Szhizm

Blimey. Right, so Gi’iwa is a new label set up by some very nice folk from Oz, and from the moment I first heard about what they were doing I was convinced it was going to be a belter. The idea is to get the humour and the madness back into psytrance in one fell swoop, and on the strength of this compilation it looks like mission accomplished. Pimperknkle’s Size 8 kicks off, and there’s tons of ideas all over the place here — clean vocal stabs lead the first section before total jazzophony takes over, before settling into a funky-ass riff that picks up acid, housey stabs and madsax mentalisms. Sattel Battle’s Dotman is utter mentalism — more changes

than a 1970’s Elton John vs Liza Manelli Broadway campfest, and Tamlin’s Fjaqek is a 4-D bounceathon which drops to a joyous and staggering final run. Patrask’s Captain Insano is an

utter belter. Utter. Great lines, great progression… the messiness almost acts like a reverse-riff… as in, the sounds that aren’t there create the thing you dance to. Alrune’s

Monkey Combat is mentalistic pogo with hilarious samples, and Izilop Pop from psyreviews’ current favourite Neuron Compost (word) chugs tastily, a great balance between tuneful and messy. Derango’s Secret Surroundings is hard, mental, utterly fresh and genuinely exciting, while The Vicious Spiral’s Noize In Da Hoodtakes less than two minutes to build into an utter f*ing frenzy… and it’s jaw-droppingly neat stuff folks, tons of ideas and energy and the melodies stretch over a warping, it’s-alive analogue bottomend. Weird Alchemy’s last ever track Fucking System is next, and once again it’s a wonderful bit of escalating melodic mayhem with craziness seeping out of

every pore… and there’s a bonus track and all, no idea who it’s by but maybe that’s for the best… it’s fucking rinsing as well, as you’d expect. Really f*ing superlative then, basically — I

don’t think I’ve been blown away by anything like this quite as much as Vibraspirit 23 waaay back. This deserves much success, much worldwide outdoor play, and much more of the same from as crew whose hearts, minds and musical fetishisms are all firmly in the right place.