June 2013 will be the month of The Exaltics and of their invasion that, instead of being the one of the aliens they have as key theme of their releases, it will be the invasion to the records stores, as this month they have three releases out! Yes, indeed! The project of Robert Witschakowski will have its new album "Das Heise Experiment" out on Abstract Acid, the EP "The Great Escape" on Bunker's sub label Panzerkreuz and this one I'm about to review, "The Rise And Fall", on Creme Organization. Containing four new tracks, "The Rise And Fall" EP, is a one side 12" which on the other side has a beautiful laser etched image. It opens with the intro track "Thought Buzz", a one minute menacing one based on one arpeggio, pads and bombastic drums. It prepares the ground for "The Place To Be", a track which mixes acid drums and bass lines with fluctuating pads. With the time it slowly grows and Robert alternates sounds, creating in that way, an evolution of the track keeping it smooth at the same time. The main track follows and it starts with a dark fluctuating atmosphere just to turn into a grinding track that sounds like Godzilla coming to town. "Downer" closes the 12" sounding like a monster ready to catch its prey: it mixes different powerful bass lines with pounding kicks and effected arpeggios and pads. Great release!

Bristol based Utopia Music's gaffer Mako gild another couple of psycho pills on this new 12". The track he signed alone "I Used To Be Like You" sounds really cinematic thanks to the vocal sample which repeat the title as a desolate overstatement during a questioning, police alarm, terrified voices who seems to come from the scene of a raid, an icy female which "melt" the words "stillness" and "illness" and an eerie sonic atmosphere, which lets listener ascend by means of mid-tempo tribal-spotted breaks, fuggy and somehow b/w atmospheres. On the flipside, listeners must fasten seatbelts as Mako together with the skilled lads Villem and Fields, which signed many dnb jewels on Utopia yet, deftly outrun on "Whatever Whatever" over incendiary addictive basslines, perfectly cut breaks, electronic spots and some alerts from trip computer till they reach a mental terminal. I'm just wating for the next trick by this gang of beat illusionists.

19th April 1943. It could say anything to most people, but the historical importance of that date for the so-called psychedelic culture has been acknowledged as a sort of proper celebration, known as "Bicycle Day". Some people who have a certain familiarity with that culture knows that the term "bike ride" stands for a LSD trip, due to the legendary bike ride by Dr.Albert Hoffmann, the Swiss scientist who was the first to synthetize and experience the powerful psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide, which he later called his problem child on his essay about that discovery. He cannot imagine the heavy cultural consequences of that discovery when he chased after Lucy in the sky of diamonds, as he regarded it as a powerful therapeutic tool more than a recreational drug, even if he later sided with LSD decriminalization due to the fact it could solve the contemporary psychological problems related to "materialism, alienation from nature through industrialisation and increasing urbanisation, lack of satisfaction in professional employment in a mechanised, lifeless working world, ennui and purposelessness in wealthy, saturated society, and lack of a religious, nurturing, and meaningful philosophical foundation of life". Whether you agree or not, the contribution of Hoffman's discovery to artistical blossoming was very strong despite any possible more or less boorish or bigoted controversy and biases and any tribute to that accidental discovery makes sense. One of the most famous dedication came from Kim Cascone's seminal Silent Records, which released a double CD compilation, "50 Years Of Sunshine", on the occasion of the first half century from Hoffman's trip, featuring contributions from Nurse With Wound, Psychich TV, Pelican Daughters, Controlled Bleeding, 68000 and Timothy Leary himself, a psychedelic ablution which has been reprised by fertile Polish label Monotype for the 70th anniversary by a series of explicit hints at its predecessor such as the double cd format (while Silent's collection names each part as a "100 Micrograms" and "250 Micrograms", a reference to the minimum and maximum dosage Hoffman tested, Monotype refers to the possible psychic directions of LSD trip by naming them "Ascent" and "Descent") and the engagement of some sound artists and musicians who already took part to the first collection such as Kim Cascone, Andrew Liles (Nurse With Wound), Andy Ratzen (member of Pelican Daughters) and the Swedish duo Carl Abrahamsson and Thomas Tibert aka Cotton Ferox, who appeared in the guise of "White Stains" on "50 Years Of Sunshine", but what has been called a 'much anticipated software update' sounds a little bit more diversified. Besides a bunch of serene immersive pools of ethereal frequencies such as the incense burners of Phil Legard's "Lifting The Veil", the frothy "Border Feather" by Chihei Hatakeyama, the astonishingly mindblowing alchemical suite "Scilla Im Scilla" by Rafael Anton Irisarri, the lissome quiet movement of "Stare Deep Into The Clouds" by Invisible Path and the synaptic ionization on "Owsley" by Ethernet, you'll enjoy the Orb-esque "Blue Sunshine" by Lord Tang, the liquid tech-dub of Makyo's "Octopi (Underwater Dub 2)", the oddball contribution by Legendary Pink Dots, who rendered a sort of tranquilizing guiding voice on their amazing "Don't Worry Dear, I'll Be Holding Your Hand" and the initial blissful lapsing of "Lost Milkyway" - one of my favorite track of the whole collection - by the inspired Acid Mothers Temple's leader Makoto Kawabata on the ascending segment of this journey. The lopsided clouded guitar lines of "Bloodbury 1988" by Andrew Liles marks the beginning of the glide path and paves the way to the flickering chimes of Rapoon's "Back On The Bus", the outlandish gardens of "Come Down" by Komora A, the hallucinated numbness on Darius Ciuta's "seR-V", the subtonal disquiet of Mike Rooke's "Sliding Spaces", the tonal dizziness of "It's Getting Near Dawn" by Lonely Crowd, the gloomy haze of Mystical Sun's "Echodyssey", the eerie swamps of Tomek Mirt's "Soul Disorder", the panicked piercing electronics of Ceremonial Dagger's "Synesthesia", the wise dub under hangover of "How About That?" by Cotton Ferox and the final resolution by Andy Ratzen on "No-One Plays Upon Your Mind". This collection is definitively something more than a simple act of devotion or a simulacrum.

