Oforia - Delirious

Delirious is the first solo album from Ofer Dikovsky, an Israeli veteran long known for his work with Indoor, Phreaky, Tandu, and many other collaborative projects. His approach is typically powerful, futuristic, and metallic, with almost no trace of anything organic. Many early reviewers speak of a “fatness” in the sound of Delirious, but I don’t hear it – the kick drums tend to sound high-pitched and tinny to my ears. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, however – Oforia follows the long-held Goa trance tradition of procuring energy through melody instead of rhythm. The power of this music comes from the unstoppable waves of hard metallic noises that incrementally build in a deceptively clever fashion. The sleeve design is not among Mark Neal’s best work, but it is decent enough. Now I shall give you a tour of the tracks themselves…

Maximizer will introduce you to just about everything you need to know about Ofer’s sound. A dual layer of tripped out synth lines weaves a majestic energy over pounding kicks in the early half, gradually building towards the standard breakdown scenario in the last third. A flurry of synthetic melodies charges into the vacuum, iterating at full power until the kick slams back in. The technique is elegantly simple but remarkably effective.

Cream takes a page from Tandu’s Alien Pump, dabbling along for several minutes before a sudden break introduces a shocking otherworldly lead that screams through the air. The beat returns, and the lead is sustained, eventually modulating upwards a couple of times before making a hasty exit. The rest is as ordinary as the earlier moments. I never really liked this one – although power through simplicity is an apt summation of the typical methodology expressed on this album, Cream seems almost too basic.

Compulsive Dance slows the pace down to 135, breaking the lower speed limit of the album by eight whole points, barring the final track. The sedate speed permits the artist to throw in all kinds of catchy hooks all across the frequency range. The tune churns and seethes with twisted metal sounds and hazy liquid atmospheres, building another alien mood before the story is over. This is possibly the strangest song on the album. I’m never sure what to make of it.

Psycho Sonic kicks in with a high-pitched drum, the classic trademark of the Israeli victory sound later popularized by Eyal Barkan and Shidapu – the early Infected Mushroom. Ofer does it differently, of course. This one has always sounded like an 8-bit video game theme to me, as if it were taken right out of Altered Beast or Castlevania. This impression is most pronounced when things really get shaking, right near the end. Unfortunatly I grew out of liking this style many years ago, so while I may have fond memories of this song when I was young, nowadays I prefer my trance to be much deeper than this.

Uplifter is full of weird emotional atmospheres, tender drifting passages, and explosive outbursts of immense melodies. The storyline tends to wander for the first six minutes, weaving in and out of activity indecisively, eventually coalescing into a powerful driving sequence before plunging into a deep breakdown. Fluttering synthetic sounds briefly cavort in the eye of the storm, and then the song comes back in full force, blasting away the remnants of any former sensitivity the track may have shown. It isn’t structured all that differently from Maximizer, but this is the one that always got to me, and I still like it better than the rest.

Outer Conception takes the intense road initially forged with Phreaky’s Tornado and Tandu’s Visually Distorted. In a similar fashion, the kick drum is harsh and dirty, rattling around like an animal caged in the basement. In key transitions, the beat goes through a stuttered roll, surging forward with an insistent urgency. Ofer uses one of his best techniques to squeeze every bit of power out of this song, teasing the seeds of awe-inspiring alien leads from the haunted abyss between builds. These cosmic acid lines blossom into truly magnificent constructions, layering up in complex configurations of complimentary sounds. The final build goes right over the top, throwing down the strongest melodies of the album just when it seems that it couldn’t get any more intense. Even though the production quality makes it sound as if it were composed in 1996, Outer Conception is a massive tune that still works wonders on the dance floor.

The title track Delirious seems plain in comparison, breezing through a bright and sunny exhibition of Ofer’s casual melodic style. Of all the songs on the album, this sounds closest to his later work for BNE. It meanders along, pulsing away with full-on energy, dusted with clear leads and sparkling melodies. There are no huge builds nor moments of intensity, but it still does the trick. Too bad it seems obsolete by now.

Why Not on Mars? is a strong morning anthem that fuses the energy of the earlier material with the friendly character of the preceding track and much of the Tandu album. The subject is a simple question – if life arose here on Earth… and you know the rest. The early half of this song is a return to crunchy metallic territory, complete with a sinister synthetic vibe and hard-hitting kicks. With three minutes to go, all this begins to change in a startling way, as a simple lead charges up from the depths to begin a gorgeous melodic sweep expressing the full power of morning. Truly, it is one of the best songs on Delirious.

Dew Point is the obligatory low-BPM finale, a customary feature of most trance albums in the mid-90s. The build is naturally quite slow, but this song does pull through in the end. With echoes of The Vision (from Transient Dawn) a number of mystic melodies eventually develop. After the brain bashing body of the album, this soothing come down is quite welcome.

Delirious is an album with a short half-life. The songs of this album devestating dance floors across the planet when they were new, but the allure has faded with the years. A well-known axiom of trance music is that albums built for the dance floor don’t age nearly as well as those with a home listening application, and this holds true for Delirious. Most of these tracks sounded way better back in 1998, especially on a big rig. In fact, you can easily improve your listening experience of this album simply by playing it really loud. Sadly, hearing these weird old corkers at home just isn’t the same. I appreciate a few of these songs for reasons noted, but by and large, I don’t find Delirious to be much better than average. Luckily, Ofer released two albums in 1998, and the other one is much better. Pigs in Space manages to transcend the dance floor axiom, creating a powerful space epic for the ages. The consistent quality of Pigs in Space invites speculation about whether the material on Delirious was actually current in 1998, but there’s no real way of finding out for sure. At any rate, I would suggest Delirious to fans and collectors, but for anyone new to Ofer’s sound, get Pigs in Space!

Release Data

Artist: Oforia
Title: Delirious
Label: Dragonfly Records
Format: CD/Vinyl album
Released: 1998

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