Acupuncture - Medium

From the art of karate to the art of sticking pins into yourself. Israel’s DJ Bog has selected eight cuts of tight tecchy trance for Medium, a label who’s found their own tecchy, progressive slant on trance. Nasser’s Feyruz is an industio-minimal warmup with what sounds like digital machine gun fire clattering over the top. Plenty of flange and plenty of phase make it a more three-dimensional tune than other, more linear minimal tracks out there. Domestic’s Human Base is absurdly long and rather drawn out, though the final two and a half minutes are nicely innovative and have plenty of growl to stir up that dancefloor. Evil Drug Lords’ Things Controversial is an atmospheric and percussive tune, with vocal-like snarls and nice light twist going on, but at almost ten minutes long it’s a bit of a non-event – be prepared to drop it half way through if crowd momentum is a factor (which it should be.) Molecular’s Hardcore Party is absurdly tight and grooves along nicely, picking up sweet pads and making use of a wicked twisty guzzle-type noise at the end. Matenda’s Secrets of a Mermaid is a deep sound even for Matenda – a slow and thoughtful buildup with layered melodies holding things together while the pace picks up. DJ Examino’s HAL 9000 is a blistering and busy tune with more pace and balls than the others on here. Twisty acid, looped filtered samples, and plenty of energy. Visual Paradox’s Laughing Dog On Bog brings the album to a close, it’s a very tecchy and static tune that has a nice feel and certainly something to wiggle your butt about to. The overall effect of this album is alright, by no means a classic but the music here is consistently tight and pleasant.