One half of the Degada Saf duo, Faust Degada a.k.a. Fausto Crocetta, is releasing his first solo album titled "Lux&uria" for CherryNo Music. Four years ago, Fausto released with Degada Saf their comeback album "Without Religions" (see the review and the interview I did back then) and the year after he started producing music for different artistic events such like 'Human Rights? Art from world' (for Campana dei Caduti Foundation in Rovereto), video-art by Giordano Rizzardi, the play 'Rita e Graziella" by Francesco Scarfone and his music was awarded with a second place at the Roma Europa Festival. The project 'Lux&Uria' started in 2012 for an International Art Exhibition in S.Giorgio a Cremano (Naples) dedicated to 'The seven deadly sins' and, after that, he performed live and now, the album. Containing twelve tracks, the album plays around two concepts: the universal light and the physical being which lives a material life and the different aspects of it. One of them is lust (in Italian: "Lussuria") which, going beyond any moral concept, is an essential part of life. Just like the multifaceted emotions that lust is able to induce into the human being, this album tries to cover them all by alternating danceable tracks and ambient ones. So, we have blasting drums (now recalling dub rhythms and then i.d.m. ones) and complex sound layers creating a throbbing effect (like "Emma Cipapa" the following "I Step On Your Lines And I'm Wrong" or "She Knows My Way") alternated to ambient/i.d.m. tracks which sounds a little more experimental compared to the other tunes (it's the case of "Bapama Punk", "Bopid Manar" and "Lakaw") and a mix of both ("Jamspace" or "Gadem") where we have a sort of house/dub rhythm pattern with ambient atmospheres. There are tracks that sound catchy at the first listening, like "She Knows My Way", thanks to the use of melody, filtered vocals and powerful sounds, then there are other ones that need more attention and time.

Kantyze is maybe one of the fiercest dnb duo, consisting of Frederic Bauffe (Feubo) and Igor Denat (Knockoutz), who gave many innovative shakes to French dnb scene by adding to dnb typical doodads a weaponry of dark-techno-oriented primers. On this excellent digital EP, which will be officially released on 10th June, they strenghten their sound by enhancing both dynamics of rhythmical patterns and and grip of sounds. It's possible you will associate their combination of dark shading and hyper-hectic swirls to the sound of other projects such as Cern, The Upbeats, The Sect, Subtone, Stalker, Proktah and similar projects, but one of the distinguishing aspect of Kantyze sound is the fiendish focus on the insertion of psychotropic samples, futuristic roller and sometimes militant beats within their computational reticula. You will find four wicked tunes on this EP, which comes on their own m-Atome imprint, who all have the above-mentioned elements, even if according to my ear and neural response, the abysmal pits and the nervously stretched drum rolling of "Factory Slum" as well as the squishy bouncy "Fish Eye" deserve the purchase of this release by themselves.