Yellow Sunshine Explosion

Chromosome seems to be a bit of a flavour of the month at the moment; as well as compiling Trance Scandinavia Express on Turbotrance (reviewed last week), there’s also a damn fine artist album to sniff out too. The Beginning opens up with that “Let There Be Light…” sample that astral projection used (it’s somewhere in your collection on Psychedelic Goa Sounds Of Shakti Shanti Goa India Shiva Fluoro Volume 32 or something.) And it’s gorgeous, an easy BPM means nothing hectic’s going on, and the smooth-as-hell proggy lines build things up nicely. Missing Link (Atmos Remix) is cuter than the Sunday waitresses at The Rose & Crown, Warminster Road, Bath: freeflowing vibes that literally come alive, and descend melodic progressive bliss all over you. Human Loop does my head in a bit as the melody sounds half like amazing grace and half like one of the tunes on Hendrix’s Axis Bold As Love (I think) but aside from this, it’s a cute bustling l ittle number with nice acidy plinks. Computerized is an utter anthem… heart-wrenching chords give way to an airy, perfectly-escalating tune with a breakdown that sounds like it fell off the back of Orbital’s lorry (which is a good thing.) All Hybrids is totally sublime, and at this point (thereabouts) you really admire the way Chromosome puts his music together: icily kaleidoscopic. Mutant Androids builds into a nice, spacey, scifi-progressive thingy, which goes into a huge breakdown, and then into another gorgeous final run. Future Evolution has a killer vocode-esque bit at the end that really makes it, it’s shivers on the spine once again folks. Oh yes. Final track Entering Nirvana (ignoring the stock jokes at the expense of the title, such as “bend over mr. cobain” etc.) isn’t bad, the bass sound reminds me too much of Peter Gabriel, or as though Sting might start singing about the rainforests but whatever -- this album’s too tasty really, and though the melodies definitely mak e this a try-before-you-buy affair, it’s one of the better artist albums that will come your way this year.