Ekoplex – Discovering The Ancient

English / Polish version

Ekoplex - Discovering The Ancient
    OMNITROPIC
    Ekoplex
    Discovering The Ancient
    2012

      1. Turtle Island
      2. Hip Shiva Wigga
      3. Follow The Music
      4. Shamanic Drumz
      5. Before The Sun
      6. Aya
      7. Shapeshifter
      8. Crossroads
      9. End Of The Cycle, Beginning Of…

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Ekoplex – for me this project is the revelation of the year 2012! I have never been in this kind of land of sounds! None of the psychill albums has surprised me so positively in recent months, as DISCOVERING THE ANCIENT. There are some brilliant soundscapes, sometimes bizarre, twisted, acid motifs, which I can only compare (in some way) to the music of the project Shpongle, Swen (Dzoncy) strOOp, because their productions, although so different from the tracks of Ray Vincent (Ekoplex), they contain a certain element in common. I mean the style difficult to integrate in any frame, the music that breaks some canons, exceeds the limits of the imagination, plays with different conventions. For me the new album of Ekoplex is a fusion of a gnome world, full of fabulous, fantastic themes, unexpected solutions, surprising moments, some scenes which are not fully understood and unsaid just like in the movies of Lynch.

DISCOVERING THE ANCIENT is a material on the borderline of trance and downtempo, with clearly delineated beat, which I would love to hear during a summer hot festival among the dancing people. I can imagine how beautiful it would be to join the common trance in the full sun, touching the soft sand with the bare feet, feeling the gentle breeze in your hair… Returning to the album itself, I can feel there a kind of shamanic atmosphere, and slightly dark passages attract and encourage to discover their secrets. Ekoplex stimulates our imagination to create some stories and scenes – for example he moves me in a track called TURTLE ISLAND to the meadows, pastures, where with the joyous 'Namaste’ you can feel idyllic and secure like a child feels at the heart of its mother. As the album begins in this way, it just must be good, there is no other option! Its successor, i.e. HIP SHIVA WIGGA is a guide to old, greenish, full of mysteries and treasures forest where some mischievous goblins live. These creatures know how to turn up the atmosphere and do a little mess in our heads. If you do not believe that goblins exist, you should just listen to Ekoplex – for me it is a living proof of their existence. Anyway, if I had to give some associations that most define the album DISCOVERING THE ANCIENT, then certainly in the first place there would be some goblins’ themes, idyllic atmosphere and shamanism. In the tracks called: FOLLOW THE MUSIC, SHAMANIC DRUMZ, BEFORE THE SUN, AYA, SHAPESHIFTER, CROSSROADS and END OF THE CYCLE, BEGINNING OF… (which lasts for more than twenty minutes!) we will hear a lot of ethnic blocks, drums, chants like in the Amazon jungle, where ayahuasca, a drink of the gods helps Indians DISCOVERING THE ANCIENT, and maybe even see it through their own eyes?… In the album of Ekoplex from the year 2012 there will also be some birds singing, whistling, buzzing, you will also find there the sound of a hang drum, didgeridoo, some Shpongle sayings and melodies, of course on the basis of the modern electronics.

In the end it would be good to get to know a little bit closer the figure of the artist, album producer itself, I mean Ekoplex, who is certainly known to a wider audience for his strict psytrance publications, ranging from an EP ENTER THE DRAGON (2008), through the first full album, JOURNEY OF THE TURTLE (2008) and ending with CREATURES OF THE FOREST (2010). I have noticed some common features in several albums of Canadian, Ray Vincent – definitely he has a soft spot for turtles, because probably there is no coincidence that his first album was titled JOURNEY OF THE TURTLE, and in the album DISCOVERING THE ANCIENT once again he has referred to the turtle world, calling one of the tracks, TURTLE ISLAND and what is more, guess what animal can be found on the cover of the plate?

A big advantage of Ekoplex album apart from all the components that I have mentioned in my review, is the fact that even someone who does not like chillout could be interested in it, and that thing is a good incentive. I recommend it strongly, because you really can not throw it out of your head for a long time.

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9 / 10
Kasia