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Hydrophonic
Aquabatics
Nano (UK)
This blows me away, make no mistake. Regan and Chesh from Cape Town, SA have produced an utter belter, that takes everything and fuses it into a fresh and distinctive sound, and it’s f*ing excellent. Bumping Sky kicks off with an easy groove, with loads of melodies and antimelodies before it explodes into a wonderful run at around the five minute mark. I dare you not to dance to it! A Place Like This has a wonderful intro, breaking into a nice, spacious run. Their phrasing is first-class on this, the sounds are varied and clean, and it’s literally made for that kinda beer-in-hand slomo easy-dancing that I find I keep slipping into (probably from learning to dance to the Happy Mondays and The Fall, but that’s another story. And a f*ing boring one at that.) Pull The String stands out with its sheer number of sounds all melded together to hang in perfectly, Creating Life works like progressive trance (spacious and dreamy) but with the energy of fullon (dance, ya fuckers!) Do You Believe’s midrange really does bring it to life, and it escalates and explodes but without every going to far over the top. Electric Lady is harder-edged, and the bmp’s are upped, but it still maintains one helluva wonderful groove. It’s huge and just gets bigger and bigger (as the actress said to the bishop) and quite possibly one of the finest tunes of the year (though it ends too soon… I could do with at least another couple of minutes of that.) Intriguingly-named Creep Cheeky Naughty Naughty is a wonderful electro/breaks number, I know bugger all about this style of music but this certainly works, as does Electro Terrestrial, a nice sapphirey piece of dub for the end, with a big fat synth line coming out and tickling yer very tenderest bits. After which, you want to listen to it again -- and then again. It takes a while to sink in, but these guys may just have committed to record a new style. There’s no cliches, no trancestandards; it’s the most natural direction for progressive trance to have taken, it’s just a wonder it took us this long to get here. The ideas, the freshness, the musicianship and the utter, utter danceability of this means it has to get full marks. Ladies and gentlemen, the bar has just been raised.
9
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... 2004 
