Deviant Electronics - Green Room FLAC album

Deviant Electronics is Ciaran Walsh, a UK-based producer that in 1997 released a classic and to this day very sought-after goa-trance album "Brainwashing Is Child's Play", followed 3 years later by a more controversial but still great chill / drum'n'bass "Blunt Instruments" on Blue Room. He went off-radar for a bit, to resurface as a contributor to the lovely "Grow Your Own" downtempo album from Polyploid in 2007.

This year, thanks to the efforts of israeli/japanese Zion604 label, 5 unreleased tracks from 1995-99, one from 2013 and 3 old vinyl/compilation-only tracks were made available for purchase in a form of "Green Room" album that was available digitally via Bandcamp page late last year and on a proper CD mid-Feb '14.

As you all know goa/psy has this 'trance' suffix attached to it and in majority of cases this is related to the fact that the music is built from - usually short - loops, which then are tweaked, overlaid and morphed on top of 4/4 beat to induce the trance state. Partially, this is because human brains are susceptible to trance-like states if they're stimulated at certain frequencies, but also because of how this music is/was created - it was samplers and synthesizers in the 90's, it's loop-based DAWs nowadays. It's not helping that a lot of this music is produced by DJs and 'producers' who simply lack proper musical education.

Deviant Electronics' "Green Room" is one of those rare albums that - for the most part, at least - strays away from the beaten and safe path of loop-based music, though still uses enough of goa/psy-trance sounds and templates to be comfortably reviewed here. It is a bit more free-form than your typical old- or new-school goa, in a way similar to the music of OOOD, Sienis, Troll Scientists or Hedonix; where there's a general musical idea permeating throughout the tune, which is being realised using psy/goa techniques and sounds. As a result "Green Room" is very musical, though doesn't follow a typical hindu/arabian scales. The melodic progressions are much longer than the usual 1-2 bars and synth patches used are less 'cliche', with overall sound-picture being less busy, with more breathing room for individual sounds. There's a lot of variety in drums, usually constructed from several loops and not just simple 4/4 kick + snare + hihat combo. The basslines are very characteristic for this artist - soft, bending and squeaky, so if you heard "Brainwashing Is Child's Play" you'll immediately recognise the style. For those that haven't, a good point of reference could be Shakta's "Silicon Trip", though this is softer and usually slower as well. In fact, the whole album is actually pretty smooth, not very aggressive despite being quite dark and moody for the most part, which is partially owed to a lot of atonal sounds skillfully used throughout the mix and acid lines that are not heavily over-driven nor distorted. Due to the tracks coming from different periods in time, there's also quite a lot of variety - tracks like "Algae Rhythm", "Green Room" and "Time Bomb" feel more modern, improvised and less trancey, driven by the aforementioned musical idea rather than the rhythm; "Filthy Luka" gets close to regular (non-psychedelic) melodic trance with big chord progressions, while the rest follows the "Brainwashing..." template, which still sounds unique to this day.

Overall, I really like this album - it is genuinely old-school, but does not sound dated. It has this sense of musical craftsmanship that's admittedly rare in current trance scene.

If you were not fortunate enough to pick up the original "Brainwashing Is Child's Play" then this is the next best thing and if you do have it, then this will complement your Deviant Electronics collection quite nicely - it is really a mandatory album for old-school fans.

Oh, and the cover is lovely!