35
18. PLUTO Rockefeller 5.11
19. THE HUMAN BEINGS Orbit 6.13
20. ESCAPE Escape to Mars 8.21
21. AUTOCREATION Justice Loop 8.14
22. HARDFLOOR Reverberate Opinion 8.34
23. AMBUSH Sun 8.59
The vinyl version consists of four 12-inchers. Each side has three tracks,
except side 2 of record 4 has only two (the last two tracks: 22 & 23).
So, everything is like 1-3,4-6,7-9,...,19-21,22-23.
ANYWAY...THE PLAY-BY-PLAY:
(1) is fairly chill-out. Not like the dance 12" of 'Environ-Mentally' by
Microglobe. (2) is pretty bizarre...funky chill-out. (3) moves us into
four-on-the-floor minimal, soft trance. (4) gets a bit acidic, but lacks
anything human. Repititious, minimal...just plain boring. The second half
of the track adds a really strange acid-cat-meow...very weird. (5) brings us
back to chill-out...at it's best! (6) returns to acid trance. The steady
paced repitition which seems to dominate this compilation as far as its
trance tracks. This track has a nice sound, though...cool to chill to, or
trance out to on the dance floor...nothing energetic though. (7) has a happy
feel...dancey, w/vocals. (8) Dave Angels soft trance. (9) Eat Static adds
a little bit off energy for dancing with this one. Not very repititious...
it has plenty of crests...changes...and a garden of sounds. (10) Neat under-
water sounding acid...dance underwater! (11) dance and bear it. (12) has
some decent acid sounds...but there's an ANNOYING vocal "in the afterworld...
in the afterworld....in the afterworld....in the..." UGH!! shoot her.
(13) trots through LOTS of water/watery-sounds...GREAT ambient chill-out as
is (14) which has samples of conversations (from a scanner...) while a type
some wonderful music & sounds make a soundtrack to them. (15) continues the
ambience with some bleepy melodies, a frenchman, and soft funky beats.
(16) is rather slow four-on-the-floor with melancholy chords and acid bleeps.
(17) is also slow, but with fast hihats...sorta locomotive sounding. (18)
speeds up into housey trance...but it's still not keeping me awake at this
late hour. (19) is even faster...with a decent, building acidline. (20) also
has plenty of resonance...along with echoes, garden of reverbed sounds, but
not enough hype for the floor. (21) is VERY similar to Locust. (22) Hardfloor
could do better. (23) has some indian chants, to a fast indian sounding beat,
but the newwave/pop sound to it just makes it sound dopey...I tend to like
tribal that is more...well...tribal...naturally.
OVERALL: The ambient tracks are definitely AWESOME...probably the only
things worth while on this compilation. All the trance tracks are minimal,
soft, repititious...not that that's bad...that's trance... but, I personally
prefer stuff to excite the crowd on a dance floor.
I give it 6 or 7 out of 10.
-djkc