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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sounds from another world, February 23, 2004
Kevin Dooley, the man behind Zero One, says in an interview that in his dreams he often hears full pieces of orchestrated music that does not exist in 'reality' - compositions that sound like the music of the future. It is not hard to realize that this is a major source of inspiration for Zero One: the music actually sounds as if it was composed by an artificial intelligence which has fallen into a daydream, letting its subconscious conjure up images of robots, geometrical patters, mathematical formulae and digital worlds of lush, symmetrical beauty. The music of Zero One is like that: ambient, electronic dub that flows like a science fiction dream, as suggested by the title of the third album, 'Psy-Fi'. Compared to the previous albums, 'Psy-Fi' is perhaps a hint slower and more relaxed - the beats are more subdued, the song structure is more abstract, yet often more complex. Still, for those already familiar with the previous albums, 'Psy-Fi' hardly breaks new ground. The soundscapes move in the familiar territory: this is largely 'bass'-driven electronic dub intervowen with odd sounds, abstract patterns, spoken samples and ethereal synths. The effect is both refreshing and meditative. It is hard to pick out standout tracks. Instrumentals follow each other smoothly so that it is easy to forget yourself and drift into a one-hour trip to a another world. Zero One sounds as if early electronic music, such as Kraftwerk, was taken over by the psychedelic experimentalism of, say, Shpongle. Still, the music of Zero One is hardly derivative. It sounds at the same time familiar and strange. Zero One's third album is another great release that should satisfy most fans of ambient, dub, chillout or downtempo. For those already familiar with the previous albums, 'Psy-Fi' is well worth the three years' wait.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beyond the Binary, January 29, 2008
I'm a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and whenever I pop in a new ambient-trance CD, I think back to a short bit from the Pod People episode of that show. A character named Joel is mocking the movie's spacey New Age soundtrack. Behind him is a wall of keyboards. "Here's how you make a New Age album," he tells his buddy Crow. "Hold down any key on the synthesizer." Crow does. "Now hold down another key." Crow does. "Now hold it down until you get a record deal from Windham Hill," Joel says.
New Age music is a comfy genre to undertake, is the point, a refuge for people with hydrogenated brain pans and the "skill" to find a handful of ethereal chords that can swim sleepily together. If you're talking about background noise for slowly sifting clouds or nebulous universal ballets, it doesn't take much to please people. Anyone with eight fingers can slow-step through a Casio keyboard and patch together a creeptastic theme song for the delicate waver of an incense stick's tangerine fume.
Kevin Dooley, mastermind behind ZerO One, seems to be aware of this. His music winks at the cheesy New Age genre that inspired it, without succumbing to anything other than the minimalist tribal rhythms and thought-scapes that help it transcend the great troughs of trance's wasteland. It's not easy to find, among the vast array of CDs with happy be-fluted hippies and Gaia-glorified album covers, something that's worth owning. I'll be the first to say that almost none of it is really bad; if you want music you can put on and then immediately ignore, most albums will do the trick. But how to find something that digs in? I'm reminded of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon where the gray aroma of a cooling carrot pie slinks through the air to Bugs' rabbit hole, reaches down with dangerously sexy fingers, and pulls him gently backwards through the air, toward its frangrant source. There you go. Don't you want music like that?
Sweet Nag Champa, here are a couple of albums for you, then.
ProtOtype 2 is Dooley's sophomore effort, coming after his eponymous debut, and it's a slyly sublime stitching together of ambient funk with more aggressive psychedelic dub-work. Dooley doesn't let the rhythms waver into the insubstantial mists common to most dreamy chill-out mixes. Songs like "innEr spAce" and "seArch" sound like they're heading into the well-worn treads of trippy territory, but Dooley swings the melodic arc around at the last minute. It's an album that keeps you off your guard; it's good to spread your toes to, but it refuses to dwell in subconscious realms. The album is bookended by the best cuts: "pOssibilities" with its creepy cheeky congo-counter-rhythms, "memOry" with its nasty nascence (and a saxophone at its carmelized core; perhaps a nod to Dooley's first experience with a musical instrument), and "mOdule" with its funky come-hither come-down. There are some progressions that stretch out to breezy thinness, where the ambience wears itself to thread-bare dimensions, but Dooley doesn't wait long to fatten those moments up with his trademark turns in tone.
