Celt Islam - Baghdad

I am not usually fond of music that tries to mix ethnic elements with dub/reggae influences. It usually doesn´t give me anything, turning out to be just some crazy pot-pourri of tones and rhythms without being really rooted in something creative and soulful. This album is for me something entirely different and Celt Islam has been successful with his blending of dub/electro with "Islamic/world grooves".

Celt Islam is Muhammad Abdullah Hamzah an English Muslim, Sufi from Manchester, England, and a member of the northern British alternative dub/breaks outfit "Nine Invisibles " and " Analogue Fakir ". He has released two albums called Dervish and AL Mizan, which mixes dub step, dancehall with dubby world music. He has also worked along side respected names such as Inder Goldfinger (tabla player for Stone Roses), Ian Brown´s band and Natacha Atlas and Dawoud Kringle who has performed with for example Lauryn Hill. Celt Islam tries to define a "Sufi-Dub genre", a sub-genre he is one of the few trying to create. So what is this new album all about? Well the listener can expect twelve really good songs, all trying to embody Celt Islam´s "dub-driven crossover". The best ones are:

2. Tribernetikz - Intense dubby rhythms, electronic sequencers and beautiful string-parts combined with some sort of acoustic string instrument playing a nice melody building up to a climax

5. Sarayada Dub - Nice wobbly sequencer base, tablas, a good sub, sampled vocals, mixed with reggae elements, and different parts of acoustic melodies with the smell of the middle-east

 

6. Borderless World (feat. the Renegade Sufi) - another good blend between reggae and world music with some deeper dub and electronic parts mixed with delayed voices and a very nice melody on top

8. Habbiyya - a bit slower and deeper, with a nice electronic sequencer part and flowing strings. This song has a bit of a more tentative, melancholic feel, with a nice minimal groove and beautiful melodies

9. Baghdad - the title track is a bit more uptempo, with powerful and deeply intense string-parts and in the middle presenting more rhythms, some floating vocals with a breeze of lost memories

http://soundcloud.com/celt-islam
https://www.facebook.com/

matt-in-orbit 2012

Transition Festival

Transition festival is held between the 5th and 9th of Apri, 2012 in a national park, in Almonde, Spain (close to Seville). It is one of the first big European festivals this summer, and a perfect getaway, especially for us living up north, by then craving some sunny warm weather, after the long grim winter.

This festival is organized partly by the people behind German label BMSS records. Therefore it is not surprising to see many of their talented artists perform at the festival for example Hypnocoustics, Multiman and label DJs Boom Shankar and Yan Gecko. So one can expect a lot of melodic psy  on this festival. Other artists sure to satisfy your ears, mind, soul and feet on the mainfloor are oldschool-goa act Total Eclipse; Lucas from Tip Records, Aphid Moon and Tantrix from excellent label Blue Hour Sounds. Also playing are Elegy, Phasephour and DJ Daksinamurti, the rest of the lineup is filled with for me not so known live-acts and DJs which I´m sure are still going to be interesting to hear. The line-up for the chill-floor is not yet completed, guessing by the size of it ( and the chill-out opening already on Wednesday evening for early people arriving early). But Aes Dana and Entheogenic are of course two great artists that will draw a crowd.

So, the festival gates open @ 10pm on Wed the 4th and the opening ceremony will take place on the main-floor @ exactly 10.22 pm on Thurs evening the 5th of April. Tickets at the moment go as low as 40 Euro, however they will only be 50 Euro at the gates, so not much more expensive and well worth the price for what seems to be a really amazing festival. Here is a video from last year:

Except for music to dance and chill to, there will be other activities to participate in such as lectures, massage, meditation and a lot more to satisfy the mind, body and the soul. Transition festival also has a children area, a market area and there will be multiple performances of various kinds. Finally DJ Boom Shankar has put together a little playlist on his soundcloud presenting some of the artists in this years edition of Transition festival. So if you want a taste of the music before deciding if to go or not just have a listen. See you in Spain!

www.transitioncrew.org/
Facebook-event

matt-in-orbit-2012

Logic Bomb - The Grid

Time to be a bit patriotic ;) Logic Bomb consists of two Swedish guys - Jonas Pettersson och Johan Krafft, both from the town of Örebro ( home of many really good psytrance-musicians). And when it comes to making high quality full-on with a psychedelic twist, Logic Bomb really knows how to pull their act together! Their new album, The Grid, which was released about a month ago is not an exception.

Logic Bomb, was formed in 1998, and two years later, they released their highly thought debut album 'Headware', produced together with fellow Swede, Jonas Bergvall, on legendary Swedish label Spiral Trax. Following up on the phenomenal success of 'Headware', their second album 'Unlimited' was released on leading English label TIP World in 2002. After years of silence, in 2007 the Logic Bombs finally released their 3rd and highly acclaimed album, Sonic Algebra released on the label Solstice Music. Mixing really powerful melodies with soul, and high-tech, weird psy-sounds, Logic Bomb is one of the few groups today, that has created their own high-quality sound and has managed to stick to it, thus you can often hear if it´s one of their songs playing. This is also obvious when listening to their new album released on TIP records.

Although this album is a good album all-through, with all the songs being really well-produced and also capable of telling their own little personal stories to the listener, as always there are a few songs that you for some reason speaks to you more and that you end up playing on repeat.

