About The Reviews

This page serves as a guide to the reviews found here at Ektoplazm. At the very least, please read the following:

Disclaimer

I write reviews from a very personal perspective as a way of taking notes, sharing knowledge, bettering myself as a writer, and deepening my understanding of music. These aren’t promotional reviews; I am critical whenever I feel it is warranted. What you read is merely my subjective opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree.

Objective

I am motivated to make reviews for a number of reasons. I admit I am writing at least partially out of self-interest: to develop my understanding of music, to improve my writing abilities, and to sort and assess my collection. Putting into words how I feel about music helps me to discover what I really like. When I take the time to dig into an older release, I generally try to frame a release in its historic context. Sometimes I do reviews just for the hell of it, whereas other reviews are done with a scholarly frame of mind.

Perhaps my reviews are useful, or maybe not. Everyone has a very personal experience of music, so there is no telling whether my type of review (or any review at all) will be useful to someone. I take pride in what I do and try to do the best reviews possible, but I don’t expect that they will be of interest to everyone. Still, I hope that they may serve to navigate the vast corpus of psychedelic trance music for those who are interested.

Format

My reviews usually follow a basic template: an introduction, a track-by-track analysis, and a conclusion. In the introductory paragraph I try to provide relevant background information, frame the release in its historic context, and/or figure out what kind of a release it is (just for DJs, something for everyone, and so on). The track-by-track analysis that follows allows me to get very specific with the merits or deficiencies of individual songs. There are albums for which such a detailed review is unnecessary, but given that compilations featuring tracks of varying quality are fairly common, a track-by-track examination can be particularly beneficial to potential buyers (especially other DJs). I know I like to have a quick rundown of what to listen for when I am scanning through a new or potential purchase. Every review concludes with a summary of my findings, so readers may find that they don’t need to read the bulk of text. Although my reviews may be rather long, I have designed them to suit casual reading as well as anyone interested in a deeper examination of the material at hand. Skim through them and pick up on whatever seems useful to you.

Favourites

Listing favourite tracks by number is a tradition that extends back many years. It serves as a shortcut for visitors who simply want a quick breakdown of what’s hot on an album (according to me, anyway). I follow a simple system for my reviews, throwing in anything that I find noteworthy and memorable. Anything truly exceptional earns a single exclamation point for emphasis.

Ratings

Numeric ratings shouldn’t be taken so seriously. Their main purpose is to serve as a handy reference for idle browsing. Rather than scour each and every review, a visitor can rapidly scan for releases which earn higher numbers and start from there.

While I stress that numeric ratings are only a rough guideline, I try to maintain a relatively cohesive system for assigning a mark to the releases I review. On a scale of 1 to 10 an average release will score a 5, which may seem like a low rating to readers who are acclimated to the inflated numbers common elsewhere. Think about it: if every release is rated between 6 and 10, isn’t that just a scale out of 1 to 5? To cut through all the nonsense, here’s a chart I use when selecting what rating seems right for a release:

• 10 :: Perfection
• 9 :: Excellent
• 8 :: Great
• 7 :: Good
• 6 :: Above Average
• 5 :: Average
• 4 :: Below Average
• 3 :: Bad
• 2 :: Awful
• 1 :: Terrible

Highlighted Reviews

Any release receiving a 9 or 10 automatically earns a red highlight in the review listing. This is another psytrance reviewing tradition that extends back to TRiP and the early Psynews—sites that initially ignited my interest in psychedelic trance. Consider it an easy way to find what I consider to be the best of the best!

The Missing Reviews

Astute observers will notice that there aren’t that many releases scoring in the low numbers. The reason is quite simple: I generally avoid reviewing bad releases. Sometimes I begin to review a release and find out I am not really into it, but seldom will I make the mistake of tackling something truly awful.

The Green Dot

From the review listing screen one will notice an icon to the left of every release. If the icon contains a green dot in the lower right corner this indicates that the release may be purchased online at one of the usual download shops (Cytopia, Beatport, TrackItDown, or JunoDownload for example).

Request a Review

Would you like to see a release reviewed here? Feel free to use the contact form to let me know.

Your Thoughts

You are welcome to provide your own thoughts about a release in the comments area the bottom of any given review!