Homemade Vol 2 – Agitato

One of those releases where you can read down the tracklist, and your brain magically tells you what it’s going to sound like. The production throughout has that suitably glossy sheen to it, and the tracks all follow the golden rule of 32. With me? Toast3d’s The Creator is case in point number one, purely formulaic with its drum ‘programming’ which (searches for positive) is definitely helpful for the DJ. It builds up ravey hoovery sounds, drops down into a plateau with a sample (“I am the creator, psycho” or something) and then it finishes. Okay. I was interested to see Sandman make an appearance, then less interested to see that the track (Phaze Off) is remixed here by Xerox & Illumination, two artists who have lost it so much in my book that I can’t help laugh at the name "Xerox," churning out carbon copies of the same tune over and over again. There really is nothing to say about this track. Space Monkey’s In The Dark is pretty decent, with soul/house vocals peppered over a nice backbone. There’s a nice chunky breakbeaty peak and drop, and it falls into a goodvibe, funky main run, with more lysergic wobbling than you can shake a glowstick at. Point’s Daily Conclusions is deeper with a spacey, almost dublike feel to the bottomend and less reliance on those bogstandard sounds at the top to drive it along. Its hypnotic midsection leads to a break, after which the melody comes in and dominates: a pity. Opium Of The Masses’ Double Trouble is a pretty tricky one as well – some quite different sounds in here, the groove phases in and out of quantize-country, and it has moments of Silicon Sound-ish morning melodies. Standard, but it works well. And then I broke a personal record: I made it to 1’35 of Beat Hacker’s appendicitis-inducing sub-infected pap, the furthest I’ve made before. Unfortunately however, I am unable to tell you what the rest of the track is like, but I imagine it’s appendicitis-inducing sub-infected pap. Bio Tonic’s Psy Friends has to be the biggest turkey reviewed this week, it’s an embarrassing mess of a cringeworthy main riff that sounds like it was written by a sixteen year old (apologies if Bio Tonic is, or are, in fact sixteen.) There are three names credited to this flan, and their parents have my sympathies. It really is laughable. It really is. The best pro-abortion argument you will hear all year. Cyber Cartel’s The Web Masters deserves a point for finally embracing psytrance’s geeky central contingent. I can imagine all the web developers going crazy for this; or they would, if it was written in Perl or something. Instead, we get the usual melodic trudging, full of rushes to bring you up on your E and all that. Finally Trauma’s Ping Pong has an individual sound – well, as in it’s different to the rest of the album but still cobbled together randomly from various recognisable sources, including one blatant rip from TIP’s Infinite Experiences. Stop. Eject. Remove CD. Hurl in bin. Fuck me ragged, ladies and gentlemen, if it’s not a compilation with two good tracks and seven shit ones.