Visions Of Tomorrow

Big! Big! Big! Yes folks, you’re likely to have heard some of Indica’s stuff at the summer’s parties no end; generally those tunes that sound so big, big, big that they’re in danger of becoming so huge that they engulf the entire universe, thereby becoming the sort of inversely-proportionate sum of their parts and also the opposite of that, except  simultaneously. Which is an opaque, and unnecessary, way of saying that these are anthems, massive slabs of psy hurtled out at the dance floor by DJ’s all over the planet. Talking about the individual tracks is a bit of a tricky one though because — and I’m going to try and be as fair about this as possible — they all work to the same, very clear-cut, formula. Indica’s strength undoubtedly lies in his ability to grab Energy by the balls, lift it up into the body of a track, and let is kaleidoscope out over the top. It’s a formula that works, no questions — it’s just that over the course of this album, hearing it nine times is a bit much. It seems like whichever track you listen to first, you end up thin king’s the best: hence opener Beyond The Function getting a lot of play, or Trance master (picked up and championed by none other than John 00 Fleming.) On occasions, it just goes too cheesy (DJ’s Prophecy, Source of Euphoria) and it’s only when Indica slows things down and lets them breathe that things really work — the title track, an epic chase-the-cunrise number that’s reminiscent of recent Silicon Sound. Inidca can certainly make records that move a crowd and get the hairs standing on the back of the neck; so if that’s what dance music’s about then mission accomplished. Nine tracks, with the same half-dozen sounds (bassline, access virus acidy thing, topend synth melodies, the odd sample), that do the same thing does not a decent album make.