by Bill Mahoney
A voice emerges from the bass and rhythm to tell you, there is a “deep, powerful presence of life” in what you are listening to. To prove that statement, a deep grumbler of a bass line unleashes its molten energy, followed by a new, addicitive, repetitive rhythm. If it is unclear at this point what you are listening to, if you cannot quite pigeonhole it into one genre, do not worry, you are not alone. The bass feels like psy-trance; the disjointed vocal samples are playfully psychedelic; the mood whisks you off to adventurous parts of the mind; but that driving rhythm, what is that? You have heard that before, it is familiar, just not in these surroundings. It is only one element of the track so it should not make a difference. But it does. That one element transforms the track into something new and fresh. There is a “deep, powerful presence of life” here that we are not quite familiar with yet.
“Clear Vision 07” by Perfect Stranger is something of a misnomer - it is a track that helped muddle the definition of what is and is not psytrance. As an artist turned mad scientist, Perfect Stranger took the established elements of progressive psy-trance and embedded the friskiness of techno straight into its DNA.
When talking about the resulting phenomenon, the guiding term is “psychedelic techno” and Perfect Stranger is the artist most of us talk about when referring to the sound. “Clear Vision 07” is the introductory track for Free Cloud, the album that launched this highly passionate movement into something today’s psy artists cannot help but dabble in. In turn, in the three years since its release, legions of psy fans have embraced the album and kept its influences relevant, and prevalent.
“I was influenced by techno ‘by mistake’ while tripping my ass off to (an) after-hours DJ set somewhere around 2005 in (an) Israeli desert. I don't really consider myself being a techno artist. I do a blend of progressive trance that is a bit more ‘out of the box’ so it naturally sounds techier or housier than other progressive trance compositions. I would like to be known as one that gives the full musical rollercoaster experience, not bounded by genres, and keeping it psy.” - Perfect Stranger
That is not to say that Perfect Stranger does not have the capability of being a “techno artist,” as is evidenced on each track of Free Cloud. More specifically, on the 2011 mix, When You Need To Shoot, Shoot - Don’tTalk - Part I, The Talker (widely distributed via SoundCloud.com), Perfect Stranger swaggers as DJ for more than an hour with unadulterated, distinctly non-psychedelic techno tracks.
Alternatively, one only has to look back to 2006’s Learning = Change and 2007’s Changed if they are to get true progressive psy-trance sounds from the Perfect Stranger discography. Interestingly, neither contains the signature psychedelic techno sound of Free Cloud, which is quickly becoming regarded as his masterpiece.
Full of crisp production values that give his forward-thinking visions a necessary lushness, 2008’s Free Cloud is a sterling artist album. Even if it is constricting to peg him a “techno artist” it would be silly to dismiss that sort of description when talking about him. The nine tracks on the album bristle with delicious techno drive but each of the tracks, none shorter than 8-minutes in length, come with an epic scope that justifies the “psychedelic” label.
Perhaps the high-mark of Free Cloud is “Easy”, a 9-minute masterpiece that showcases every asset of Perfect Stranger’s artistic skillset. Beatport.com simply labels the track “techno” but that is too narrow of a description. It is bouncy and frisky enough to see where they are coming from, but there is a huge canvas Perfect Stranger is painting on here - it sounds simulataneoulsy dark and sunny, annoyed and celebratory, physical and cerebral.
The progressive sounds of Learning = Change and Changed held no evidence of what was to come a mere year later on Free Cloud. Neither does David Bowie’s tenderly orchestrated ““Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud,” the song that influenced the album’s title, indicate what is to come on Free Cloud.
“During my teens I was listening to progressive rock, or art rock as we would call it. While working on Free Cloud I was totally recreating my passionate relationship with Genesis … (and) David Bowie, hence the album title. I can’t find any musical evidence of these influences in Free Cloud, however, their music inspired me during that period of time.” - Perfect Stranger
Perhaps what the album and Bowie’s soft crooning about a young man’s last night before his execution have in common is a vast trove of imagination and, as the opening track of Free Cloud says, a “deep, powerful presence of life.”
Where tender orchestrations and melancholy emotions seem most prevalent in a Perfect Stranger production is in the track he names as his favorite, a track he describes as his “least appreciated.”
“If you put me with my back against the wall, the best PS track was a remix to Eitan Reiter’s ‘Ups and Downs’. It was probably the least appreciated track of mine but I never witnessed so many people crying to a techno song. That must say something about it - either it’s very bad or it’s very good! For me, it’s probably one of the most artistic and extraordinary songs I ever made.” - Perfect Stranger
As with much in the Perfect Stranger discography, you never know what you are going to get at first listen and “Ups and Downs” epitomizes this characteristic. It is tender, almost too tender but contains enough solid techno to remain engaging. Given the right circumstances it’s easy to see why the emotions of the track can be overwhelming. Over repeat listenings, the charm of the track definitely grows stronger.
Since the Free Cloud phenomenon, Perfect Stranger has focused on several remix projects. The best of these being the incendiary “Small Vagator Mix” of Tristan’s “Bombscare” (a remarkable extension of all he learned and applied from Free Cloud) and the beautiful, ultra-tech-house remix of Maelstrom’s “As It Should Be,” (which sounds like nothing else in the Perfect Stranger discography).
Blurring the lines between thoughtful progressive, energetic techno, bouncy tech-house, gripping psychedelic techno or tender remix work that makes the most of its ‘ups and downs’, the only thing that can be counted on is that Perfect Stranger’s work will contain a great and unpredictable “presence of life” in nearly all aspects worth discussing.
“I am happy to announcethat right now I am in the middle of a very exciting album project and can’t wait to get to the end of it to see and hear what came out.” - Perfect Stranger
Many of us feel exactly the same way.
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