Tsunami

Tsunami is a one-off compilation assembled by Opher AKA India Drop for Kinetic Records, New York City. Although technically one of the first major psytrance releases from a North American label, the music is exclusively European and Israeli. The release was made primarily to advertise the Tsunami organization, then a major event promoter. It includes a range of styles with everything from German techtrance to full-on morning trance from Israel.

The compilation begins with an interesting offering from Zorba, a GMS side project featuring Riktam and Rossi (of Systembusters) in this case. The Deep focuses on tribal progressive rhythms backed by pleasant melodies and light atmospheres. The results are very nice.

Chakra’s Deliverance shares little in common with his predominantly dark and sinister old school offerings. This is much more innocent, almost Scandinavian in its serene austerity. Interesting.

I-Zen is the solo project of Erez Aizen from Infected Mushroom. Voices is a great piece of morning trance; just what one would expect from Infected’s period of peak creative development.

Saiko-Pod teams up with rising stars Logic Bomb on Magnetic Force, an acknowledged dance floor classic of the Y2K era. Who could ever forget those crazy monkey noises? This is a very strong collaborative effort: ultra-psychedelic and highly recognizable.

Total Eclipse rips into experimental drum ‘n bass with Psychedelic Terrorist, a song unparallelled in its frantic energy and breakneck pace. It sounds oddly dated by now but I can’t help but appreciate the madness of it all.

The hollow droning kicks, razor-sharp percussion, eerie crackling atmospheres, and an absolute absence of melodies in X-Dream’s Aspirin make it a little tough to handle at times. It was something fresh and interesting at the time—there were few examples of this kind of extremely hard psychedelic techno on the market. Still, I think X-Dream has better work in this style.

Oforia breaks the zombie spell with Special Offer, a flagrantly melodic song filled with a sense of doe-eyed wonder and irrepressible bliss. The cheese factor is bound to alienate some listeners but I happen to consider this one of Ofer’s great triumphs, particularly of the post-Pigs In Space period. However you may feel about it, this is undeniably original.

I don’t quite know what to say about Yahel’s Reality. I never cared for his style but will admit this piece is more appealing than most songs I’ve heard from him. Still, I wouldn’t rate it highly—this is a bit shrill and inauthentic for my taste.

Infected Mushroom deliver one of their finest works with Symphonatic, a legendary song that has graced dance floors all around the world. I remember nights where everyone at a party would be waiting for it, where the introductory sample (“a man with a bass just walked in…”) would elicit shouts and cheers and all hell would break loose. It hasn’t lost any of its lustre in the intervening years—not in my estimation, anyway.

The compilation comes to a close with Morphem’s Hypnotone, a sublime classic originally released on Kiss The Future 1. Gorgeous, hypnotic, and deeply entrancing—one of my all-time favourites.

Tsunami is a noteworth compilation for several reasons. Not only is the music extraordinary, but it also reached many new listeners by virtue of being the most widely distributed release in North America at the time (and, perhaps, ever). The downside: there isn’t much of a sense of storytelling to the release. It jumps from one style to the next without consideration of any sort of coherent flow. No matter—given the quality of the music this can be overlooked. Tsunami is a wonderful compilation that has held up to repeated listening over the years. Recommended.