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Slug - Lose Your Shell [Nexus Media]
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Le Lotus Bleu
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jan 22, 2005 16:26
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Slug – Lose Your Shell [Nexus Media]
Tracklist :
1. Paradise Lost 145 bpm
2. Russian Salad 146
3. Lose Your Shell 145
4. Front & Left 144
5. Paratrak 144
6. On The Floor 145
7. Xbox 143
8. The Witch 144
9. Lo Rider 142
Lose Your Shell is the debut album from Slug (Liam Gibbs from Cape Town – South Africa), all tracks are written by Slub except track 6 done by Slug + Shift (Chris Hoy) & it was mastered by Artifakt (M. De Nobrega).
1. Beginning with a sample loop of an electric guitar riff, i didn’t feel amazed at first with Slug’s sound. Even though the loop comes back several times (maybe too much, the global aspect results puffing) all along this tune, hopefully other ingredients compose Paradise Lost like a nice long floating & trembling break from 4’00 to 5’00, huge twisted effects on piano or brassy tone & concerning the rythmic you’ve got a fat kick coppled with satured hithat. So now you know, Slug is into heavy boisterous psytrance.
2. The Russian Salad is a course made of a ping pong ball (for the rythmic trick, remember Quirk with Ping). You also need to cook gently in a frying pan your groovy bassline sauce upto 1’00 , don’t switch immediatly to a brisker mode as you got to obtain the funky taste around 1’25,so just slighty raise the power of fire & maintain the temprature. Meanwhile cut slices of spicy & acidulous fruits range as leads components of the salad, don’t hesitate to multi-layered them. When the 3 steps ready , gather the ingredients inside the mixer & pulse the mixture upto 6’48 exactly it’s very important in order to get the alchemy of the contrast correctly revealed. Then it just remains you to taste the receipe, it’s not recommended to add extra condiment like dioxine for enhancing the flavor.
3. Opening situation with aquatic breathes between seaweed, you start your exploration of dephts for an attempt in recovering your shell in the middle of happy-go-lucky plankton. At 2’45 you cross an deafening seahorses’s race constrating with the obscur world of silence in the ocean deeps from 3’45 upto 4’40 where no signs of life seem to be foundable except ships which sank. As a human being & still not a fish, several heel’s kick are needed to get back to the surface. It’s a long way back, very long, you hold up your head in order to see again some light, it’s a race against time through a cycling up ascension starting at 5’15. 6’36 you’re getting into the last meters from the surface for your noisy emersion.
4. By many aspects Front And Left reminds me Twisted System’s tunes excepting the rolling bassline and the very animated cybergun battle after 3’15, let just say the result is a bit less personnal & creative but still nice & effective in a heavy style.
5. Slug keep going here with more nervous production. I’ve noticed unpolished sounds , probably they’re controlled by Slub & integral part of the production conferring Paratrak a more experimental touch like Promotheus Process with Clarity From Deep Fog, it’s also possible some dudes will say that the mastering is weak here or too noisy. So definitivly it’s not a track for everyone.
6. A nebulous atmosphere resides in On The Floor, name of a recently castle-manor isolated in Scotland, bought jointly by Slug & Shift. There’s a big hostile fauna established in this previously longly abanbonned place : can be met outhere bats (after 1’40), ghosts (after 2’06). Furthermore invisible icy bells rings frequently at anytime & resonnating all over (starting from 3’25). Strange phenomenons can occur like a griding door that get opened by itself or secret crossings through walls get revealed without activating anything (5’10 to 5’38). After some intense investigations Shift noticed the wooden staircaises was trapped with several collapsing steps (6’43,6’56,7’10, 7’17). A real little cosy neast.
