http://www.psytrancereviews.btinternet.co.uk/
I must confess, I’ve probably listened to this album more than any other this year. Astrix’s sort of postmodern full-on style is addictive, and the way that melodic runs shine out of tight rhythmic backbones is delicious. Sounding accomplished as an artist album, it’s straight in for business with Life System, a delicious and uplifting opener with bags of spirit. Crystal Sequence is reminiscent of Jaia’s stuff, and Massive Activity sounds like an ever-expanding, dancefloor-melting smiley face with a good balance of all the right ingredients. The title track’s a little sub-par, with what sounds like a swarm of Yahel gremlins edamifying Astrix’s computers, and the mix here of Scientific Reality lacks the punch of the Rough Mix that’s appeared on various compilations this year, but you have to clutch at straws to unearth these negative points. Cheesy in places perhaps, and the heard-it-all-before dub by numbers of Freestyle Cafe is definitely missing, but an energetic and enjoyable album from start to finish. Rating: 4 out of 5
Astrix is Avi Shmailov (born 1981) from Israel. He started making trance music as a teenager. He then changed direction and was newly discovered when he collaborated with Alien Project on his debut album -"Midnight Sun", released in 2001. Since then he released quite a few tracks with Alien Project, Atomic Pulse, Xerox, Domestic, Nomad and on his own. He produced some major hits and remixes that swept the trance skies like a comet. Astrix's tracks were released on labels such as T.I.P world (UK), Phantasm (UK), Millennium (UK) Sound Sorcery (Mexico), Universal (Mexico), EMI (Japan), Solstice (Japan), New Funk (Japan), TBA (Switzerland), Iboga (Denmark), Cyber (Holland), HOMmega (Israel), BNE (Israel), Phonokol (Israel) and more... Astrix has already played and performed live in Japan, UK, Switzerland, Greece, Brazil, Mexico, India and Portugal. He's due to release his debut album - "Eye To Eye" in October 2002 on HOMmega Productions. *Avi also took part in the Private Taste project with Lior Miller, Ido Ophir (Domestic) & Kobi Avraham. Their track - "First", was released on vinyl with a redub by Ashrtrax and another remixes vinyl with Max Graham remix and Ashtrax ambient score, both on Automatic records (UK). It was released on Paul Van Dyk - Politics of Dancing, Danny Howells - Nocturnal Frequencies 3, Gatecrasher – Digital, ISRAliens 3 - Conflict, Yahel - Mixing in Action, Trancelucent 4 and other mainstream clubby compilations. |
