Various

Wild Life Jungle Juice

Alchemy (UK)

Disappointment is not the word. One of the chief moans at current psy is this whole thing of 9 or 10-track compilations only having a couple of decent tunes on there – and as such, becoming quite expensive for your CD-budget. And this album is a golden case in point. Rinkadink & Mike Modulus’ Fry Through Space kicks things off nicely, and is a nice and spacious change from all the fullon on the rest of the CD – a great tune, further evidence for Rinkadink’s Futurama fetish, and has Instant Classic written all over it. Control Flower from Krunch is nice – anyone know where the vocal comes from? It works nice as a nod to the indie/industrial crews, in a tune that’s only otherwise saved by a gnarly final run. AMD’s Don’t Look In There works well too: lots going on here, surprise noises abound with suggested melodic twists at the corners. Low acid, bags of attitude… and the final run is nothing short of excellent. Love this tune – sinister but fluid, would work brilliantly at about the 3am slot. Then things take a turn for the more placid: X-Noise’s X-Noize is just dull, Polaris’ Evolution is nicely produced, but 2:02, 3:43 and 5:06 all sound absolutely identical and Aquatica’s The Access Code (Gataka Remix) moves nicely enough, with a melody that stays sane before going incredibly Israelibiza, by which point the life support system (ie discman) is switched off. Up next is Pop Stream. Can somebody explain the fuss about this guy? PC Software sounds just like his other stuff, filters and melodies and oopsie, dodgy key changes. Fine at the right time, but you can’t help thinking the words “poor man’s protoculture”. I was just about to kill the old lady sat on the bus next to me when Monastic Squid redeems, Bubblegum & Kick Ass is just killer. A great intro, which unfolds perfectly into a nice drop, and on again into a snarling and bustling run. There’s very good movement through this one, it’s got a good distinctive sample, the deeper sections are as good as anything Cosmosis dreamed up, and never before has a simple four-chord melody worked quite so well as the deliciously satisfying closing break. Groundzero & DJ Spencer top things off with Gravity, which is competent at best. Deep, not too many sounds, reasonably effective. It breaks, and then slap me with a mullet it filters back in again. All of which adds up to three great tunes and six fillers – sadly this seems to have become the norm, which is something we all thought Alchemy had long transcended.

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