Dynamic

Dynamic Sound

Phonokol (Israel)

Dynamic is an artist I’m always trying my hardest to be excited about. There’s so much there that *should* be good – hefty sounds, decent lines and progression that ought to work a dancefloor. So why then does second album Dynamic Sound leave me feeling so starved of substance? Time To Get Serious is decent enough, peppered with Street Fighter 2 samples, meaning that it’s instantly psyreviews-friendly. It kicks off with some pretty meaty sounds, before its balls start to shrink and it goes all melodic on us, before regaining consciousness and thrashing back with bleeding 303, smashercrasher bass and vastly-increasing Dragon Punches.

The Way Of Happiness is less inyaface, more conventional Israeli trance with acidlines, big melodies, and a section that’s got that infected-y quantized shuffle thing going on. Dynamic Sound gets a remix from Dynamo, aka Dynamic and Eskimo. As you might expect, it’s all well produced and rather energetic, with a decent final chunk but with this stop-start-stop-start thing going on all the time: seriously, you can set your watch by it. 24 Hours kicks off with breaks, which I’d hoped would stick around for the whole track but which, of course, are replaced by 4-4 and a fairly topheavy bit of stopstart. You then have a breakdown that could have been on Robert Miles’ debut album, followed by a big run that is, I guess, very much the sound of now: a deep, ticklish, MDMA-friendly trancevortex. Acid Troopers makes liberal use of a 303 through an Infected Mushroom-branded blender, Sense Of Style is a multi-layered melodic birthday cake, both are missable.

Hallucinogenic Vision is well-executed; wibbly and kickin in just about the right measures, it’s got plenty of dancefloor energy and is loaded to the brim with changes – which will either make a refreshing change, or will disrupt the flow, depending on your persuasion and DJ style. Metal Flange is all over the place – seriously one of the most unimaginative tunes I’ve heard this year. From the get-go it sounds hackneyed, and boy does it stay that way.

Finally, thankfully, we’ve got I’m Very Fineplay (yes) which sounds highly cobbled-together, with bits of this and bits of that and bits of the other. While I’m sure this sound will appeal to a great many people, top me it’s symptomatic of the utter saturation we’re dealing with these days – especially with Dynamic being one of the more prolific acts. With so much uniformity, so much formula, and so little daylight between one artist and another, it’s easy to see how some people are saying the ‘scene’ is dead on its arse. It’s not a load of crap, it’s not vastly offensive, and it’s not really all that Dynamic.

Boring.

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