Derango – Tumult

I've had it 15 years and it still absolutely wallops....so much deranged power! All killer, no filler. Derango's only album is the most perfect banging 4-on-the-floor album ever made. Psykovsky, Juno Reactor & Prodigy's Jilted Generation offer more musically, but if all you want is to pound, then there's nowt better than Tumult, which adds psychedelic musique concrete licks (i.e. the disharmonic, seemingly-random-but-not-really, sounds of the forest)...this all helps you focus on your animal regression.

Best track: Deranged. Astonishing piece: should be required knowledge for any serious followers of electronic dance musik.

My favorite psytrance CD ever, maybe? at least on the darkpsy-forest spectrum, for sure... no questions there. nothing comes close.
and it's definitely "forest" trance - this is the sound of goblins, gnomes, pixies, and other mythical imaginal creatures that live deep in the woods; not to mention a lot of sounds that remind me of actual wildlife filtered through a lot of psychedelia. (for further reference, take a listen for the wood-cracking and bird-squawking on track six.)

This took me a long time to understand - several years, at least; but I'm happy it clicked. My life is greatly enriched by this album.

"so, what planet are you from?"

Not so bad compared to the crap that was being released at the time but nothing special, some people call this forest psy, maybe they need to go to a forest and camp for some days cause this sounds to me more like warehouse music.

In the words of Armand van Helden bluntly remarking about Basement Jaxx that "they took house music and fucked it in the ass" so one may say about Derango: They took X-Dream's Irritant at its darkest hour and fucked it in the ass! Sweet love of Jesus, this is some twisted psytrance from the Swedish forests and I will it it took me a while to get under my, well, bones. But rehearing X-Dream's Irritant gave me an idea how to approach this album.

This is dark, as in PITCH DARK, psy. No melodies, no calming breaks, no themes. Just a monotone bass most of the time staying on one note (!) with a shitload of FX and weird sounds. What saves it is the impeccable production, the energy, and the incredible amount of ideas Derango's managed to cramp into the tracks. The genre may be challenging, but if you give it a chance you won't be able to claim nothing's happening! This is one long string of musical ideas on top of an endless deep bass journey.

So, if you want it DARK this is as dark as it got in 2005. If you are not familiar with this type of trance, you are headed for a big challenge. Hell, you may very well even consider trashing this album as the worst piece of crap you've ever purchased. Don't do that! It takes time to let in, but if you work hard enough the rewards will be there. After all, this album didn't receive tons of rave reviews elsewhere on the internet for nothing. And even if I myself may not have reached Nirvana quite yet with Derango, the general idea of forest trance sure is starting to get to my bones :o).

Derango (Jens Eriksson & Ola Eriksson) from Sweden has become wellknown in the so called darkpsy scene the last couple of years, with quite a lot of tracks on various compilations, on labels such as Stoneage, Trishula, Sanaton and Parvati. Now they are finally out with their debut album, which takes us into a journey of totally twisted night time madness. It is released on the Italian label Inpsyde Media.

These guys sure knows how to tweak out those crazy psychedelic sounds. The bass lines in these darkpsy tracks isn’t very impressive, but the variety of crazy sounds is incredible. In my ears, these two guys have managed to make their darkpsy tracks slightly more twisted and interesting than most other within this style lately. Here we get dark, totally far out vibes from beginning to end. My favourite track here is track three, wich is a really pumping track with some scary vibes that brings my thoughts right into some kind of horror movie. Halloween trance for sure! Track 4 with it’s ”underwater vibes” is pretty cool too, but the rhythm here becomes almost too intense for my head. As usual with the darkpsy style, we don’t get much melody in these tracks, but mostly quite random psychedelic sounds. Still, the sounds are well placed and highly psychedelic (psychedelic is fun!), so it never becomes boring.

The debut album by Derango is one of the better darkpsy albums I have heard so far. I love the way they have been playing with tons of twisted sounds in these tracks, and we get quite a lot of variation between the tracks. Still, I often miss some more massive basslines and a little bit more melody in darkpsy tracks, but I’m sure this is something that will sneak in more and more in the future. Recommended for you darkpsy fans out there!

