Africa Bombastic – Freefall

I’ve only just become aware of this one but – in two words - bloody hell. Two more words: bloody HELL! Fluidly solid psychedelic trance, with depth and excitement, great sounds and a couple of upbeat cover versions quietly thrown in. First Drag has such a nice sound to it, the sort of sound you want to immerse yourself in completely, like a supermodel’s thighs. There’s a strong vibe of a tight energy busting at its own seams, making for a nicely hypnotic little boogie. Rock n’ Roll is a belter – there’s an incredible little drag on the end of the bassline that, along with plenty of deep reverb, gives an extra dimension. There’s fantastically tight escalation, with interesting noises, and plenty of changes – all without going too full-power-screech. And it fucking works. As does Black Pearl, a finer example of semi-dark psytrance I am hard-pressed to name. Once again the sounds are great (non-derivative, exciting, and tightly-produced), and once again there’s a rare magnetism in the music that keeps you focussed. Dazed And Confused features a couple of (frankly rather overdue) samples from the Led Zep tune of the same name: erring on the right side of cheese as it does so. It’s a gnarly, fast-paced but of cheeky psytranceadelica, not too manic or parvati-bothering. Impressive and cheekily quirky, with more snippets of songs than you can possibly keep count of. Real Men Don’t Dance sees things take a turn for the darker, with that scratchy SA sound coming out of the forests to chase you. It’s tightly done, with a very smooth energy making it sound organic rather than forced, with a final run that’ll have you creaming your pants (or your money back). As you may expect from the track title, Jacob’s Ladder pops another dose into your cup of tea and makes things more interesting and colourful still – the sounds here are nothing short of breathtaking, and the energy is just out of this world. You would be kidding yourself if you said that Break On Through, complete with cheeky Jim Morrison samples used to superlative effect, was the best track on the album – but it’s jolly good fun. Passion, on the other hand, is downright f*ing good music. Sounding like it could be the ‘guitar track to end all guitar tracks’ ™, it chucks I a classical music break, throws in loads of effects, flirts with a cheesy bassline before correcting the balance with a shitkicking middle run. No Point Of Return takes the foot off the pedal a little, with more space in the music and a bubbly psychedelia winning over the frenetic rhythm section. Africa Bombastic sounds a little like Juno’s Jungle High remixed by Azax & Toxic, with some more cheeky samples that are simply fucking delicious. Finally, 21 Grams closes the album in a seriously loud stylee – mentalist, full-throttle psychedelic trance. Phew. At the end of the day, this is a serious album. It’s interesting, it’s exciting and it takes a good few listens before its depth really starts to grow on you. Superlative stuff.