| Le Lotus Bleu |
Magnetic Storm [Groove Zone]
My first impress is negative, coz of the plastic kick sound & the relative flatness atmosphere. I need to pass over the first quarter in order to perceive more catchy elements. It’s especially from the gull‘s sample at 4’20 that Mushroom Approach start to grow on me for the second half of the tune more lively.
Kinda strange western film soundtrack atmosphere all along E-Motion Sickness, it’s a bit a like a lost alone desperado in the middle of a desert walking without anymore water in his gourd, starting to get cycling hallucinations, mirages due to major solar exposition of his head under a burning sun.
Optimize is current Sensient style quite similar to Phobial to be more precize (his first track released on Groove Zone), it means rough tones coppled with industrial & cyber sounds, still this assembly line feeling. It’s a bit old hat stuff.
How Low Saruman is easily the heaviest stomper night tune of the compilation. Indeed, i was thinking Magnetic Storm will gather mainly productions going this way with warrior mood & fat sounds but actually & curiously this is the only one except maybe, in a second order, with the Genetic Soin remix & Tetraktys ones. To get the atmosphere more dramatic, obscur & tense , you’ll notice some deep & deaf breath taking sounds after 3’00. You even listen at 5’20 kinda jericho trumpett call to push one step beyond, the overwhelming force track’s feeling.
Around 7’00 some percussions are appearing in the background.
I’ve noticed when titles got a good name, their producers have often put all their creativity for this consequently these tracks sounds very dissapointing. That was the main idea i was starting with the listening of The Lords Of The Strings. So it’s not as smashing as Itaitaiko although it succeed in being percussive too.
Burning Palace is more tech-trancey flavoured than some too tech-housey dissapointing Tetraktys songs on his album. Unfortunatly Tetraktys doesn’t reach again his former techy level as a little background crossover & tech-housey taste still remains in my ears here for me. What would be great , i wish if he could still produce new stuffs closer to Itaitaiko’s job, i mean like his fisrt hours productions on Sub Machine (Mechanical Unit,Fight Back…).
No In Sense ! got a very evident warm feeling. Like if Setherian & Oxyd wanted to succeed in drawing your attention from the begining, they put the litte typical jingle’s station which annouces you a train is arriving.
The track reveals all its potential after 5’00 (the total lenght is 9’03), more rythmicwith brazilian percussions, more melodic & harmonic in proggy-dubby soundscape. The constrast between first & second half is striking like night & day : all the same elements are present but the prism is different & your perception get modified.
Clutch provides something apart, constrating with the rest, indeed it’s a pure groovy-techy rythmic exercice you’ve got here, i hardly notice the bassline presence, so discret it is. The kind of thing more difficult to appreciate in home listening circumstances & that more perfectly fits in proggy dj mixes. To be very clear if you know Tribal Warrior from Sonic Fusion you have a good perception of PH : not the most easy accessible & apreciated music but something possessing some limited adepts too. In the case of home listening, if you succeed in entering the mood’s track from the start , you’ll catch the step by step progression otherwise you won’t bare it at all i think.
Go Go Yubari, i don’t know what’s or who’s Yubari but reminds me of this film’s cue : Run Run Forest ; if a personn just hope he’s as sympathic as Forest but more clever, just a little bit :)
However the tune is great maybe more connected to morning than night stuff but who really cares if it’s good, it posseeds with a special symetrical build up (intro/outro).
Nevertheless I have a regret : the voice sample before the outro which brings nothing & don’t suit with the track’s harmony. So from my view, in the Larner’s familly the best prog artist is Fine Diner even if he’s less konwn than Sentient.
While first listening to SHM, i needed to check 2 times the tracklist to find the artist, so much i was surprised coz in my head this sound wasn’t matching with Freq name probably due to these nice twisted-strectched leads conferringa more psychedelic status to this production. Actually, SHM is one of my favorite track on Magnetic Storm, i find it very different from former Freq works.
In this new compilation opus from Groove Zone, the aim is to be more night focused but don’t expect too much heavy pumping beats. Here, the tracks’s spirit keep most of the time this modern, urban vicious circles, muffled sound textures trademarks of Groove Zone, already encountered in the previous volumes, thanks to Metronome’s mastering.
The other particularity of Groove Zone in general & Magnetic Storm due to the night orientation , is the ability of always renewing its track-artist-listing (7 newcomers here for me) from cd to cd without compromises too much on the global quality result.
Everestish Climax :4,7,9,10
Effective ones :2,5,8
7,5/10 |
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