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Various

Stereo Activity

Agitato (Israel)

Oh dear. Up first is Cosmovision from Bio Tonic, sounding like it’s got one foot in the 70s with sub-Kraftwerk vocode-narration and incredibly large (and quite dodgy) hard-house-euphoria stringsections and, ooh, a sample from Samuel L Jackson’s ‘Ezekiel’ line in Pulp Fiction. Hello? Is anybody in there? Luckily Space Monkey has the imagination of a thousand Bio Tonics, and Bonanza delivers nicely. Squelch factor is nice and high here, it’s got a sound that would fit into a lot of different dancefloors and each one would see it as a bit of a highlight. TOaSt3d have been behind some of the tastier Israeli output this year, but Star Guitar doesn’t really hit the mark. It’s got a sort of rambling lost-ness about it, thanks largely to a prolonged not-really-a-break where they bass cuts out and takes all the energy away (much like a bad DJ would do.) The drop’s good, but it to soon fades into eight bars of utter indistinction before it finishes completely. Trauma I’ve never got on with, and while Century follows the same formula as everything else I’ve heard from him, it just about works here. It’s all about rising 303s, with a break giving way to a wonderful acidised break. There’s not a lot else to it though, and some of the other sounds are so under-produced that it makes the original release sound like an MP3. From the moment S-Range’s Looking In starts, you know it’s going to be a killer. The way this producer has come from a progressive background seems to add that little spark to his fullon, and let’s face it he’s always had something special about his music. Looking In is wonderful, it just moves in such an impassioned way you can’t help but drift along with it. The melodies are so much more mature and balanced than the other tracks on this album, and it’s an obvious standout. Indica’s Civilization is cheesy, and the singing on the way up is nothing short of awful. It builds up into a pretty decent swarm of acid and cutup vox, before it drops then comes back as what can only be described as Porn Trance – euro melodies, barking acid, darling I’ll meet you at the Love Parade, no really I will turn up, run along I’ll meet you there. Phew. Beat Hackers contribute possibly their worst track to date, the god awful Tiger Rock, which is an insult to both tigers and rocks. Standard thunk, unbalanced and awkwardly-produced kick, strict adherence to the 32-beat rule, Rebirth, and an unbelievably shit guitar line that makes The Quireboys sound like Led Zeppelin. After which, it’s an exercise in making the most offensively boring and boringly offensive piece of trance music ever. Psycraft’s Alone is an even larger guitar romp, fair enough and I know that’s what they do these days, but personally I think this track would be better without it – the programming is intricate, the production smooth, but sticking a dirty great guitar in the middle seems to sort of spoil things a little. Finally, Point vs Golum’s Revenge Of The Benos ends the album with a grateful whimper. All in all this is very poor – with only two good tracks it’s a major, major disappointment.

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