3. Bitter Hitter - initially focusing on metallic sounds jumping around and then presenting more melodic elements with really powerful patterns of tones, but still sticking to a psy-groove

4. Sinister Science - some really great full-on with beautifully flowing melodies, in nice symbiosis with quirky psychedelic patterns and sounds; and with an ending spreading warm energies and a smell of green grass and naked feet dancing away

7. 4th Dimension - built upon a steady structure of a pumping psychedelic groove with a hint of funkiness, continuing with a really emotional melody, and finishing off with putting it all together and twisting it to its fullest. Good shit!

8. Knorrar - with an element of the oldschool-goa sound and also reminding me a bit of older Logic Bomb songs in structure, melodies and quirky sounds this song is just as the title says (in Swedish) knorrig :)

http://logicbomb.se/
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Logic+Bomb

matt-in-orbit 2012

Apnea

Apnea is a DJ/artist from Belgium. He started playing in 2003 @ a Belgian underground club called the Zoo and was quickly signed to record label Kairoo. He is currently also signed to the label Naturall Productions. Having played at many parties and festivals around the globe, for example in Germany, Austria, Nepal, Indonesia and Thailand  he ended up in Ban Sabaii, Thailand.´, where he also organizes the  Acid Moon parties at Ban Sabaii which are held two days before every Half moon. And together with Jharu he started The Unseen Vision, a project more focused on night time music. Apnea describes his DJ-sets as "groovy, psychedelic, full on sets filled with mind teasing twists and a pinch of hypnotism to bring out the trance state of the mind". The following set is a good example of this. With a lot of artists from the Latin American psy-scene, such as Ital (Chile), In Lak Ech (Mexico) and Disorder (Mexico), this mix is sure to get you dancing around when doing the dishes ;)

The Secret of the Naga's Fire by Apnea

http://soundcloud.com/apnea

matt-in-orbit 2012 

Southwild

One of the latest compilations I bought was Peakological released by the Swizz label Peak records. While this is solid release, with many songs that are good, one of them stood out from the rest and that was Dr. Feelgood with the artist Southwild. I can´t really put my finger on what it is that makes this song so special, it might be that despite its pretty hard, intense style it has a flavour of funkiness. Or it can simply be that the artist uses sounds and rhythms that really speaks to me. Whatever it is, this song has that something that makes the listener return to it again and again.

Soutwhild is Jay Alien, from Germany but now living in Toronto/Canada where he also works as a mastering engineer. He is also one part of Rastaliens together with Ralph (Braincell), their latest album Back on Earth released in 2007.

Southwild is Jay´s new project and 2010 he joined the UK based label Wildthings records, a great label for twisted positive psychedelic trance. Jay is soon to release his debut album on this label as well as several tracks on compilations on Wildthings, Peak records and Mind Funk. Some of Jays older songs appeared on the Granular EP, which was released in 2010, and can be downloaded for free through Ektoplazm. If you want to hear peaks of what´s coming next, you should check out Southwilds soundcloud to hear snippets of upcoming releases. I hope his album is due very soon cause it sounds really great :)

http://soundcloud.com/southwild

matt-in-orbit 2012

Ultimae Wintersale

Ultimae Records - the outstanding French ambient/chill-out label is having its winter-sale with CDs going as low as 10 Euro and with some very interesting collection packs. Among the gems you can find is new compilation Ambrosia and an older one called Imaginary friends, as well as two personal favourites: Distances by H.U.V.A Network released in 2004 and the first album from Aes Dana - Season 5 released as early as January 2003. I might order these pretties myself. Among the collection packs you shouldn´t  miss out on is the carbon pack by Carbon Based Lifeforms which includes their first 3 albums, and if you get a fat pay-check you should definitely invest in the Fahrenheit Project Collection, which includes all 7 installations of the series for 70 Euro. The good thing with these packs is that you pay much less for shipping than for buying each CD separately. The sale ends on January the 31st so be quick about it. The song below is taken from the first Carbon Based album called Hydroponic Garden. A true masterpiece.

Ultimae was  founded early 2000 by Vincent Villuis aka Aes Dana and Sandrine Gryson aka Sunny / Mahiane and is based in Lyon, France. It has put out 53 releases so far, most of them are excellent!

http://www.ultimae.com/

matt-in-orbit 2012

Mr Peculiar

Great News! Mr Peculiar is soon to be releasing a new album. And it´s not a day to soon. Last album - Infinite Evolution (released on Sonic Dragon) - was released almost five years ago, and is in my opinion one of the best melodic psy-albums being made in the 21st century. With tracks like Mystic Entity, Hero and Re-Entry this album should be in everyone´s shelf.

Mr Peculiar is Dustin Bint living in Melbourne, Australia. He has been making music for over 15 years and has released 4 albums and numerous songs on different compilations. His musical talent has brought him gigs all over the world, in Australia, Japan and many places in Europe. His debut album Elements was released on Tribeadelic records in 2002 but it was with his 3rd album that I, and I think many others as well, found out about him. It is called Mind-Dala and was released on Sonic Dragon in 2005.

So what can we except from this new album with the title Alternate Worlds (and being released by french label Hadra)? Well, since the release of his last album not much have been heard from Dustin, just a few songs here and there, but not very much considering the time-span. In July, 2011 came his latest track, How´s Your Head, actually being released on a Hadra compilation called Pangea, a very nice compilation. The song itself is a bit slower than we are used to hear from Mr Peculiar, but still shows his ability to make beautiful melodies and create powerful atmospheres. One can only hope that his upcoming album will include more music like this. Listen for yourself:

http://www.myspace.com/mrpeculiar
http://www.hadra.net/

matt-in-orbit 2012