Mind Games – Doof

You’ve got to love this label. I know I do: consistently interesting and inventive, and without whom we wouldn’t have REV, Double REL, Iron Madness or… well, read on. Entropy’s Robosize has one of the best introductions I’ve heard in a while, a cheeky filtered countdown then bosh, straight into the madness. It starts out in a standard hard fullon vein, and then picks up more and more attitude and gnarl. There’s a great drop where is shifts sideways into a shuffled groove, with acidy goodness sqeezed from every pore, before jumping back into a cracking final run. Longstanding psyreviews favourite Double REL pulls a particularly evil rabbit out of the hat with Back Dad City. I love REL because of the funk and humour mixed in with the gnarl, and this is no mistake. It’s definite ass-wiggle stuff here, the midsection clears to create a wonderful airy groove, before a series of breaks, stops and peaks send it raining havoc on the dancefloor. CCL’s CCL is a deep chugger which, at 142pm, basically holds things back. It’s really got the atmosphere of a big tune bubbling underneath, but can’t quite blow its lid off enough to come out. Terranoise’s Vitamin T is maniac all the way, easing temporarily into a slomo groove that even has a touch of melody going on. The textures swim around wonderfully on this one, and the drop is something you have to hear to believe: a massive peak, dozens of false starts, then headfirst into a vat of LSD-jelly before you get centrifuged for good measure. Abomination & Loren’s White Devil is an utter cracker, much deeper and more subtle than the preceding tracks. It builds up into an awesome riff, full of midrange and with plenty of twist. One break and drop later and – trust me – you won’t believe what you’re hearing. Discordant and unbalanced sounds fly around the room, seemingly at odds with each other. It really is an incredibly clever record. Encephalopaticys (bless you) turf out an incredibly hard monster with Moments Of Pain, a completely unforgiving bastard of a track. It’s enough to make this here cup of tea (sips tea) feel like a dodgy pill. Electrypnose’s Cypher goes deep, way deep: most of the action is right down the bottom end, so whenever it creeps upwards and brings in the midrange, you sure as hell notice it. Not a melody in sight on this one, it’s all about layered textures and I have to say that it works better on here than pretty much anywhere else I can think. Cypher isn’t immediate by any means, which might mean it doesn’t get played out as much as it should – but this is hypnotic, evolving trance the way it used to be done. Kashyyyk’s Charly & Ervin opens with a Flintstones sample (question: why aren’t there more of these?) and whips it up into a black mulchy frenzy. I mean this really is filthy. Disgustingly so. It’s like violent pornography, but in a good way. Cactus’ Psych Reaction makes me laugh out loud whenever I hear it, the beats are something ridiculous like 280bpm at the start, and there’s lots of trickery through the track with dropped beats, missed lines, all with a conspiring intricacy to it. Sheesh. Well, at the end of the day it’s another class compilation from Doof. Better than BOOO, more listenable than Forest, it could be their best compilation yet. Proof that the whole “dark psy” gig has got plenty more life left in it.