Miko X-Wave Phonokol (Israel)

At first glance, this might sound like a shot in the arm of essential trance plasma. X-Wave is DJ Miko’s new moniker, and the promise of five (count ’em) new California Sunshine tracks plus some collaborations with (count ‘em again if you want) Skazi, GMS and Saafi Connection suggests more than it delivers. Of the new California Sunshine tracks, One Step Up is weak and uneventful, Mood is plain boring, Play For Today is boring but growly, while Going Down is just about alright, with escalating acid lines and a hard-tecchy feel, and New Underground is layered to the nines and progresses nicely into a competent hypno-groove. Zero surprises so far, so what about the collaborations. Well, I’m Stack featuring Skazi is nice, it’s overloaded with liquid squelch, nice and energetic, and escalates into a 16thy meltdown foot stomp spacewar. Saafi Connection twiddle knobs on two tunes, XD is well-layered and has a nice sense of something about to happen (even though it doesn’t), and Stop D Violence is competent but nondescript. Continuing their domination of every single damn CD in the box this week, GMS’ team-up with Miko is actually the standout on the album: GMS provide the kick and Miko adds the tension, and there’s an awesome signature melody that just builds and builds and builds. It’s got balls, it’s got humour, you can’t help but love it. The album closes, for some reason, with Super Sonic by new act Dynamic. Why this is slapped on the end is anybody’s guess. It’s alright (noneventful but alright) but it completely doesn’t fit with the rest of the album. Whatever. Anyway, this is a bit of an awkward release, and not as good as it could have been. With the only standout being GMS, it’s hard to recommend this one (particularly as GMS are probably on 80% of the other CD’s you could spend your cash on.) Disappointing.