"pSy-fI" is, for my money, a far more accomplished record, a melodic novel of dewy jungle jazziness melded to an aura that is laid-back without being lazy. Although most of the tracks on "ProtOtype" are great, they don't really measure up to the stellar equatorial warmth of "pSy-fI"s spiritually cerebral lankiness. "COntinuum" is as slow and expansive as a jet plane's vapor trail. "TransfOrmation" grinds through xylophonic chorales with a sexual flair. And "causalitY" (my favorite track), is a one-track snapshot of the entire album: a tribal shoulder-mover, a nimble neck massage, a solar story with fifteen chapters. Even better, "pSy-fI" contains animations (although some are a little low-rent and cheesy) and four mp3 bonus tracks, all of which are stellar additions to the rest of the disk.
Trance, New Age, Chillout ... call it what you will; "artists" for years have been using the label as an excuse to churn out passively pointless and unremarkable "music" for years. Do yourself a favor: grab some ZerO One and discover just what it means to be entranced, relearn the "new" in New Age, and see how warm and exciting even a "chillout" album can be.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Collaboration of 2 Tech-Based Lifeforms, February 23, 2007
I bought this album from listening to "I Like That" by Zero One, which I downloaded from a P2P network. I thought, by chance the title "I Like That" was made-up by the owner I downloaded from, which the orginal had no name. Then I checked Zero One's early stuff and found it on his first album.
This made me wonder: "psy-fi" is completly different in mood and feel then "I Like That". I love the track "I Like That" because it was smooth-flowing, gentle, and what I call "Spiritual Electronica". It also had very cool stereo bass (the bass line travels thru the left-and-right channels with varying intensity).
I don't know if its because they changed labels (From Waveform to Sprialight) or what, but it has a completely changed. Upon listening to this album for the first time, I have to say, I was pretty werided-out.
I kept asking myself: Is this considered music? I couldn't get used to
the repeating short-loops, unusual percussion, strange-sounding electronic sounds and those sharp transistions from a pretty-full decibel loudness
to near silence. After I finshed it, I thought I'd never listen to it again.
The reason I felt this way is because for many people, a change of
anything can make that someone uncomfortable. And the same goes for this
CD and me: You can adapt to the new type of sounds or go back to your old music where you feel confortable.
So I decided to adapt to the new, strange style of music and went back to
a couple songs I liked, for instance "cOntinuum" and "dreamwOrld".
I noticed that in these tracks, there are new kinds of bass sounds that was not used to that seemed to ripple thru the air into my body and high-tech voices that
sounded like they were trying to communicate something.
This album has completly changed the way I look at music.
The more I listened to it, the more it sounded like it was made by two differnet artists formulating different parts of each track. The first
artists has a high-end computer with high-end digital instruments to
create smooth, highly-advanced beats and melodies that sometimes sound
very much like Bluetech (who I love). The other artist sounds like he
(or she) has a low-end, bare-bones basic cheap computer with digital instruments you could buy anywhere on a budget. During the tracks, its sounds like each are taking turns making the track, enduring quick jumps between each artist's creations. While at other times, its sounds like
the two artist's sounds are layered on top eachother.
My favorite track is "casualitY" because it sounds like a war song for robots going into battle and it gets me so amped up! A close second is "transfEr" which I think is the most energetic, danceable and high-tech song. The emotions of the songs sway in-between happy robot sounds to dark and eerie thoughts of a
robot to robots who are "suffering from insanity". And if you buy the CD, listen to Track "Bu_ist" and ask yourself if the melody sounds like the Napoleon Dynamite Soundtrack while in Space.
So if you like to hear sometimes clearly-obvious short loops as well as long-continous loops, openly-spaced almost-danceable perscussion, deep
bass vibrations, high-tech sounds plus some cheap-sounding sounds made by two artists, the occasional synth version of a real instrument, and quick
transistions to different "Sound Worlds" within one song, all in a slighty-quiet digital format, then this one is for you.
Its Werid in a Beautiful Way...
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