Lo-Land Hi-Tech – Sonic Dragon

Holland! Land of porn, pot, and chips with mayonnaise. Okay, now we’ve reduced a lovely nation of lovely people into a cultural stereotype, our minds are more or less ready to deal with an album compiled by and consisting of music from the Netherlands.

Liftshift’s Contracting Waves is just pure brilliance… the sound will knock you off your feet, it’s so deep and so fluid… it shifts and schnooks its way along, before bringing out some wonderful little melodies and tickles that just sound so.. I mean fucking hell! Just listen to it: hypnotic, weighty, gravitational. Apparently Liftshift has an album forthcoming on GPlus records, and ah cannae fickin wait. The sound synchs well with Drexl’s Eating Moves, rooted in the same sound but with a more conventional psytrance movement. It drives laconically up to a breakdown, then picks up more kicking energy – very well produced and with a deceptiveness to it: its 144 BPM sounds much slower. Zen Mechanics is up next with Dolly Dots, and it’s one of the best tunes of his I’ve heard. The sounds in it are great, and the off-kilter lead line in the midsection is great. The rest of the track is all about a hung-togetherness, like there’s a sphere of sound around you… deliriously well-produced. This is bloody amazing. Cyrus The Virus teams up with Sono Loco for I Robot, firmly in standard fullon territory with the Spun bassline in full effect. I’ve always liked Cyrus’ ability to bring out emotion in his tracks, which he manages here with great effect – a wonderful melody keeps it moving along, but it all ends rather too quickly and you’re left with the impression that he could have taken it further. Loki has an intriguing sound with Lagomorph, a right old bubbling broth of progressive and fullon sounds, jostling around and releasing energy like a Frisbee-throwing machine on malfunctioning overdrive. Rev Particle used to record with Bonky and as much is evident form the sounds on Scheldezoi, a burping and slurping tune that has a heavy bottom end, and a sort of autopilot feel to the sounds across the top. As for Synchro… well, I remember hearing that first 12” of his on Tip and being initially very very crossed (“this isn’t tip. The pressing plant must have put the wrong sticker on the middle of the record”) and then, after several listens, being very very impressed. His silence has been too long for me – Star Spangled here is delightful, it’s cruisy and mechanical and effortlessly… well, effortlessly Synchro. There’s surprises and twists and turns and flits and fits and naked tits… okay, I’m lying about the last one but my point is, the invention and bravery that he’s always exhibited is still here, maybe a bit covered-up here, but it makes for a wonderful return. And I’m not giving anything away about its sample neither =). Zebra-N’s Souperman is a full-throttle, nighttime-ish belter with some hilarious samples thrown in, but final hats-off must go to Jocid & Psychobit for Global Control… think Jocid’s style but intitally shifted into morning, melodic territory before leaping out into manic magic evil, hair-standing-on-back-of-neck stuff, cascading into a huge finale that’s hard to believe was only made with sounds. Phew. Is it just me, or are things getting much more varied at the moment? If you moaned last week that it all sounds the same, check this. Because it doesn’t. And that’s a good thing.