progressive trance / electronic / ambient

With a virtuous, elegant and very expressive sound, the delightful atmosphere conceived on Gaia is definitely a gentle invitation to travel beyond the imaginary horizons of the psytrance subgenre of electronic music. With a consistent and expansive, though pragmatic and dynamic sonorous layout, this album presents itself as a very diligent and creative work of art. Departing from general ordinary harmonies, gradually, the neutral, but abundant horizontal melodic components that constitutes the bulk of this work becomes involved in a vivacious, but discreet musical configuration, whose vitality revolves around all the majestic elements that are present throughout the whole album. 

Sixty-nine minutes long, the album has eleven tracks: 1) Endless Road; 2) Dreamland; 3) Earthbound; 4) Ring of Clouds; 5) Magic; 6) Breathe; 7) Light; 8) Frozen (a song by the Driftsetters, with an Unknown Reality Remix); 9) Simple Things; 10) Oneness; 11) Soft Transition; with a somewhat lethargic, though gracefully cosmic musical style, the artist delivers to the audience a symphony of unlimited pleasure, whose formidable degree of artistry subtly surpasses the ordinary boundaries of the genre, and astutely explores a more transcendent and splendorous creative paradigm, that effectively dilutes melodies within a colorful timeframe, without interrupting the ventures of its placid cosmogony. Though the artist, Ralph Freund, basically explores the general common ground virtues of psychedelic electronic music, the overall qualities present on this album certainly exposes its primordial grace to more intrinsically somber patterns of introspection. 

Evidently — to enjoy this album —, you must really appreciate this type of music; otherwise, you may become somewhat bored. With this written warning in mind, its primary concern is to emphasize the prominent qualities of this album, whose elemental uneasiness rely on its crystalline surface, that slowly dilates to become progressively more synthetic and flexible. As the sound evolves and reaches the center of the digression of its tempestuous sonorous axis, the melodies ostensibly become more vivacious and perennial, though the calmer atmosphere that fluctuates over the general balance of the style dissipates gradually, in the same way its quintessential harmonies are conceived.   

While this album is not that original, its definitely marvelously conceived, and exposes with a modest degree of sensibility a genuine sense of originality, which hangs gently in the breeze of its formidable and overtly consistent calmness. An interesting work of art that deserves to be appreciated, Gaia, by Unknown Reality, is undoubtedly a very gracious and sensitive work of art, that aggregates a beautiful coalition of sounds directly into the anatomy of the genre. 



Wagner

techno

If you have been walking around through cities like Antwerp, Brussels, Milan, New York, Berlin or London, you might have already seen this name appear on festival flyers. If you are as old as I am, you will know the name and you might wonder why a review for a Marco Bailey album appears on Merchants Of Air. After all, Marco Bailey is a techno and trance DJ/producer and Merchants Of Air is mostly known for either our guitar based stuff or our love for soundscapes and drones. Back in the nineties, the rockers despised the house freaks and vice versa. If you loved guitars, you hated synths. It was that simple. But yeah, here we are.

Marco Bailey was born in a small town in Belgium. Probably looking up to people like Joël Smets, Eric Geboers and Marnicq Bervoets, Bailey wanted to become a motocross champion. However, multiple injuries brought that career to an end and left him looking for another passion. That passion he found in music and soon he was making a name for himself as a new wave, punk and rock DJ. In the late eighties or early nineties, Marco Bailey turned towards electronic music and with hits like 'Scorpio' became a phenomenon in the techno scene. Since then, Bailey has been spinning records all over the world. This new album, 'Temper' is his fifth and according to the artist himself, his most representative sounding work so far.

Like I mentioned before, back in the days I didn't listen to his records so I am unfamiliar with most of Marco Bailey's work. Yet, when the album came in, I wanted to give it a good listen. For the record, I have been a huge new beat fan and even during my most stubborn metal days, I often secretly explored the regions of techno, trance, house and their derivatives. About a decade and a half ago, I simply decided "if it's good it's good", regardless of the musical genres. So I bought myself the "The Sound Of Belgium" compilations and added them to my day-to-day playlist. And that is why I was so interested in 'Temper' in the first place. I've seen the evolution of rock music, now it was time to see how an artist like Marco Bailey evolved.

