Omicron

Ambient Systems (1995). Ambient Systems is a compilation of Instinct's most talked about discoveries, an Underground Ambient epic of sorts exhibiting the talents of NY pioneer Terre Thaemlitz, the nationally acclaimed and officially supported SETI project, the brilliantly provocative Human Mesh Dance, and European ambient master Dominic Woosey as Mysteries of Science. Ambient Systems also features works from the captivating and ingenious Omicron, as well as the red-hot Sub Dub, Evolve Now, Adam Shaikh and Deep Space Network. Ambient Systems is pleased to introduce Facil, a collaboration between Tension Record's Abe Duque and P909's Dietrich Schoeneman. All artists are represented with compilation-only, exclusive tracks not to be found on their full-length releases…

Chill Out! (The Techno Evolution Continues) is a bona fide classic collection of ambient sounds from the dance world of the time. There's beauty and wonder everywhere: rich, pulsating chords, spacey melodies and bleepy grooves, shimmering landscapes, euphoric ambient trance and just occasionally something more twisted and dark. The music is often exotic, too, a signpost to ethno-ambient trance and exotic dub that would appear in great quantities over the following decades. The ambient breakbeat epic "Sunrise" by Young American Primitive is a stunner, its arpeggios and gorgeous strings anchored by a deep tribal drum groove…

The first Plug In & Turn On (1994) is undistinguished and remains a non-essential release. Disc 1 is mostly dated club tracks; Disc 2 is ambient but gets lost with too many messy and dissonant tracks. Fortunately the second volume Plug In & Turn On vol. 2 is superb. On some tracks the club music DNA had disappeared entirely; there seems to be more of an anything-goes ethos, more confidence on the part of both compilers and artists. Woob's brilliant cinema of the mind which gets two airings on "Odonna" and "Pluto", and Adham Shaikh sounds like he's channeling old-school ambient master David Parsons with the cavernous Eastern drones of "Vapor"…

The concept of various artists re-mixing each other was pretty smart. There's a lot of good stuff on each disc, pretty eclectic, especially when the different styles of 2 artists overlap. It does remind one of how incestuous the Ambient industry is, however. Ambient Intermix consists of such artists: Omicron, Terre Thaemlitz, SETI, Unreality, Control X, Adham Shaikh and other.

Paolo Conte - Psiche
Italian singer/songwriters | MP3 @192 kbps | Time: 0.50.26 | 70 MB
Genre: Jazz/Pop | Album Studio

Psiche is the 13th studio album of Paolo Conte's 35-year career. Not exactly prolific, the former lawyer from Asti built an outstanding body of work between 1974 and 1990, but recorded sporadically after that. Like João Gilberto or Jimmy Scott, Conte is one of those artists who very early on created a unique style and persona, and never strayed too far from with it. Psiche thus resembles all of Conte's releases since 1992's 900: a set of 15 unimpeachable new songs that perpetuate the myth of Paolo Conte, but add little to it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and Psiche is indeed a fine album. True, some may write off this record as an exercise in style. Yet style has always been exactly Conte's forte, and no one can possibly deny that he has it in spades. Old themes and characters are revisited (the theater, dancing, bicycle racing, fascinating women, European culture, American swing) and set to Conte's trademark smoky jazz ballad treatment. Perhaps the most distinctive element of Psiche is the abundant use of synthesizer sounds ("Il Quadrato e il Cerchio," "Bella di Giorno," "Omicron"), particularly as it comes on the wake of the acoustic return-to-roots implied on Elegia, Conte's superb 2004 album. The results, if not as individually memorable as those of the preceding album, give Psiche a sonic identity of its own that grows with the record. He may be past 70 and starting to show in his voice, but Paolo Conte remains a class act.