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Various

Invasion From Hyperspace

Organic (UK)

The start of Summer is always a great time for psyreviews. Because somewhere around this time of year, a CD comes out that seems to capture the vibe of the changing season, the longer evenings, the warmer days, the clearer skies… and Invasion From Hyperspace, compiled by Andrew Humphries, is this year’s prime contender. OOOD’s Free Range starts out with a great and distinctive funky intro, before Colin shows us that he can use that VST guitar plugin just as well as anyone else. From here on in, it evolves beautifully into a nice, chummy armlifter with some very cute melodic flurries, definitely grabbing the attention. Jirah steps up to the mark next with Paradise, one of his lighter and breezier tunes, with that trademark great production we all know and love. It picks up a heftier bottomend for the final run that has a real magnetic, go-for-it vibe to it. Benefactor’s Modus Operandi sounds immediately fresh – this may be something to do with the less-heavy-than-normal bottomend that’s going on, or it may be the spaces between the sounds… But whatever, it’s got a clear and airy sound to it which should work very well on the dancefloor. The tune itself morphs along with a couple of killer synths going on, escalating into an acidic, multi-layered tune that never loses its sense of individuality. Good shit, in other words. Pop Stream I have a problem with, as the music rarely hits me on any level but… well, here he teams up with Backspace for Oom Da and while it’s very pop stream, it works very well this one. Nice intro, huge breakdown, the (ahem) ‘accurate’ 32-beats escalation and the massive final run…. Much as I hate to admit it, this’ll do the business on the dancefloors and as viewed as a solo slice of dance music, it’s pretty damn effective. Saafi Connection’s Hello Houston gets a remix from Chris Organic, keeping a fairly clubby vibe and a clean pattern, and Anax’s Music flows nicely though lacks much in the way of individuality. Whammy Mammy from Synthia System is a fucking killer, sampling that bit from Human Traffic where the welsh kid goes “full monty safe as houses pair of trousers what a laugh lets do another half”… only last week I was watching the film and thinking, that’s be a wicked sample… Whammy Mammy rules, it moves with a great balance between thunk and tinkle, with awesome riffs and plenty of echoes to keep it in your head. Delightful. Voice of Cod and Chris Organic team up for Unusual Illusion, and as you’d expect from anything to do with the Codsters, it’s pretty damn decent and a good indication of their upcoming album. Its quality all the way, with topend melodies ciphering about and driving the tune along, dropping it into a reverb-y dubstyle breakdown, before dropping back in again with those blasts of energy we’ve come to expect from these boys. Finally Polish act 2pm’s Cats is a low-set, groovy as hell lo-fi acid trance muncher, with an almost breakbeaty feel to it. It’s different, it’s brave, it’s trippy and it’s fucking good. All of which adds up toa damn fine compilation – the standout tracks stand out a long way, the others are pretty good, and with surprises and quality bursting thru the seams the summer looks like being a very good one for Organic.

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