Hive Records is specialising in dark electronic music. Of course this still describes a broad range of music, from dark ambient to power electronics to idm. But Hive does indeed cover this whole range, from trippy to harsh.
Even though the title and cover of this compilation will have you believe otherwise, this compilation-cd does cover the same range of music. Where it starts out with some good (though not really surprising) power-electronics from Pneumatic Detach and Converter (remixed by Manufacture) it does next dive into more trippy music by Larvae and keeps on changing the musical style from track to track. This actually is done in such a way that the listener never gets fed up with a specific genre of music while listening to this cd. Saying this I have to add that Hive also managed to make it feel like an album instead of a compilation, though the musical differences are severe, the quality is at a constant high level and I find I don’t have any problems listening to this album several times in a row.
This cd realy does what HIVE has set out to do, promote dark electronics. All tracks on the cd are well worth listening to (though I find I have some problems with the almost hiphop-track “Everybody Dance” by Concrete Cookie). Special attention should go out to the trippy “Ice Cold” by Lapsed and “Havoc 2027 (Flint Glass Remix)” by HIV+.
