Artist: Spinal Fusion
Album: Escape to Reality
Label: Hill Top Records
Mastering: Nick (Saga/Mechanimal)
Release: January 2013
Fresh morning psychedelic trance hits us this winter from an upcoming producer Spinal Fusion. Spinal Fusion has been creating a stir in the psytrance scene for some time now. ‘Escape to Reality’ is the debut release of Navi Mumbai based producer Bilas Rajdrekar aka Spinal Fusion. Spinal Fusion is inspired from artists like Avalon, Sonic Species, and Tristan. This three track EP is a showcase of the talent of this young producer. With releases, collaborations, performances as well as remixes, Bilas has been making much noise. The man has also found appreciation in this regard from fans and supporters on various mediums like Soundcloud and Facebook.
This album was released by Goa based label Hill Top Records. Hill Top Records, a new upcoming psychedelic trance label is connected to the popular venue, Hill Top, Goa, host to some of the biggest psychedelic trance events in the country.
The music on the EP is dance floor oriented with fat baselines and groovy beats to swing to. The tunes are not heavy and aggressive and do not include usage of the glitch oriented sound popularly used in psychedelic trance music. At the same time, the music is not too fluffy keeping the melodies sweet enough to groove to and at the same time not so sugar coated that one may get annoyed with it. Ranging from 142 – 145 BPM, the tracks on EP each have their distinct touch and are qualitatively on par to be used by DJs or listeners the world over.
The title of the EP, ‘ Escape to Reality ‘, is the concept behind this introductory EP. The EP took 6 months to produce with the help of hardware and virtual synthesizers. Gentle atmosphere used on the EP present an uplifting feeling which is known to be characteristic of this genre. Funky leads with at times a twisted edge further add to the glory of the ensemble presented. The high hats based percussion can get repetitive at time. There is an interesting flow to the songs with twists and turns keeping the listener engaged throughout the album. The third track on the EP is a collaboration with Earthspace aka Matheus Nogueira who is part of Ovnimoon Records.
‘Escape to Reality’ has already hit Rank # 20 in list of top 100 releases on Beatport. It will be interesting to see what tunes Spinal Fusion churns out in future. Hope he makes good of the platform he has created for himself with this release. Considering the success achieved by other producers such as Silence Project, Karan ‘Third Eye’ Bhoj and Ankytrixx, sky is the limit for this young producer from the country.
The track list:
1. Spinal Fusion – Idea 07:23
2. Spinal Fusion – Warfighter 07:33
3. Spinal Fusion Vs. Earthspace – Atomic Bomb 07:05
The psytrance music scene in India though small is growing. Releases from producers such as Spinal Fusion put India on the map of the global psy-trance scene. In terms of number of homegrown releases and active labels, no other sub-genre of electronica is as developed as psychedelic trance music. Long considered the evil cousin of electronic music, psychedelic trance has been gaining acceptance across wide range of audiences with a showcase of the genre at major festivals and venues across the country along with performances by acclaimed national and international DJs/ producers.
