Lunacy – anyone familiar with the Ketuh’s back catalogue will agree that’s indeed a fitting word for describing the style of psytrance put out by these guys… I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing the last 3 compilations and they were all high quality hyper-trance, so I had high expectations for this, the seventh Ketuh installation… I got a taster in late December 04, and finally here’s the fully mastered version… Again its big cheese label boss P_Mac who did the hard work of compiling it – and as I can vouch for his great taste in music, I’ve got a good feeling about this… Let’s try a little lunacy… Let me take you thru the tracks… #01: Gappeq – Digital Art First up is Mr. Jirka from the Czech Republic who also had the first track on the last two Ketuh compilations… And he does here what he does best: Semi hard morning trance or semi light night track… Hybrid trance! It’s reminiscent of the sound on the new X-Dream album We Interface, especially on the vocal side… Hints of raging acid, but still melodic at heart and basically uplifting… As we have come to know Gappeq as the Ketuh toastmaster… Nice track! #02: Shift – Absolution Rmx Next up is Mr. Hoy from South Africa – aka Shift which is also a Ketuh regular… Ripping acid lines en mas! I do not know the original tune, so I can’t tell you what was changed for this remix, but I can tell you however, that this is one damn fine tune in the true Shift sense… Deep, dark, raw, wriggly hyper-psytrance with enough acid to keep me entertained for the time being… The building up here is amazing… Great track! #03: Killer Buds – Superman “What happened back there Link? I can't figure it out, sir. Agents just came out of nowhere. And then the code got all weird. Encryption I've never seen. Okay? Shit, Morpheus, you should have seen him. Where is he now? He's doing his Superman thing!” Ahh – Killer Buds… This is the fourth consecutive Ketuh compilation to feature a track from the Brazilian acid-samba-freaks… And damn, they’ve done it again – another phat acid-ridden, thrilling 303-ride to heaven… Rippling, tickling, teasing acid-lines – sweet, thrilling build-ups – and rewards in the sense of climaxes that will cause havoc in any mind and on any trancefloor… This is why I love psychedelic trance! Can’t wait for the upcoming debut album - Stellar track! #04: Azax Syndrome – Ketuh Insomnia “Who’s your daddy?” Let’s turn our attention to Israel, where Regev Azaria has stirred up a little lunacy to keep us up at night… As always with Azax, the sound is deep, dark horror-trance – with thick, thick acid-lines twirling back and forth messing with your emotions… This is evil – in the best sense of the word… Brilliant track! #05: Blisargon Demogorgon – Prepare For Love Blisargon Demogorgon is Valentino Trencev from the Republic of Macedonia and to my knowledge this is only his third released track… But I hope to hear more – this is good! Balkan hyper-trance with thick, hardcore noise-influences… Deep, dark, spooky – and with an impressive drive throughout the track… Check out the lethal, toxic acid-raven – yikes! Nice track! #06: Tryambaka – 150 Fucking Good Reasons “No more… No more… Oh my god… I give us about 20 minutes before the first ass raping …” Woow – I should hope not! Tiago Pimentel from Portugal aka. Tryambaka had his first released track on the last Ketuh compilation Peacemaker… I wasn’t too impressed with his debut track, but this second attempt is better… He’s getting there! After three really hardcore tracks, this is a little lighter – though with the same style as his first track: fast-paced, humorous night trance… Loads of Road Trip samples and funny bits – but unfortunately not enough to make this anything else but an average track… #07: Audialize – G-strings (Menog Rmx) “You must concentrate…” Right, so here’s a remix to a track from Joao Apell’s 2003 album Wanted – done by Daniel Bernardo aka Menog... Two of Portugals most well-respected psy-trance producers… I don’t remember the original track, as I don’t have the album yet [mental note to self: buy the damn Audialize album!] – so I can’t tell you what’s different in this remix… What I can tell you though is that this is a damn fine track… Rolling melodies, impressive percussion and an overall phat groove… Jumping, bubbling and bouncing… Good stuff! #08: Spectra – Numbers Spectra is Paulo & Chico Oliveira from Portugal, and this is my first encounter with their music – although they’ve already had a couple of released tracks on Spectral Records… This is a cool track with a unique sound… It’s not as ‘hardcore’ as most of its predecessors – It’s kinda old school, layered night time trance… Great use of electronic guitars and subtle voice samples… You’re starting to come down from the trip now – chilling, yet still totally rockin’… #09: Chilled C”quence – Sense And now we’re really chilling out… As legends has it, a nice chilled track to finish things off – helping you come down of the trip… And this is by the upcoming Portuguese duo Chilled C”quence with members Pedro Matias & Fernando Rodrigues … As the title suggest, this is chilled stuff – chilly, dubby, soothing experimental stuff with breakz, bits and bytes… Ahh, digital ear cotton buds… Lovely debut track and a fine way to end the compilation… Another fine Ketuh compilation comes to an end… And it’s another stormer with only a couple of mediocre track… As with Peacemaker, the flow of tracks have really improved and I’m hoping this is the flow path Ketuh will take in the future… The quality level of this label is impressive – they always deliver quality despite the high release frequency… It can be done! I’m looking forward to their 8th and 9th releases coming soon - the In Crypto compilation and the debut album from Killer Buds). As mentioned above, there are only a couple of mediocre tracks here and I only found one minor flaw: On the cover Tryambaka is listed as 'Trymbaka'… But besides from that, this compilation oozes quality… I will not hesitate recommending this to fans of the harder Ketuh/Pavarti/Ørebro style of twisted night time trance with just the right amount of acid lines to freak you out! Enjoy! Favourites: 2, 3(!!), 4(!), 5, 7