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The 13 tracks (in 73:58) of disc one (culled from Mystery School and Sonic Acupuncture) ring in on the clanging bells and synth arpeggios of Fire. Rapidly sybilant syncopations and thrumming drones travel past like the outer edges of a great tornado; from within, wailing guitar and frantic radio voices emerge to be swept into the powerful, coiling vortex. Amid swirling vapours stirred by a continually throbbing rhythm section, one hears the crooning voices and echoing drums of Lust (and crowd murmurs as well).
Quite an assortment of thoughtfully-placed samples are spewed forth from the core of sonic energy which characterizes these pieces. Big and booming, Earthquake uses bits of socio-political speech, newscasts, explosions and elephants. Religious broadcasts and swooshing waves are woven into Light in Extension, a lower key, yet still rhythmic offering. The soothing strings and quiet passages of Starflesh of Nuit merge with anti-war samples. The calm intro of Exorcism is soon overtaken by thunderous beats. A demonic voice and assorted chaotic chatter are dashed on the jagged surface of insistent percussion and convoluted waveforms.
Less beaty and more droney, Mantram, includes a plethora of chanting voices from smooth Gregorian to boys' choir to more "primitive" tribal incantations.
A virtual whirlwind of political, social and religious doctrine, Arma-Get-On is a tower of mediaspeak babble which includes multitudinous spoken samples (and even the old Viking "yo-heave-ho" song) backed by steadily pattering beats and surging drones; the track ends, of course, in a cataclysmic explosion, then segues into the percussion free floatation zone of Sonic Acupuncture, where dense, dreamy flows softly swirl.
Disc Two (with 10 tracks from Eleusina, Gaia and
Planetary House Nation) is also 73:58 in length.
Obsession opens the disc with churning hyperrhythms threaded through with didgeridoo passages and synthstrands, all of which seem to sweep into a crowded room filled with muffled voices, becoming the next track... More or less beatless, save for a hushed, rhythmic loop and sporadic cymbal splashes at its end, Telesterion S.F. is awash in sparkling sonic froth and its skies are crisscrossed with electronic rays.
If the bubbling electrons and trance-inducing drum loops of Dionysus Aphrodite Apollo are an attempt to awaken the ancient gods, the seemingly endless cycles have an opposite effect on me...
The hovering drones and muted female intonations and wails which float through The Invocation, another basically percussionless track, are hypnotic in a more personally appealing fashion though. The following pieces (Bloodmoonmothmothergoddess (3:34) and Nature of Desire) continue in this more subdued fashion as does the next;
electronic winds blow into Xibalba Be (Maha Kali Ma) a slow cyclonic force which emits the occasional sample from American culture from its shapeless haze.
The rhythm returns in tribalistically pounding glory with Planetary House Nation, laced with didge-tones and murky atmospheres. Spacier sounds abound when Ancestors (10:41) fills the air with percolating soundwaves and softer rhythmic patterns.
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