Spiritual Beings Records is a pretty fresh psytrance label in Israel. They are now out with the debut album by Dark Doors (Ilan Ifrach) from Tel Aviv, Israel. The first track starts with the sounds of waves in the sea and some sea birds screaming. Then the beats start pumping. The beats are pretty slow, but very stumping. Not much variation of beats and rhythms, but there are several weird psychedelic sounds swirling in and out of the track. Track 2 has the same stumpy beats. The sounds we get here are a bit more clear, and it is a pretty dark vibe. These pumping beats easily get a bit boring for my taste, but the sounds lightens it up. Track 3 has a bit more groovy bass line and more interesting sounds, but some of it sounds kind of simple. Track 4 goes the same direction but with a bit more massive sounds now and then. These first tracks are not of the usual Israeli full on style, but more on the progressive side, with a more twisted choice of sounds. Track 5 has a much more hard pumping, massive bass line. Things go faster and the sounds go more full on. A pumping night time trance track. My favourite track on this album. Track 6 continues the harder style. This one is a bit more drifting than the previous tracks on this album. But there could have been nice with some more melody in there. Track 7 goes back to a more stumping, pumping groove. Not much variation here. Track 8 goes the same direction. Monotonous beats with some dark, psychedelic sounds swirling in and out now and then. Track 9 is not much different. Dark and stumping, with some weird sounds jumping in and out. The last track we get on this album is more floating. You still get those stumping, slow beats and weird sounds, but you also get some atmospheric floating vibes. This album sounds like some of the early German progressive trance. A bit different from most of the Israeli trance releases these days. I missed some more variation, so it’s not exactly my cup of tea, but check it out if you want to hear something different from Israel.

Tel Aviv based trance veteran Ilan Ifrach is out with his debut album on the independent Israeli label Spiritual Beings… Modern cheap technology has enabled just about anyone to start releasing stuff on their own labels – and Spiritual Beings is a good example of a group of enthusiastic people doing something that they believe in… Hats of to them for having the balls to release something into the vast, endless pool of trance-releases nowadays… Let me take you thru the tracks… #01: First up is Newzoo, which is a pretty minimal track… It starts with an interesting, organic intro and is soon carried away by repetitive “lazy” beats and an overall feeling that something bigger is in the offering… Unfortunately nothing more happens, and this track doesn’t really do anything but bore me… #02: The beats are crispier on this second track – it’s darker in nature with metallic-sounding percussion and monotonous beats… There are however more uplifting elements as well, I kinda like the acid-belches and the water-effects… Oh, and the computer-game-like FX are nice too… I wish Ilan had worked more on those – that would have raised this to more than just a decent track… #03: Ahh, finally a decent bassline… The bass on this one is phat – very groovy, yet the percussion in the first half of the track seems to follow the same predictable pattern as the first 2 tracks… What save this track are in fact the Chinese drums that sound very cool – deep and tribal… Mixed with the Atari-like sound FX, it actually evolves into a nice tune! #04: And what have we got here? A Tracker/Fruity Loops show off intro…? I have no idea what this is… I hear a boring old bassline, some metallic sounding percussion and a synth run thru some kind of filter… Is that supposed to be a melody? Sorry, I don’t like this at all… #05: Luckily a twisted acrobat comes along and saves the day… ;o) From the start you feel the psychedelia ripping through your eardrums… Old-school pitched-up voice sample, a sharp polished bassline and some really cool twisted melodies… Very dance floor friendly dark full-on material here… It was about time this album packed a cool track – but this surely is a cool track! #06: The ambient track that was eaten by a vicious bassline! Pace-wise, this follows it predecessor, but this is much more minimal in structure… There are not really any melodic parts here, though somewhere in the far distance there is a melody lurking, trying to surface – it just never succeeds… It’s mainly a big old gritty mix-up consisting of distorted bassline and random noisy percussion FX… I think this was supposed to be the scary track, but to be honest; the only thing scary about it is how much it bores me… #07: Thing are picking up again.. Well a little anyway… It’s still minimal and noisy, yet slightly more interesting than the previous track… Ugh, what is that sound – sounds like an electronic mosquito!?… Smash it! I like the way this track “teases” the listener… That subtle “lazy” bassline… You keep waiting for it let loose, and when it finally does you wiggle your toe… Decent track! #08: The lazy bassline is back – and this time it’s accompanied by some old school twisted effects… Acid-farts and digital drops… Ilan opens up his bag of experimental tricks here… I like how he plays around with filters and tweaking effects… Interesting track, without being revolutionary… #09: The bassline has been tweaked to a funkier level now, but still you’re constantly waiting for it to really rip… My fellow reviewer Pavel talks about “dense and nervous sounds” here, and that’s a pretty good description… The sounds are sharp and “pointy” and it has that overall anxious feel to it… Kinda intoxicating really… Ok track… #10: Another dark and gritty track… A very simple bassline and more predictable percussion… There is a voice sample somewhere in the background that could’ve been interesting if only it ever surfaced… Seasoned with psychedelic bleeps and beeps – however, they are sprinkled around way too randomly, and don’t really fit the mood that this track wants to adopt… So, why wasn’t this album picked up by a “professional” label? I’m gonna go out on a limp here, and say that parts of this album sound down-right amateurish…I mean, I’ve listen to a lot of music over the years, and it seems to me that huge parts of this album is just random playing-around-with-music-software… I don’t produce music myself, so I have no technical background for saying that… It just sounds that way to me… I could be, that I’m totally missing the picture here, and this is some kind of divine sound, that I’ve completely missed – I don’t know… All I know, is that this left me disappointed… And don’t even get me started on the cover-art and the packaging… It’s not all bad though – Ilan does manage to create groovy, funky bits that make me bob my head and wiggle my toe… Those moments are just way to scarce on this CD… But it all comes down to taste – I’ve read some pretty enthusiastic words about this release, and I’m sure some people will enjoy this… Hooray for diverse musical tastes! *sS* But personally, I’d advise you to listen before you buy it… 5/10 Favourites: 5(!), 7, 8