Various - Hunters FLAC album

Red Cells Records is a new exciting label based in Paris, France. They are now out with their first compilation called Hunters, which is compiled by dj Ananda.

First out is one of the most known artist within the melodic full on scene, Silicon Sound (Johannes Regnier) from France. He always manages to give us a melodic morning vibe. Here we get a quite atmospheric track, with a lot of floating vibes as usual. A little softer than his previous works, but not bad. Track 2 is by Chromatone (Lawrence Hoffman) from the United States, who has released several full on tracks on various compilations lately. The track we get here goes in a night time direction, with groovy rolling bassline and intense sounds swirling above. I miss some more variation here. Track 3 is by Artifakt (Matthew De Nobrega) from South Africa. He has released an album (Artifakts) in 2003. The track we get here goes in a night time direction, but it reminds me quite a lot of Rinkadink, because of the sounds that reminds me a bit of computer games or something, which is not exactly my cup of tea. Track 4 is by Phyx (Ian Summs) from the UK, who is presented on many different full on compilations. He is also part of Twisted System. Here we get pure guitar trance. I don’t know why, but this kind of guitar trance has become really popular the last couple of years. For me it reminds me too much of Skazi, which is really bad. This sounds very much like hard house.

Track 5 is by Triskell (Fred Sauvand) from France, who has released tracks on several different labels such as Peak, Timecode, Mindfunk, Hadra and Ketuh. Here they continues the night time style, with jumpy sounds above the bassline, but again I miss some more creativity here. Track 6 is a collaboration between Phatmatix and Audiobrains. Here we get darkpsy with mystic, almost scary vibes floating above the monotonous bassline. Dark and intense all the way through. Track 7 is a new track by Digital Talk (Luc Achintre & Julien Fougea) from France. A rolling track, with some nagging, jumpy sounds. No surprises here, but something for those who like it dark and intense in the night. Track 8 is another track by Phatmatix. Here we get another dark night time track. Rolling darkpsy with scary movie themes all the way through. The last track on this compilation is the biggest surprise. A new track by Blue Planet Corporation (Gabriel Masurel) from France! And what a track!! This is a beautiful down tempo journey, with a great atmospheric vibe. Very dreamy and one of the best tracks I have heard in a long time!

Well, I can say that the Blue Planet track makes this CD worth the money alone! The rest is mostly something for those of you who are into the darkpsy style, but I was surprised by the variety here. From melodic morning trance to dark night time vibes and back to a atmospheric, trippy journey at the end...

Full-power hyper-trance w/soft edges…

Red Cells Records is a new label from Paris, France. It’s run by DJ Ananda who was formerly a part of Turbo Trance and Mechanic Sound Records. According to the promotional text what we can expect from this debut compilation is ‘twisted leads, emotional and crunchy melodies, deep and dark atmospheres with strong rolling rhythm and phat beat’… Right, that’s promo-talk if I ever saw promo-talk… But the tracklist does look impressive, so why don’t we find out for ourselves…

The first and the last track alone are enough reason *not* to label this as your average hyper-trance compilation… It’s not! There are a lot of good tracks here + a couple of tracks that doesn’t really do it for me… But the vast variation within a dancefloor friendly framework makes up for that… I guess what I’m trying to say is, that this is a solid compilation… I like how we get a mix of different styles here – from uplifting morning trance w/proggy roots and melodic, floating downbeat – to acid-ridden, full-power, nocturnal hyper-trance… That’s a great mix for the most part!

Also let me take a minute to comment on the very classy artwork here… Alaska from France sure knows his graphix and this is absolutely stunning… Well done! Yeah, Red Cells Records has pretty much hit the spot here… With only a couple of less good tracks, I like everything about this compilation… Already I’m looking forward to the next one compiled by DJ Saykoyan called Ultim Atom… Bring it on! This compilation is recommended for fans of full-power, nocturnal hyper-trance and intelligent dance music in general… Enjoy!

Favourites: 3(!!), 6(!!), 7(!!), 8, 9