Pink Nightmares

It's been a while.

Not just for concert updates since they haven't visited Georgia in a little under a year, nor are they planning to during the rest of 2011, but music updates in general have been few and far between.

I'm not going to lie, I was VERY excited for the Pink Nightmares single. It's a solid trance hit capable of competing against Saeed without the crazy guitars. I love guitars, too, I really do, and Legend was a fantastic album, but it's nice to hear they can achieve the same heavy sound with electronic components exclusively. Still, I was disappointed to hear how empty the version above sounds. It suffices as a live track, shortened for the music video, but it lacks the fullness of the extended version. There's no 2-minute buildup, it lacks the heart of a true psychedelic track. After listening to the recorded version from Tel-Aviv over and over the above track felt squeaky clean, but very shallow. Empty, almost. Still, the extended album version will be released next month so that's something to look forward to. :)

Upcoming tracks?

At least unreleased songs.

Tentative list:

- The Rat
- I shine
- Serve My Thirst
- Nation of Wusses
- Pink Nightmares/Everyday Nightmares/Heavy Pink Nightmares
- The Pretender rmx

- One Day rmx
- Cities of the Future rmx
- I wish rmx
- Your Own Personal Jesus (rmx or just a live segue?)

They mentioned a tentative album release date of "this summer" and will be releasing a bunch of singles between now and then. I'm guessing (hoping) One Day will be among them.

[December 29, 2010] Bayside Yokohama @ Yokohama, Japan

We're in a transition period where half the tracks on the upcoming album are unfamiliar and it's harder to get into lives because of that.
The show felt cold - I couldn't connect well with the crowd nor IM themselves, and it didn't help being jostled and elbowed and shoved every 2-3 seconds. I started close to the middle of the floor way on the right at the beginning and ended up being pushed to the middle of the second row about halfway through the set. I remained there briefly (for less than a full song, if I recall) but it wasn't enjoyable so I moved to the far back of the venue hoping the... compression? would ease up there. It was still pretty brutal in that area, too. Finally I ended up in the VIP area above the stage somehow and watched the rest of the show from there.

Met a lot of nice people who flew in from all over the world specifically to see IM play. While I didn't come to Japan for them (though they were a highlight) in the end I don't feel like it was quite worth the 7,000 yen price tag. Shows back at home always feel the best.

The Foo Fighters remix sounds great, and Deck and Sheker was fun hearing live as well.

Also, HOLY CRAP EREZ NETZ!!! Absolutely DID NOT expect to see him there. Great guy, very expressive and fun to watch. The last guitar bit at the end of Suliman really completes the song, I'd love to hear a recorded version of it with the guitar sometime in the future. It was an honor seeing him there.

[October 15, 2010] New Earth Music Hall @ Athens, GA

Copied and pasted from the forum post~

Some of my thoughts on the concert.

First, the setlist:

Short intro
End of the Road (the kick damn near knocked the wind out of me. It took me a minute to recover and breathe normally again - I could literally feel the puffs of air emanating from the subs, wherever they were.)
Becoming Insane
Everyday Nightmares (yeah I'm hearing "heavy pink nightmares" in the lyrics, too XD)
Saeed
Muse Breaks (love)
Suliman (Heavier version)
Vicious Delicious (but only from the buildup onwards to...)
Coolio - Infected Remix (Thanks guys, I love this track)
Smashing the Opponent
I Wish
Deck and Sheker
Cities of the Future (New version)
Special Place (blah. But the live version makes me dislike it less)

Rogerio's solo thing

Encore - Heavyweight (this made about 97% of the people there ridiculously happy)

Ever have those moments during a show where you can't think of the title of the song playing? You know what it is, you've listened to it a hundred times, but the name completely escapes you until midway through? (Or closer to the end sometimes.) That happened with me during Coolio and Vicious Delicious.

