If you’re keeping up on your goa releases you’ll know that Terraformer appeared about six months ago on Russian label Global Sect. There was a bit of a mixup with my order that has since been very smoothly sorted out by Adept, so it’s finally time to give it some space on TYFTH.
Global Sect continue to go the extra mile with the design and visuals of their releases, and while the spacey theme isn’t as strong as the more organic Mystery of Crystal Worlds the 4 CD physical version is still an incredible sight to behold. Although I might have been right to wonder if there was really enough top-level goa floating around at the moment for such a huge release, there’s a nice variety going on here with some more quality curation giving each CD a strong identity.
CD 1 is as good a start as you could possibly hope for, with a fine selection of Russian tracks joined by Mindsphere’s fabulous Enchanted Land. Alienapia’s Are You Mad? is a nice return to form, but The Essence of Bhagavat-Ghita is yet another excellent track from Psy-H Project and probably my favourite of the CD.
The second CD is more experimental with fewer heavyweight artists, but also as a pretty consistent sound that works in its favour. Edge of Infinity is about the oddest with its piano and guitars, while my favourite might be Clementz’ Conquer the Universe.
CD 3 is more uplifting and features some very strong tracks. Mindsphere’s Hidden Death is one to look out for, as well as the obvious choice of Gaura Nitay. Of the more uplifting tunes I most enjoy Raving Universe’s Ascension, but there’s plenty of quality from Zopmanika, Fiery Dawn, and Artifact303.
The final CD is entirely downtempo, maybe to follow the success of Artifact303’s outro to Mystery of Crystal Worlds. There are some lovely atmospheres here, but Liquid Flow’s Even Horizon sounds suspiciously like a typical goa track with the bpm bumped down a bit…there’s more to most downtempo tracks than that, it turns out. This was the first time to hear Fiery Dawn’s slower work, and the acid lines really do a fine job at this speed.
The absence of E-Mantra aside, this is clearly a very impressive release. Global Sect deserve support for these huge projects, and with something here for almost any goa fan there’s really no excuse not to.
Not sure how it’s done but in my opinion there hasn’t been a single compilation from Global Sect that hasn’t been absolutely brilliant.
I find it very hard to pick favourites out of this compilation. Reason being the fact that the quality is just unbelievable. Except for CD1, which is the weakest in my mind, I had a lot of problem narrowing my selection down to my two most favourite.
As a side note I just want to add that I simply cannot get enough of the sound of Skarma. There is something with the atmosphere in his productions that gets me every time.
My favourites (or some of them):
CD1
Omnivox – Pangea
Centavra Project – Strange Object
CD2
Clementz – Conquer the Universe
Skarma – Cianendon
CD3
Fiery Dawn – Vibrating Universe
Raving Universe – Ascension
CD4
Katedra – Evolutionary Stream
Slow Reflections – In A Rain Drop
Right, Global Sect’s record is pretty incredible so far. And even as a big Psy-H and Mindsphere fan I can’t argue with your choices for this one, I should really have mentioned Cianendon! Will be interesting to see if the new Median Project album keeps the standard this high.