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Michael Mayer

Immer 2

(Kompakt; US: 21 Nov 2006; UK: 6 Nov 2006)

Trance, I think, might be dead. But long live trance! Ever since Tangerine Dream first synthesized our primal need for a journey into the steady pulsations of sound, electronic music has taken its listeners on some deeply meditative trips and also left them whirling on the dance floor. With Immer 2, Kompakt label head honcho and talented DJ Michael Mayer expertly assembles a dozen trancey tracks into an evocative movement for the mind. He transports us with cuts by hip electronica artists like Brooks, Crowdpleaser & St. Plomb, and SCSI-9, melding their various approaches into a tethered mantra. The mood and tempo here are medium, with enough oomph to the beat to deter somnolence, but without an insistence that you turn your living room into a dance club. While few moments will utterly wow you, the mix is superb and the music just engaging enough to blip and glide out of the background and into your forebrain. Few genres are as fad-driven as electronica, but don’t give up on trance just yet. Michael Mayer’s mix on Immer 2 will take you where you want to go.

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Michael Keefe is a freelance music journalist, an independent bookstore publicist, and a singer/guitarist/songwriter in a band. Raised on a record collection of The Beatles, Coltrane, Mozart, and Ravi Shankar, Michael has been a slave to music his whole life. At age 16, he got a drum set and a job at a record store, and he's been playing and peddling music ever since. Today, he lives in Oregon with his wife (also a writer, but not about music), two cats, and a whole lot of instruments and CDs.


Tagged as: michael mayer
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Michael Mayer @ We Love Kompakt
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