I'm wondering if I picked a really bad place to stand because whatever was happening above all the thumping was garbled and messy. Was anyone else there? I'm looking for a bit of corroboration to make sure it wasn't just me. But the balance/acoustics sounded terrible compared to the other times I've seen them -- I could barely hear Erez and Tommy and whatever I did manage to catch was muffled. My next goal is to catch a DJ set, if only to compare the how everything sounds there versus the live sets.

One song I was thankful to hear was Deck and Sheker. It's a lot of fun live. The mp3 lacks bounce, is not as intricate (or intricate in a different way) and has less of a punch than their other songs but I was impressed with how it turned out last night. Deck and Sheker, Suliman and Coolio were the highlights of the show, imo.

Hoping to catch them at the Tabernacle or the Masquerade the next time they're in town.

History Research

On Goa trance.

This caught my attention (since everything else described under "Sonic Journey" I've already deduced myself): "In passing, we can mention that a link is often made between the alpha waves frequencies of the human brain, associated with the state of trance, between 8 and 12 Hz, and a constant stream of 16th notes which, when played at the suggested average of 145 bpm, yields a flow of musical events at an average of 10 Hz. Coincidence?"

Speaking from personal experience trance does have more of an effect on me (my thoughts, concentration, etc.) than other types of music, but it's probably solely due to the hypnotic bass. This would be an interesting study to follow up on, though.

"At the end of the day, the scene is splitting in two : on one hand, producers of music intended to parties, roughly equated with the Full-on and Progressive subgenres ; on the other hand, insatiable searchers of new psychedelic territories, not necessarily on a 4/4-beat basis, like Psy Ambient (e.g. the Shpongle project by Simon Posford and Raja Ram)."

I'm assuming the Full-On Progressive stuff is IM? They're the only other successful, somewhat-renowned psy group out there.

More history:
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/psychedelic_trance/psy_history_part3.htm

IM the Supervisor

I never read this before but I happened across it on their wiki page:

In a 2004 interview, the band explained that the lyrics to "IM the Supervisor" are based on the band's attempts to call the reception desk in a German hotel for a taxi and Amit arguing with the receptionist in English. There was some sort of language barrier and she apparently could not understand his question "can I get a taxi number?" At a certain point a frustrated Amit asked for the supervisor. The response was, of course, "I'M the supervisor!!"

The lyrics literally go "I'm the supervisor... can I get a taxi number?" in the first part of the song.

Speaking of, IM The Supervisor is the first album I would recommend to someone who's just starting out listening to Infected Mushroom. The tracklist provides a perfect fusion of what they did when they first started (Classical Mushroom, The Gathering... boring (to me) "purer" psytrance) and the wonky zany stuff on Vicious Delicious.



IM The Supervisor and Legend of the Black Shawarma tie as my two favorite albums, but there are of course gems in every other album that should be noted and mentioned, too, when making recommendations. (Bust a Move, Dancing with Kadafi, bombat, most of the stuff on B.P.Empire, and the like. Hit me up if you're genuinely curious and want a list of songs to start off listening to.)

Deck & Sheker

No idea what the title is about but they're offering the track for free on the 29'th:

http://www.infected-mushroom.com/

As people (notably yaniv on the forum) have noted before, there's a part in it that sounds like Inspector Gadget mixed with "Sweet Dreams". Oh, IM.

Edit: After finally listening to it I'm wondering what moods they were in when they made it. It's got some good segments, production value is through the roof (as usual), but it's incredibly random. I've given it about five listens already and I can finally see how the obnoxious melody-thing from 5:43 onward is present in the earlier parts of the song, but everything else sort of develops how it sees fit with no regard to what's going on in the big picture.

It's different from what they usually do (again no surprises here) and not one of their best dance floor tracks but it's a fun listen, and there's some great sounds too, especially the part from 4:46 to about 5:43. I keep rewinding the song back to that specific portion. Am I part robot or something? XD I do sometimes feel like I've got electricity running through my veins instead of blood. =P

Here we go:



Pay attention to 4:46 omg