And I am very happy to say that he did not, or at least not in the way I was afraid of. Today's dance scene is loaded with annoying repetitive tracks that just don't seem to go anywhere. Many tracks lack originality, they're single layered and go by without any sense of apotheosis or direction. Not so with Marco Bailey. On most of the tracks on 'Tempest' he breathes the air of nineties trance and he effortlessly manages to throw them at the listener with the same freshness and the same atmosphere as back in the nineties. This whole album could have been released in 1996 and nobody would be surprised. 

Of course, the majority here drives on repetitive beats, synth sequences and soundscapes but there is something narrative about these tracks. Sure, you can dance the night away to these bouncing tunes but they are also laced with emotions and with storytelling. Perhaps that aspect of Marco Bailey's sound comes from his era as a new wave DJ. Somehow I feel as if he has created dance songs for the new wave generation and/or new wave club classix for the house generation.  Fact is, this album has been a constant in my day-to-day playlist since it arrived here and I don't dislike any single track on it.

Besides, there is plenty of variation to be found. It's not all boom-tsj-boom-tsj-boom-tsj-boom-tsj. 'Ryoko' for instance is a remarkable downtempo electro tune that nudges towards the psy-chill releases that often appear on this website. 'Klauth' thrives on a stunning eighties bassline and comes up with brilliant soundscapes. This is definitely one of my favorites. 'Suoh' is a peaceful ambient tune and 'Tatsu' is perfectly suited as a post apocalyptic movie soundtrack. Most of the other tracks gracefully invite you to the dancefloor.

So if Marco Bailey says that this is most representative work so far, I completely agree. 'Temper' is an extremely enjoyable piece of techno music and perhaps one of the best things to be found in the EDM scene today. I can only recommend this album to everyone who has ever been a fan of Bailey's work, to everyone who has been dancing wildly to trance music since the nineties and to everyone who visits festivals like Tomorrowland today. 


Serge

electronic / psychedelic / trance

it was meant to be is an album by psychedelic electronic music artist Dubnotic, released on May 21 by British label Visionary Shamanics Records. Sixty three minutes long, the album masterly disperses a varied and versatile degree of psychedelic electronic music, in the best style it has to offer to its audience, with the partnership of other artists. With diluted harmonies, and the typical shamanic musical ordination, it was meant to be is a record that brings about in the crest of its sonorous abilities the traditional features of the genre: expansive harmonies in very long tracks, in a very extensive album. For enthusiasts of the genre, it is really the great provisional strength for the musical horizon of a new era, transmitting and expanding an atmosphere of splendor that condensates in a galaxy of captivating serenity amazingly intricate, but peaceful melodies, where liquid souls can exemplify at the axis of its engines the greatest legacy of a never-ending set of rhythms, that always becomes higher when exposed to the circumference of an interior sun. 

With an amazing set of melodies, that vigorously comprehends as an axis of its own vicissitudes the horizon of its own infinity, it was meant to be can be better understood as a threaded stream of contrived and consistent melodies, uplifted to a higher scale of meditative dissonance. On this record, all melodies virtually fuse and melt together to conform to a new pattern of statically subtle – and submissively ordained – thoughts, and progressively, it is possible to feel that the experience on this album reaches a new level of conscious completeness, that expects the underground resilience of its practical results to be far beyond the usual levels of sensitive reliance.

While this album certainly has monotonous moments, invariably inevitable to the genre, it was meant to be can be considered genuinely good, truly representative of the psychedelic electronic musical genres its style abundantly revolves around with, in a dispersive infinity of diluted harmonies, where time dwells throughout the vicinities of its own embracing cosmogony of enchanting melodies.  

In a virtuous sensibility upon which everything can be understood as the primary principle of the delusional efficiency of sound, it was meant to be is a very satisfactory album, that honors psychedelic electronic music in the most simple, but fundamental plans of its musical basis. 
  

Wagner