Cryptology

Timecode made one compilation offering in 2006: Cryptology. As with Trojan, released one year earlier, this release features twisted full-on psychedelic trance with a dark and menacing edge. There is nothing truly special about this CD; it was obviously compiled with DJs in mind, not regular listeners. Let’s hear what the madmen in Cape Town have in store for us this time around…

Hydraglyph rips open the compilation with Mindfuck, a powerful blast of full-on dance floor madness. Prior to this, I had not really heard anything from this artist that impressed me (aside from Condition Black perhaps) but this one really does the trick. I blame it all on the smart and timely combination of tribal drums, strong leads, and a true psychedelic atmosphere. This song has a complex character that makes it stand out from the rest.

Digital Chaos by Species offers a mixed blend of Fight Club samples, stuttering effects, and wispy leads served over synthetic full-on beats. This track seems confused and disjointed, drawing influence from Sabotage-era Wizzy Noise without delivering a clear and coherent message. The dark leads seem to have potential, but the sound is altogether too plastic to truly make a mark.

Artifakt brazenly shakes things up with The Idiot Song, another weird and wonderful song peppered with fuzzy melodies, delightfully distorted leads, and plenty of noisy effects. This has all the quirky charm of Artifakt’s relatively recent singles Dendron and Ntagathi as well as the irascible playfulness of Doom Doom Doom. Hell, it even has cowbell! If that isn’t enough to make you smile, there are plenty of amusing samples from the Monty Python sketch The Idiot In Society. Artifakt is one of the most creative and original artists in electronic music today, and this is yet another excellent example of his abilities!

Seventh Sword is sampled from Kiss The Blade, the debut album from Phyx. Although he is a staple of South African compilations, I have yet to run across a truly exceptional track from this artist. I might be alone in this; I know of many people who consider Phyx to be at the top of the field. Nonetheless, I must admit my reaction is lukewarm. The beats are tough, the production is good, the dance floor drive is solid, and those spinning metallic leads are very stylish, but there is nothing about this song that really grabs me.

Multistate is a relatively new project from Greg Hamber (Xatrik) and Gerhard Olivier. HQ is much like any other South African tune: full of fat wobbly bass lines and grinding electric riffs. There are a number of quirky production tricks employed throughout the song that really add some spice to the proceedings. I wouldn’t call it a favourite, but this tune certainly rocks.

Twisted System (Shift, Phyx, and Rabdom L) are the most notorious name in South African psytrance. Razor, taken from their second full-length album Core (2006), is everything a fan of the group would expect: a hard, nasty, and immensely powerful dance floor anthem. The use of layering infuses the song with some measure of depth, while the strong melodies and turbocharged production value slam the message home. I could do without the repetitive sample work, but it hardly matters. This is a massive production! Be sure to check out the album.

Seroxat continues to follow in the footsteps of his mentor Azax Syndrom, a fellow Israeli artist who has also been moving away from the darker sound of past productions towards a more palatable full-on style. Twisted Image is another squelchy and explosive dance floor bomb loaded with weird melodies and the near-constant sound of rockets taking off. However effective this may be, I find it gets a bit tiring after a while. Aside from that, the production sounds paper-thin after the onslaught from Twisted System. This is not one of Seroxat’s better offerings.

Inner Action clone the cybernetic full-on sound of CPU with impunity on Halloween. This track features all of the usual tricks one would find in a release by CPU: digitized vocoder work, squelchy electric riffs, and bass lines that never stand still. It sounds like a dreadfully unoriginal knock-off.

Tickets is becoming known for his melodic and upbeat approach to the South African style, which may explain why his work is sometimes found in the last slot on a compilation. Babushka is not as good as The Toy or Infinite Pleasure, but the style is fairly similar, featuring roughshod beats, cheerful leads, and a euphoric push to the bass line progression. It would have been merely ordinary were it not for the corny sample usage in the main breakdown: “what’s that smell?” Seriously. This is no good.

Cryptology is a compilation that spans the spectrum from good to bad, with plenty of filler in the middle. It doesn’t help that the Phyx and Twisted System tracks are not exclusive to this release. Artifakt and Hydraglyph provide some good tunes I will use, at the very least. This is a case of style over substance: each track is a ripping dance floor bomb waiting to go off, but the truly remarkable moments are few and far between. The problem is simply that there are a lot of releases with this sound, so it takes something special to excel beyond the ordinary. Cryptology doesn’t manage that. DJs are sure to fawn over these tunes for about six months to a year, but after that they’ll be on to the next batch of disposable high-energy psytrance tunes. Is this sounding too harsh? Perhaps. But I have to be honest in saying that if I weren’t DJing, I never would have bothered to purchase this mediocre compilation. Timecode are capable of much more than this.

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