The Martin Fitzgerald File

I met the people behind this label at Sonica in Italy this summer, and they’re bloody nice people. And funny. And on the strength of this compilation they also have fucking good taste in music, and a good sense of what makes a compilation stand out from the crowd. Nandro’s Tales From The Kitchen is a wonderful way to kick things off, a smooth and atmospheric progressive track that builds into a wonderfully ticklish main run, completely laid back and with no sounds seeming forced. Sol Connection’s Spiral Tree is another goodun, picking up from the groove left by Nandro and taking it a shade deeper, with tecchy growls peppered over a laconic, Sensient-y backbone. The midsection sees it pick up a wonderfully booming sound, which gives the track focus and energy taking it onwards. LunaSpice’s Moon Missionaries has a very nice feel to it. It sort of reminds me of how Chi-AD might sound if still recording now, or Human Blue at his peak. It’s lucid, dreamy and flowing and all the sounds are perfectly balanced out against one another, and they conspire to create this lazy, engaging groove. Float Tank pulls out a corker with ReTox, funky as hell and with a touch of menace to keep things spicy, not to mention a simple, effective, understated 303 to pull it all along. Meltdown’s Sunset City is a strange beast. It’s a percussive, prog/fullon crossover job with a very airy, spacious feel to it. Staggeringly good. Sunrunner’s Curving Beams Of Light is possibly the first Goa track I’ve heard come out in years. It’s got that energy folks, those tight escalating melodies and little sonic hugs that make that particular style of it what it is. Rare. Third Drop Reflection’s Lucid Dreaming also seems to have the Goan magic to it, there’s plenty of wobble and twist going on here. Hedonix’s Don’t Mess With Tetris uses the melody from insomniacs’ favourite gameboy diversion, but it only uses it a little bit. It’s still enough to get stuck in your head though. Otherwise, it’s a gloriously twisted, scratchy bit of aussie trance, the sort you might expect tucked away on one of Digital Psionics’ older, madder compilations, and the final run sounds deliciously like two R2D2 units fellating each other on the top deck of a bus. Temporary Unknown’s Surrounded By Blips does more or less exactly what it says on the tin. It’s sparse, lumpy and moody, and it’s not entirely pleased with you. After various drops and stops and shunts it picks up into a mechano-stomp that’s a little like the deep tecchy German stuff that was about a few years back. Inventive stuff. Finally Sensient comes in with Dunafunk, which is an utter, utter gem. Much more funky and disco-friendly than I would ever have expected from this guy, but still with those trademark sounds and looping that’s borderline genius. Whew. All in all, The Martin Fitzgerald File is a real experience to listen to. And I mean that. The quality of music here is first class right the way through, the amount of variation is almost unheard of these days, and the fact that is does all this without falling into one single cliché makes me love it that little bit more.