7. Todays is Saturday, in a good mood you decide to make a visit to your familly located at 500 kilometers from your home. Let’s go for a bit of car driving up there. Unluckily, you didn’t foresee the bad meteorolgical conditions : fog plus rain. As a result your old windscreen wiper need to be activated after just few kilometers (0’34), you totally forget to replace them as you couldn’t support anymore their awful squeaning sound. But it’s too late, once again you had to bear them. Seems it’s a real bad day for driving today, the rain come on worse than ever. Time to switch on your back windscreen wiper, shit you also forgot to change it coz of its whiping SM noise (1’30 to 2’15). Hey cool, there’s a little lull, you can perceive some sunbeams transfixing the grey & black clouds (2’35 to 3‘00). Nevertheless the rain didn’t stop completly, you must be very careful in order not to make aquaplaning on a soak road ; your tyres skid a bit & are slightly grinding (3’00 to 3’40 ). Meanwhile you’re still fighting against the elements, undergoing a violent acid rain , you realize you already did over half of the way (3’55 to 4’50). Hum, what’s that ? you don’t see anything unless 2 meeters, you’re in the middle of a smog. You don’t seem to drive your car but make it float through a cloud (4’50 to 5’30 ). The last kilometers are particularly testing, you’re approaching your final destination safe & sound rewarded by a …succulent meal made of cauliflower , Jerusalem artichoke & chicken cooked by your mother-in-law. Next Saturday, you already know that you’ll stay at home playing with your X Box.
8. The Witch is about lighter sounds married with groovier bassline. In search of new fresh salsaparilla plants for cooking your last invented potion , you mout your flying broom across muggy weather areas. When you finally find your salsaparilla, just after gather them, you pronounce a small incantation for preserving them the most possible (after 3’00). No superflue time on the cultivated ground, witches aren’t welcome. You immediatly come back to your den upon your staunch flying broom.
9. Lo Rider is a nice happy mischievous track with twisted piano or brassy melodies & aerial background synths, quite different from the rest of the album. Weird break sample at 3’15 , i didn’t catch all the words ‘everyone applause…it’s impossible to catch the penguin…’ probably a little wink to the first Nexus Media release called Penguin Rebellion.
Main regret about the barking lead kinda trademark from Timecode/Nexus Media, that is nearly employed in every track but with more or less intensity.
Nevertheless there’s plenty new fresh sounds used in this album & that’s the most relevant.
Highlights :2,3,9
Then :6,7,8
8/10
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Saylum
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
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Posted : Jan 22, 2005 22:15
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I was about to review it (when I find some time heh), but excellent work!
I realy liked this album, amaizing sounds, great work Slug, keep up =)
 Peace & Love!
´·´*¨ ¯ ¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯ ¯ ¯¯
¸.·´* "Love.. Patiance.. Understanding.." / Trust In Trance" |
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Nemco
Started Topics :
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93
Posted : Jan 24, 2005 02:38
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Nice review... just goes to show that taste is personal, I for one really like the guitar bit of Paradise Lost.. This is really a nice album. I must admit the name Slug really didn't mean anything to me before I got it, thank god I decided to listen to some samples on psyshop and decided to buy it....
To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them! - Louis-Ferdinand Céline |
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lokus
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
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Posts :
684
Posted : Jan 24, 2005 14:14
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very interesting review 
about your main regret:
that kinda barking is one thing i like about the timecode/nexus med. tracks but i see whats your point.
imo "lose your shell" is outstanding psychedlic morning or daytime music.
my favs:
2, 3, 6, 9
boom
- last possible solution
- trick music
- ambivalent records
myspace.com/lokuz
ps: y trance?
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Sarasin
Started Topics :
3
Posts :
214
Posted : Jan 27, 2005 09:35
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WICKED!
This CD is not available in SA yet.....but Slug himself gave me a copy to check out!
WICKED!!!
Its been a while since i have heard QUALITY morning tunes....with no FLUFF!
Big UP to THE SLUG!!!!!!!
Being wicked is AAIIT! |
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bluespectralmonkey
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jan 28, 2005 07:03
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P_Mac
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
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1484
Posted : Feb 9, 2005 10:54
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Wicked album . . .Love the graphx!!!!
Hope to see Slug releasing on Ketuh in the future.
And to the Nexus crew . . . Impresiive!
Big respect
www.boomfestival.org
www.ketuhrecords.com
DONT SEND MP3 SAMPLES PLS!!!!! |
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