High Voltage House – ACDC

I must admit that lately I’ve been finding “normal” psytrance much less appealing than progressive. This may be because the stuff coming out on the likes of Iboga, Tribal Visions and Sog has been consistently high quality lately. Or, maybe it’s because as the UK edges into something approaching a summer, the floaty and breezy lower bpms are more attractive. Or, maybe I’m getting old. Whatever, ACDC have hit the nail firmly on the head with this, an excellent value double CD that totally hits the spot. Echölab’s Real Delay opens this album up gorgeously, with incredibly smooth and fluid sounds mooching around a breezy 134bpm backbone. No big breakdown here – just an effortless glide with touches of perfect melody keeping it gliding sweetly along. Martin H’s Bolido is all about the groove, a slightly tipsy and dipsy little number that, despite its rather large breakdown, is content to pick up vast hypnotic crunches and little licks, that make it a rather massive tune and one I look forward to hearing on a massive system. D.T.M.’s Heat is downright dirty – filthy amyl house that sounds like an old bloke in a stained raincoat. The sample goes “it’s sweaty in ‘ere”,its 1340bpb groove has definitely got the horn, and post breakdown it’s so overflowing with sexual tension that listening to it on a Sunday (as I am) feels sacrilegious. Alex Joon’s Deep Down takes things a little darker and more edgy, creating a sort of paranoid feeling to it that’s quite tasty.  Saiko Pod’s classic Groove Moderator gets yet another remix here, this one from Miro and it’s an utter corker. Baggy, laconic, with those underworld-y sounds perfectly placed against clattering percussion, and it’s utterly utterly brilliant. Seriously. Whether you say it’s progressive, trance, house, psytrance, skiffle, bluegrass – it’s simply an excellent piece of music. Sardonia Sound System’s Dee Vee Dee is a real find and one of my favourite tunes of the moment. The groove is simple and hooky, the sounds are out of this world, and it’s the pace of the thing that makes it – downright bloody classic. XV Killist’s Alfa Aroma is remixed by DJ Pow-Low, with a nice industrial sound to it, kinda gnarled-up-funk with one hell of a fat bassline to it. The Marc O’Tools Rain-Man Move To Club Dub mix (phew) of Krüger and Coyle’s The Witness would be better to lose the chanting that it picks up about halfway through, to me it spoils the attention from a balanced and fluid track and seems to wreck all the very able intensity-building that happens in the breakdown. Finally Martin H comes back with Liftin’, a  sublime piece of music that lifts bloody well, into a busy and delightful plateau..tranc ethat moves just how you want it to, definitely one of the standouts on this album. But the fun doesn’t stop there, there’s also a Bonus CD mixed by label boss Anti, a solid mix whose highlights for me are Atmos’s Raumwelt Signal (Hernan Cattaneo & John Tonks remix) that sounds like a cross between Ticon and Wizzy Noise, and a wonderful remix of Saiko Pod’s Silent Running by True To Nature. Overall this is an excellent package, if you’re looking for more progressive sounds to balance out against your Iboga collection then you seriously need look no further. More significantly though, High Voltage House captures the musical zeitgeist perfectly – and deserves to be a huge success.