Sattel Battle hits the floors with his second album. For those that don’t know, Sattel Battle is Elad Weinberg (aka Tsabeat), hailing from Israel. Tsabeat should be well known by most people, he has some compilation releases out there and two free downloadable albums. Sattel Battle is his more experimental outing, although you wouldn’t immediately say that after the first few tracks of this album. This is Elad’s second album as Sattel Battle, the first one was called Sounds Cool and was released in January 2007 on Gi’iwa productions. Most of the tracks here range at 144-150bpm, so you know what tempo to expect. What struck me is that this album is quite diverse. I haven’t had the pleasure of listening to Sattel Battle’s first album, so I can’t really comment on his style, but it’s quite diverse. Example: Track 1 isn’t too busy, to get you into the mood. Track 2 reminded me of old Infected Mushroom style. Track 3 has a distinct Deedrah feel to it with that massive rolling bassline. And then from track 4 the atmosphere goes towards weirdness. Overall, this album sets the tone for some old school like psytrance with new school bass lines, and there are acid lines flying all over the place. Together with some weird sampling on a lot of the tracks (funk guitars and porno samples, krusty etc. etc.) and a general party atmosphere, and this is starting to sound like a pretty solid effort. One thing that you shouldn’t do however, is take this music too seriously ;) Everything from the track titles to the great artwork scream: this is supposed to be fun people!
Lo and behold: it is! And damn, that mastering from Tim Schuldt hits the spot once again. Crisp and clear, hammering those bass drums and bass lines home in the speakers like there’s no tomorrow. What I particularly liked is the natural atmosphere that flows through the album. There is no track that sounds forced, or crammed in to reach those 74 minutes. It’s all great stuff. From the start, through the Deedrah esque Roundy (T3), and the weirder Aldus vs. Krusty and Sonic Sodomy (T6,7) all the way through to the happy and bouncy Reality Bites (T9) and the funky remix of Oxya (T10) to the end track, which is a live one. |