N.O.M - The Nature of the Mind

N.O.M, which stand for Nature of Mind, has been releasing tracks for a while now on various compilations. This is his debut album. N.O.M makes dark psy, and mainly gives his music a very individual character because of the slower BPM and machine like nature of how the tracks progress. Sometimes some of the tracks remind me a little of how Sensient builds up most of his music. It’s starts off slowly but then he’s putting in more and more while the tracks progress. When the album reaches Psycho Surgeon (T7, N.O.M vs. Narcosis- is there a hidden meaning here?), however, the bpm goes up a notch, reaching a peak with Snowdrift (T8). The feeling this album brings forth is like riding a rollercoaster. You’ll start off slow, with the first two tracks, and then it gets more melodic in Ancient Olympia (T3, which sounds massive with those melodic influences and that pounding beat), getting darker again from (T4-6) and then suddenly you shift speeds and ride fast and hard, through turns (T7), then a looping (T8) and then it breaks up, gets soft and the last track, Secret Nature, slows you down, easing you to the end. Nice ride! The mastering is done by Tim Schuldt, and it’s a masterful job once more, sounding crisp and clear with lots of highs and lows. A mention for the artwork too, which is very well done. Nice and bright, not what you’d expect for a dark psytrance album at all. I don’t have any particularly favorite tracks here, this album is best listened to as a whole. It is actually meant as a whole too, although there is no real transition between the tracks, it is still based on a concept. That concept is to discover the nature of the mind. This is outlined in the booklet which gives us a couple of reasons why the nature of the mind is so hard to grasp. I’m not going to state them here, but suffice to say that the mind is a difficult thing to understand. I agree completely. The album, for me at least, fell in the same category, because I needed to get used to it at first. When I got into it however, it was great from start to finish.

Recomendation:  Well, if you like dark psytrance and some variety in an album, you’d do wise to give this album a go. It sounds massive in most of the tracks and the slower bpm makes it sound a little different than most dark psytrance albums. It might take you some time to sink into, but be patient. It’s definitely worth the effort.