This must the best psytrance album I've ever heard! We start of kinda slow, but soon evolve into total madness. At the halfway through the journey we take a little break and soon again we are in a totally chaotic mood. The end of the album is just fucking insane. Everything is constantly evolving, hovering above the trees, kicking us in the head..hard!
This album is brilliantly complex, every little sound is evolving, changing into something else, this is manipulated music at it's best. I just love it.

There is no doubt - buy it today! Derango's debut album really corresponded to the expectations and if not even more! It was a long time now since an album dropped into my mailbox and felt so fresh throughout the whole piece! No track does sound like another but everything definitely sounds Derangoish. The CD itself is not superheavy like some russian trance or like it, but instead it is a lot more heavy when it comes to the amount of psychedelic elements who's constantly taking care of all parts of the body and mind. I take the risk here and I might sound excentric, but I have to say that Jens and Ola have really succceded with this one and the album is definitely a hot candidate when it is time to think of the best nightmusic album of 2005.

Surgeon warning: This will fry your brain!

After several delays and some hardcore internet hype, the long-awaited debut album by Swedish forest-trolls Derango (Jens Eriksson & Ola Eriksson) is finally out! Released by the infamous, nocturnal Italian label Inpsyde Media, this album has already caused quite a stir within psytrance circles… And I can totally understand why… Throughout the last year of so, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing five compilations which featured Derango tracks – and every single track was a stand-out! These Swedish nut-jobs know their shit… I’ve been really looking forward to this album, so let’s get this introduction over with, and move onto the more fun stuff: The music!

Let me take you thru the tracks…



#01: Deranged
Of course we start of with something deranged… This is Derango after all! From the first second the forest feel is very much present here… Birds singing, trolls tripping, acid flowing – more psychedelic FX are added and the track cruises at a comfortable speed… Not too fast, not too slow… Yeah, this is subtle psychedelia… But oh, this is so fucking deep and multi-layered… About half-way thru the track speeds up and goes even deeper underground – drenched in acid! Towards the end it breaks up again and becomes insanely fragmented – good luck trying to mix this on DJs! Haha – awesome style! Kick-ass opening track!



#02: Confusion Is Next
“So, what planet are you from?” Next up – confusion! That’s right – this is a very aptly named track! This is some confusing shit! Some sick, perverted, deranged, insane, alienated shit – and that’s all meant as superlatives mind you! This track pretty much sums up the Derango sound in its entire extrovert, psychedelic glory! Full-power, fast-paced multilayered, eclectic mushroom trance… Like Hux Flux on DMT! Best trip-tool so far… Smashing track!



#03: Made Out Of Vapour
Picture this: Intergalactic space-trolls have taken over the deep, dark Swedish forest now… Psychedelic hornets are all over the place with laser beams attached to their little heads… R2D2 is in there dancing and twirling like a fucking mad droid on dwarf mush… And it’s all happening in slow motion – and warp speed! At the same time! Suddenly there is a tsunami of liquid acid flooding the place – people are electric and shapes and colours are changing before your very eyes… Can you dig it? I can – this is a fucking HUGE track… Immensely deranged!



#04: Masterdamnit
Breakz, bleeps, cuckoo watches, digital water, analogue synths, old school drum programming, fucking crows on P, twirling melodies, geo-metric patterns, cut beats, off-key kicks, acid mayhem, electronic farts, robot burps, space drums, troll chanting, power electronics, quantum leaps in time, matter & energy… And that’s describing the first minute only! This is psychedelia madames et monsieurs! Brace yourself!



