The Acid Test

Music Review: Man Made Machine

Artist: “Z Machine”

Album: “Man Made Machine” (2005)

Kicking the underground trance scene around since 2005, Paul Marks is all set to play a set at The Blue Frog with other artists. Marks, known in the world of trance as “Z Machine”, is from Israel and has created an album called Man Made Machine, which has been my favourite trance album since I heard it. Classy and never overbearing, the tracks on Man Made Machine all have the same style but are completely different from one another. The first thing you need to do is get Man Made Machine (it’s perfect for sunrise), and the second thing you need to do is go watch Z Machine play his excellent morning music when he performs at The Blue Frog sometime in the next fortnight. It won’t be like the rave I experienced at Monkey Valley in January 2005, but drop some acid anyway.

Music Review: Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland

Artist: “Shpongle”

Album: “Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland” (2009)

If you already got shpongled long ago, there might be a sense of dread accompanying the excitement with which you will approach this album. The reason for my cynicism was clear – where could they go after Nothing Lasts…But Nothing Is Lost?

Electroplasm, though lilting, does little to reassure or prepare one for the musical experience that is Shpongle, and equally unconvincing is Shponglese Spoken Here. Great electronic music with classical guitar, but it’s the kind of stuff that needs visuals to help you into it. What are music videos for, yeah?

Good stuff follows – Nothing Is Something Worth Doing and Ineffable Mysteries are the songs that reinstate why Shpongle is so bloody awesome. Unless any of you from the shpongled lot haven’t heard “music” before, Nothing Is Something Worth Doing should remind you of a classic Metallica song off the …And Justice For All album. Keep guessing till the end of time, losers.

Having been a listener of Raja Ram’s work with 1200 Micrograms, and a fan of Simon Posford’s Hallucinogen (I loved both Twisted and The Lone Deranger…Goa Trance!!!), it’s stunning to see where these guys have taken themselves.

The electronic wizardry finally overpowers me with I Am You, and you’ll be glad the song stretches past 11 minutes. The best thing about this album is it doesn’t try to live up to expectations fans of Shpongle have, makes no effort to match up to Are You Shpongled? or Tales Of The Inexpressible, and therein lies its strength and force.

Boys can raise their ugly bald heads and hail their favourite Shpongle album as the band’s greatest work and girls can sway their child-bearing hips with full righteousness, but as Invisible Man In A Flourescent Suit, No Turn Un-Stoned and Walking Backwards Through The Cosmic Mirror (psytrance, baby!) make themselves comfortable before me between a fresh morning and a lazy afternoon on a Sunday, I can tell you this is the most clever psybient music that’s come out in awhile.

VERDICT

Shpongle have almost always taken things a notch up with every step in their career, and with Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland they pay no attention to all the hype that anything they created would generate, and have given the most mature album from their glowing discography. Hard to believe, impossible to deny.

RATING: 4/5