Various Artists: DREAM INJECTION 3
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1996 Subterranean/Division of Euro Media GmbH
This series ranks among the best, as intelligent dance music compilations go.
As we all know, that "intelligent" moniker means you won't be likely to
dance to it. This is hedphonemusik for the most part - ambient techno, if
it's not an oxymoron. We won't go near the terminology debates for the
moment. Suffice it to say that techno listeners with an introspective bent
and ambient listeners who don't cry fish nor fowl at the first hint of
percussion should thoroughly enjoy this comp. The third volume will not
disappoint, with contents as tasty as the first two installments. A
double CD-set with the usual lush packaging, music to the hilt, uniformly
excellent. It's the jazz aesthetic in a new wave: melody + beat. Classic
tracks and relatively new material comingled. Those who love the Ambient
Dub and Artificial Intelligence comps should put this series at the top of
the grocery list!
Scuba - "Deep Blue Sea"
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A moody chord progression over drifting pads and rather gentle beats,
dreamy female vox a la Orbital
Orbital - "Halcyon and On and On"
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A moody chord progression over drifting pads and rather gentle beats,
dreamy female vox a la Orbital.
Oh, sorry!
This is Orbital.
A classic, and love the title, mate.
Darren Price - "Blue Prints"
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Opening synth wash of fab-filtered chords becomes a looping cycle.
A bleepy beat kicks in, some gent droning "enemy" sounds like.
Very cinematic. Here comes the deep kick, but keep it in the back of the
mix, back of the room.
Lobe - "Affective"
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Give me A minor or give me death.
Is it just the white keys, or is it that mood?
Alright, somebody fill me in regarding this project of the silly name and
extraordinary quality.
The few Lobe cuts (sounds like a title for a Van Gogh parody) I've heard
have uniformly had me addicted and loopy.
Bells and a post-classical sense of melody, sensuous rhythm of cymbals and
claps... and then the piano break-down, a deceptively simple melody which
takes you there, re-builds and re-orchestrates. Entrancing.
Lobe is on the Swim~ label now, if I recall.
C.J. Bolland - "Con Spirito"
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I've heard this beat somewhere before; who sampled whom?
Anyway, another stand-out track, this one from technomeister Bolland.
Filter fun with a medieval chorus.
The femme fatale found this to be "very 80s", but then again, I still think
the Art of Noise is the sea's knees.
The Ambush - "Casablanca"
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Cut found elsewhere also, hypno-tablas and soaring desert melodies.
David Morley - "StarDancer"
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Good melodic textures, a bit repetitious.
Beaumont Hannant - "Psi-Onyx (moon meets mars)"
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Hard and clunky rhythm, acidy bass-lines, requisite string patches.
Not one of BH's best cuts, but anything he does is worth a listen.
Zero Men - "Low-Hey Sonics"
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Go figure the title.
Generic light tranced piece.
Xyphax "T.N. Forces"
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Reverbed-out to space. Slowly evolving meditative rhythms and echoing
melodic fragments.
Nuw Idol - "Union of Ilk"
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The intro sounds suspiciously reminiscent of FSoL's "Lifeforms".
Then it evolves into something suspiciously reminiscent of FSoL's "Lifeforms".
Not to say it isn't good.
Especially the spooky female vox sample.
Red Sector A - "Atlantis"
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Oceanic feelings, simple piano melodies, ethnized percussion.
Voices of the dead and drowned return and demand back taxes.
Fishy sounds that will inevitably remind of the M1 "Universe" patch.
Not that anyone ever uses that patch in a song.
Cosmic Baby - "Traume"
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Always like the Baby, though not the infantile (sic) name.
Filter-sweeping a melody which says "Tubular Bells".
Slow dubby groove eventually added.
Interloper - "Surrender"
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A few seconds of silly roars, probably from some old UltraMan episode.
The rest of the tune is dandy fine.
Plastic System - "Dynamic Solution"
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A fantastic track.
Six and a half minutes of increasing intensity.
Filter sweeps gradually build to the pulsing rhythm, and a vaguely Eastern
melody.
Resistance D - "Dark-Side"
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Not so dark, really.
A beat with a funky tympani rhythm, and sort of squeegee sound.
Hlange - "No Future"
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Mutated sample voices give the sense of a claustrophobic train station.
808 hi-hat and pads, squelchy lines.
Soma - "Corporate Anthem Part 1"
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Electronica version of Peter Gabriel's "Passion".
Excellent.
Leo Anibaldi - "Muta 3"
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One of those backwards dub rhythms, someone whistling, though not Bryan
Ferry. Voices echoing down corridors, the usual. Not bad.
Aphex Twin - "On (u-ziq remix)"
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Who?
Influx - "Love Song"
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Analogic filters, dripping acid, 80-eighties bassline.
It - "Dream Injection"
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Intentionally (one would hope) primitive Kraftwerky drum-and-bleep rhythm,
gets a bit more hip-hoppy, more Arabian fantasia, into the space age.
Anyway - an excellent comp overall.
Zenon M. Feszczak
Ambientologist