The Sog Files MMV Chapter 2

Sog have been gradually raising the bar of excitement with their recent progressive releases. While some of their output is more vocal and club-trance oriented, the stuff on their MMV series is remarkably close – deliciously close, in fact – to the smoother recent sounds of the likes of Iboga and Digital Structures. Space Safari’s Burning kicks off, with an atmospheric intro dropping perfectly into a beautiful, easygoing tribal pattern that moves logically and unruffled through varying stages of trance nirvana. Esdeto ft Legolath’s So Real features live guitar and bass, and manages to build itself up to a nice breaksy section, then falls into what sounds like a more progressive Wizzy Noise. Then it’s off into percussive dreamtime, with layer upon layer of sweetness… conspiring to make you grin. Yellow Blackboard’s Superfly is a more clubby track – the vocals sound a little like Kylie, but they’re not too over-used and laid down well in the mix. Again, there’s a certain Wizzy Noise to the sounds here, it’s good stuff and you can’t help but admire the way it flows. Tango’s A Little Less Love is just perfect – deep, tribal and funkier than nine cans of nitrous in a queue for a rollercoaster. It’s insanely lowbrow, in no hurry to go anywhere, and all the better for it. Engelspost’s U Are is an energetic bit of amyl-house, with little acidic tickles balanced against a snarling bottomend to drive it all along. Gentle Rain from Blackwatch & Greed is one of those simple, dazzlingly effective, and loveable bits of electronic music that remind you why you stopped listening to indie (or whatever) and started on whatever path you find yourself on right now. Simple hooks, a big run, and it drops just where and when you want it to. The final two tracks – Snake Sedrick & Khans’ Remember, and Andre Absolut’s Digital Suspense – are two of the most sublime wedges of progressive trance around at the moment. Both have an ethereal, heavenly quality about them, and Digital Suspense in particular has that “timeless” sound that the likes of Freq and Antix attain when they’re having a very, very good day. Overall, this is a pretty nifty compilation, that just gets better and better as it goes on. If you’re coming to progressive from the psychedelic trance end of it, then you may be left a bit baffled by this – it is after all a prog album, and it doesn’t make any claims to be anything else. The inclusion of no less than six mixes of Alex Stealthy’s very attractive Once (Sun Rising and Breaks mix being my personal winners) makes this a damn good proposal – particularly if, like me, you’re getting old and prefer quality progressive to unr killaa baba plur nonsense.