mercury
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Feb 13, 2011 18:12:53
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Amplidudes Records already delighted us recently with a nice two tracks Hyperion EP. Can this first album released by the label do the same?
J&B Project
J&B Project are Björn Grashorn and Jan Drapala. They joined forces in 2008 and are among the prominent artists of recently launched Hamburg psy-trance label Amplidudes Records. This is the first album released by both J&B project and Amplidudes Records.
J&B Project – Monkey Business (Amplidudes Records)
TRACKLIST
01. Light On
02. Heavy Prophet
03. Be Here Now
04. Boxprinz (Live Edit)
05. Never Stop Learnin
06. Tschigibaem
07. Pitch Black
08. Sounds Like It
09. Another World
10. Informal Start
While J&B Project are a relatively new name in the scene they already released a couple of single tracks of good quality in different compilations last year. On the other hand just before Christmas we recommended to check out a very nice Hyperion EP released by Amplidudes. This just to make it clear that we didn't approach this release totally blindly, in fact we actually expected a work of far above average quality for the current progressive psy standards. The album is made up by 9 original tracks, Never Stop Learning already released on a Iono compilation, and a Live Mix of Box Prince, whose original version was part of a 3 tracks EP released on Solar Tech Recordings.
For those unfamiliar with J&B Project , you will likely be positively surprised by the sound you will find in this album, particularly considering the current status of progressive psy trance. Rolling deep basslines, dark melancholic atmospheres, mostly minimalistic not cheesy melodies, voice samples reduced to the acceptable minimum and an excellent ability to craft elaborated psy fxs and percussions combinations. So all in all this album is surely a much needed breath of different air compared to what we have been used to hear recently. 80 minutes non-stop pounding and driving psy trance as we like like it here.
The opening track, Light On, perfectly sums up the J&B Project sound, with its great groove, stabbing percussions and a very simple but effective melody; not surprisingly its the best work of the album. Another notable mention goes to Tschigibaem, not a very original work but driving and groovy as few progressive psy tracks we have had the pleasure to listen to in the last year, a good example of the production talent of this duo. Talent that emerges also in the closing Informal Start, a short bonus breaks track that for once doesn't totally feel like a filler but very much deserves an extended version.
Now that we have talked about the positives, unfortunately you need to know this Monkey Business is not only all love and flowers. As in many trance and progressive albums, also Monkey Business appears more like a collection of tracks and there weren't enough different ideas to provide the necessary variety for an 80 minutes album and thus keep our attention span for long enough time not to feel a bit bored from it in a single listening experience. This would be a relative problem if the album would contain 10 great singles, but that's not actually the case for this Monkey Business, whose consistency is fairly unequal and there are no real must have tracks. Also the album would have surely benefited from having a track less and the time saved employed to give more breath to a couple of songs whose length was surely not appropriate and leaved a sour incomplete taste (Pitch Black and the live mix of Box Prinz in particular) .
Verdict: don't let the rating mislead you, this is surely a good debut album by J&B Project, one we recommend you to check out. There was surely the potential to deliver a better final result, but this doesn't mean we aren't looking forward to the future works of this duo with high expectations.
Tracks to not miss in order of preference: 1, 6, 10.
Rating: 7/10
Written by Ivan/Trancefxs for http://www.trancealert.com
For track previews and download links, check out the post on Trancealert.com: http://www.trancealert.com/album/jb-project-monkey-business-amplidudes-records/
For more information about J&B Project and Amplidudes Records, check out:
http://www.myspace.com/jbtrance
http://www.myspace.com/amplidudes
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