Arcana – Interchill

Better than the “Shanti Mix” Sanctuary, Arcana sees Interchill shift its focus back to unmixed quality chillage, though not quite up to the highpoints that the label normally reaches. Tripswitch opens up with Calabi Yau, more ambient and atmospheric than the bulk of his much-played album from last year. It sets the scene up neatly for the rest of the album, nicely bridging the gap between Shanti and Dubby. The latter of which is well-served with Kaya Project’s One God Dub (Dubsahara Remix). Every tune I hear under the Kaya Project name is better than the last. Seriously, seriously good stuff this, with sounds floating in and out, with a wonderfully fat bass keeping it all propped up. Zen Lemonade’s Soriya surely needs to be listened to outdoors, loud, on top of a mountain, with no bugger anywhere near you. It’s that kind of track: full of the energies of being out in the wilderness with only a 40k Mackie active and a chillum to keep you company. The sampled chant vocals are layered in such a way as to give it real psychedelic movement – more please! Don Peyote’s In Havana has a sort of edgy almost-danceability to it. It sounds live, and as the track title suggests there’s a sort of Buena Vista Social Club vibe threaded throughout, with clattering percussion giving way to ambient bliss, and back again. Classy. Eat Static’s track on Dissolving Clouds got many an old technohead salivating; and Ocean Of Fire is a fucking gem, make no mistake. It retains, once again, their sort of “alien abduction” obsession is still evident through a deliciously funky and psychedelic bit of music. Bloody good. Hibernation’s Embers is nice enough, it slides and flows pretty neatly but doesn’t really do too much to make itself known in your brain. All the better, then, to hear Noodreem’s Cicada Wave (Acacia Tree Dub) – a sheer crystalline shard of musical “fucking hell”ness. From the opening bars, you know it’s going to be a cracker, and that’s more or less all I can say about it – everything’s in the right place, it moves in a delightfully playful and trippy way, with live acoustic guitar that reminds me of the Grateful Dead’s more fluid, soulful moments. Just sheer class, this is the sort of thing you buy chillout albums for, and specifically Interchill releases – that occasional track that just blows you away with its dripping beauty. Dubsahara’s Harmonic Density is a little scattered for my money, doesn’t really have the same focus as a lot of the rest of the tunes on this album. It’s a sort of melting-together of vaguely Moroccan indigenous drumming and vaguely digidub reverb… been done before, sorry. Adham Shaikh is undeniably very good at what he does, and Satori is a beautiful, hardly-there bit of ephemera. Finally Jairamji’s Stabilizing In Chaos is a tasty little set-you-down to close the album, with heavy incense and possibly a couple of crystals glinting in the sun, maybe with a touch of reiki on the side. All in all it’s tasty stuff – my only gripe is that it’s not as cohesive as other Interchill releases. Whereas Dissolving Clouds was more of a united journey, Arcana sounds more like a collection with its fingers in many downtempo pies.