Neelix – When I’m Grown Up
Pin ItNeelix. A famous name for some, others may just ask "Who?" I belonged to the former category, until recently. Not many people really care about finding new talents for the trance scene today, it’s maybe because people are afraid to discover new things, or they’re just satisfied with the artists they know. I (on the other hand) get tired of listening to the same things all over again and yes, I know that 2011 is a massive year for trance albums and there is really a lot of tracks to listen to, but, are they really worth getting?
I’ve heard so many albums this year, that I can’t even count. There were all kinds of them. Techy, vocal (mostly), progressive, mainstream-ish. Big names came out with albums this year, names like Armin van Buuren, W&W, Richard Durand, etc. And they weren’t exactly tragical nor perfect, but there was something missing in these albums, I just couldn’t catch that right feel with them.
A couple of weeks back, a friend of mine posted a track on his Facebook wall. A track made by an unknown artist for me, called Neelix. I don’t know what made me listen to it, maybe it was the name of the track. "Senses (Re-Edit)", something that can really please all the senses I thought. The track came to an end and a couple of ten minutes later, I caught myself pressing the repeat button on this track for about 6 times. There was something so catchy and rare about it. I started to ask questions about this German artist, but nobody seemed to know anything about him either. When I found his Facebook fan page, it already had 40,000 fans! I felt a bit ashamed by the fact that I didn’t know about Neelix before, that he somehow "slipped between my fingers".
I came to know, that not so long ago (in 2010) he came up with an album, his seventh album! (to be exact). It didn’t take long and there I was, listening to "When I’m Grown Up". Info about the album was, that it’s supposed to be progressive trance with a drop of psychedelic trance to it, but I’ve never heard such a type of progressive trance before. Somehow, Neelix came up with a way of keeping the perfect, typical, German underground sound in his tracks and that is quite suprissing in these times, when trance is becoming so mainstream.
My headphones kept pumping these sounds to my nodding head and I was seriously imagining myself in a strictly underground small club, dancing in the dark of the night, completely lost in those deep sounds, a very shivering feeling! One track especially gave me this feeling more than the others. "Leave Me Alone", a saying "there is beauty in simplicity", surely goes well hand to hand with this track. The magic of this track is hidden only in a few patterns, a simple short melody in the beginning, heavy beat and deep, short chops, that’s all that was needed to make such a stunning track, simple and so beautiful at the same time.
The whole album is done in a similar spirit. Really bassy beats, deep heavy bass lines and in some tracks, a nice additional melody, it can get a bit repetive sometimes, but every track holds it’s own beauty. For those of you, who like underground, techy-progressive music, this is a must-buy!
It’s very nice to see, that even in mainstream times like these, some artists hold on to their style, making trance music so beautiful and rare, like it has been before.
8/10
For more info related to Neelix check out the following links:
www.neelixmusic.de
www.facebook.com/neelixmusic
www.myspace.com/neelixmusic
