Ibiza. White island, place of euphoric club trance, fit birds in bikinis, unprotected sex among low-income youths and cokeheads: or so we thought.

Nocturna

Cronik

Inpsyde Media (Italy)

Ibiza. White island, place of euphoric club trance, fit birds in bikinis, unprotected sex among low-income youths and cokeheads: or so we thought. It appears, however, that there’s also some quirky, cute nighttime psy being made there; not something I expected, but something that I’m pleased to learn.

While it’s not as dark as Inpsyde Media’s previous releases (Night 24 Hours still gives me the odd bad dream), the depth and general vibe are still there. But while a lot of dark producers go all out with the amps turned up to eleven, Nocturna is happier to let the tension build almost by itself, making for a more atmospheric product. No Fear takes a while to drop, but when it does you’ve got a good idea what’s in store for the rest of the album. Think scratchy, think hectic, think dark, but it doesn’t go too far into the realms of the pant-wetting. A nice, tight opener. Out There gets a little more menacing, thanks to some nicely-manipulated sonic tricks, and a couple of breaks that slowdown, warp back up again, and generally sound bloody trippy.

Blasting has some nice riff work on the midrange, with the frequencies altering subtly with serious 3D sounds coming out at you. Nocsack is a bastard – scratchy, with a baby crying all deep in the background. It freaks me out, and I’m not tripping (contrary to internet rumour) so I’d love to see (from a distance) what it would do to a dancefloor on whatever psychedelics you crazy kids are taking these days. Top marks too, for the horror flick melody that pops in towards the end. Sinister. Back In Island has a very underproduced, oldskool sound to it that’s at odds with the values on the rest of the album; likewise the caustic dark-glitch-psy of Cracket somehow doesn’t quite work. Loco Pirulo is a gigantic piece of music: I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say it’s like a peak that lasts seven and a half minutes. The tension and escalation here are top-notch, and again there’s this dazzling way in which he seems to just sit back and let the tune do the work itself.

Skating Solar Planets is moody and industrial, with some of the most frightening noises I’ve ever heard in a psy track: dare ya to listen to it alone in a house at night. Finally you’ve got Enterrador and Uda Project which both have some nice sounds but really don’t get you anywhere – functional but malnourishing. I’m pleased to see with this album that there’s more life in dark psy – a subgenre which, let’s face it, has largely been feeling rather limp so far this year.

It’s not perfect, but there’s enough here to appeal to fans of the genre, and then some.

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