VARIOUS ARTISTS UK TRANCE COMPILATION TRANSIENT RELEASE: FEBRUARY 23, 2004 REVIEW: MARCH 31, 2004

When people listen to music, it does things to them – some laugh, some cry, some look longingly into space. Some bi-products of music are involuntary, head-nodding for one; if you like something your head moves; simple as that. When you listen to trance music however, you involuntarily lose control of everything, as if your body surrenders itself completely to the music. Transient Records have been purveyors of this art of taking over bodies for years now – and here is their latest, simply entitled “UK Trance”.
Now if you have ever ventured down to Camden, London on any given Sunday you will already unwittingly know this brand of music through hearing it pulsing away in the corner of its great, cavernous market, for the UK underground scene in this area embraces this form of expression very highly. To the delight of those market-dwellers, and the thousands of other trance fanatics Europe-wide who can’t get enough, this collection is an extension of what they are used to; for others this could be a conversion point!
Across the nine tracks on offer you can hear all kinds of clangs, squiggles and throbs – the traditional armory of the trance-maker, but there is much more on offer here than just that. Aphid Moon’s “Superfly” unleashes all kinds of nastiness into your ear drum, making it hard to resist for long. “Fiver” by Fortu is persistent in its attempt to take you over, and just before it gets you hooked, releases, only to come back with one huge wave of breakdown before the whole thing comes back fiercer than ever! “Art of Feng Shui” by Voice of Cod is another of note – mad samples coupled with mad tweaks equals a very mad track indeed. Although it could be seen by some as merely variations on a theme, there is more going on here than you will see on a lot of other trance-fare. Transient have become the by-word for quality trance – this CD only can enhance that reputation.
Not really for the home, and I don’t even recommend it for the car. But if your party is just not getting started, you know what to do – the trance is waiting; take note from Mumbo Jumbo when they say in there track “Mysterons”, “the rhythm has a certain hypnotic effect” - well so does this compilation!

MIKE WHYTE