#05: All Channels Open
Sadly we’re already half way through now – but hey, at least all the channels are open! And thank Hofmann for that! Though drenched in subtle acid, the style here is maybe a little too held back… Supposedly! This is all part of the Derango master plan to take over the world! In all fairness though, I must say that this track is not as good as the previous four… It’s still good though – trippy as fuck, and miles about your standard, alleged psychedelic music… And the last rundown is just fucking impressive! A trippy, though introvert track… Not bad at all, but not among the best here…



#06: The Poisonous Square
“You have to wake up, there's-- What is it? What's wrong? There's something here. Do you see anything? You're probably just dreaming or some…Whoa! There is-- there is something! What the hell is that? What do you see? It's a square. It's just floating. Now there's two - it's multiplying! Maybe that's what a four-dimensional object looks like?…I hate it. It sounds wrong… It's stunning! The math of it - it's a perfect quadrangular oscillation!” I’m fortunate enough to have sampled those alleged poisonous squares – and what a fucking rush that is! Just like this track… The intro is very atmospheric and spooky as hell – seriously this is what it’s all about! Gone are the grim, introvert speculations from the previous track, and we’re left with full-power, in-ya-face psychedelia – Derango style! This track just grabs you by the balls and drags you in… Like those small paper squares! Resistance is futile… This head rush is indefeasible! Don’t fight it… just lean back and enjoy the ride! Perfect track!



#07: Lost Theory
And we’re back to reality… For a brief moment only though! This is perhaps the darkest track here, complete with razor sharp stabbing sounds, high-pitched static and even church bells! Holy fuck, just check out that sick, demented melody… Deranged yes, derailed no! This is seriously complex, multilayered and highly fragmented – forest trance 101! Gnomes, elfs, trolls, pixies – they are all over the place! Just another Saturday night in Malmø, Sweden… Kicking track!



#08: Fnatt
I dunno about Swedish, but in Danish ‘fnat’ means scabies… And yeah, I could see that… This is a rabid bitch of a track! We’re still tripping extremely hard on shrooms here, and this track has nothing on the latest Parvati Records compilation Psy Stories… A very similar style indeed! Fast-paced, experimental, wall-to-wall psychedelic hyper trance… Oh yeah, this is mesmerizing, hypnotic stuff… The light, naïve melody half-way through strikes a notable contrast to the grim, acid-ridden, underground sounds… The Derango guys are once again show-casing their immense skills and outer worldly capability of creating alien music… Sweet track!



#09: We Are All Mad Here (Rmx)
“It was as though I had been here before. I mean, we all have moments of déjà vu but this was ridiculous!” All good things must come to an end – including Derango’s debut album… AFAIK this is a remix to an older tune. Sadly I haven’t heard it, so I can’t really tell you what was changed for this remix… Anyway, this is classic Derango right there – instantly trippy and pretty damn scary! The eerie Jack Nicholson sample from The Shining isn’t exactly making it less scary – oh yes, this is eerie, haunting, spooky stuff… Still very trippy, but with the added spook spice… Boo fucking hoo! I like the tribal drum action going on half-way through… Who would have thought? Another fine track that sadly ends this album…



The ground disappeared from beneath
And all that was solid is air
I tumbled end over end into my nature
And darkness appeared from below
Carrying voices of query, voices of theory
Dark voices, near me
All around and reason is drowned
By the sound of clamour
The pound of the hammer
Is confusion, illusion?
Plunged into shadows and mist
I catch my breath, frightened
But I will not face death still unenlightened!


Welcome to the wonderful world of advanced forest music! Yeah, that Penny Shaw poem seemed just about right when trying to describe the feeling you get from listening to this magnificent album… This kicks the shit out of most I’ve heard this year and is definitely a strong contender for forest trance album of the year… Derango has their very own style, and they stay true to that throughout this album – but still leave room for experimentation… Yeah, this album never gets dull and unlike other off-key albums, I can actually listen to this again and again in one sitting... Or standing… Or trip!

There isn’t a single bad track here – they all stand out in one way or the other… I like pretty much every single minute here, and I’m so relieved that this is something as rare as an album that actually lives up to the hype… The expectations were sky high, but they were met! This is such a mature album – maybe not easily accessible, but eventually rewarding… It’s nothing short of a blast! The cover art by Emil Wennborn is in perfect harmony with the actual music, and all in all this is worth every single penny…

I give this album my warmest recommendations… Fans of highly psychedelic, eclectic forest trance needs to own this album… That’s an order! Get it before it’s deemed illegal! …Enjoy!

Favourites: 1, 2(!), 3(!), 4(!), 6(!!), 7, 8, 9