AR: B.P. Empire

Infected Mushroom - B.P. Empire (2001)

• Israeli psychedelic goa trance music, AKA a genre with which I am 127% unfamiliar. It's breakneck, frenetic dance music that is extraordinarily scattered / busy and has a sort of psychotic, dark edge. Beck said that it "sounds apocalyptic." She also just suggested that while listening to it we should be wearing dark, hooded robes. Hmmmm... It has a broad electronic/instrument palette, uses TONS of effects, and contains occasional found-sound movie-quote clips and the like. Pretty typical fare from what I do know, but this strikes me as rich, crisply produced and far from boring/repetitive. And Beck's right, there is a pervasive religious trance vibe, and I suppose that puts the trance in psychedelic trance.
• Several seven to eight minute tracks that blend into one another, none of them sticking to a distinct melody for long enough to make anything on here sound like something other than an aural collage.
• Really nice pacing, though - I do know (enough to know) that techno can sometimes be full-speed-ahead-cap'n-aye-aye, and this seamlessly slips from energetic bombast to borderline ambient dream passages (the vast majority of it backed by a thumping beat, though). I also appreciate that it on occasion adopts a New Wave sheen - this is electronic music, sure, but it's "organic" enough to throw in some synths or bass/guitar passages that border on New order / The Police. Cool.
• The great trick, though, is finding the subliminal sweet spot - this is energetic enough to work out and/or dance to, but I've also found it to be dreamlike enough to use as background reading/writing music. That's a fairly rare combo, though I suppose one could argue that being able to read to something does not exactly speak to its attention grabbing nature.
• I'll have to hear more from this genre to give any kind of authoritative evaluation, but for the electronic music I do know, this strikes me as good-not-great - solid throughout, but nothing too standout.

Status: Recommended (solid)

Nyet's Fave: "Unbalanced"