Save The Robot

Battle Of The Mind

TipWorld (UK)



I must admit to being bloody confused about this one. I’ve been playing it pretty much continuously the last few days – which is rare in itself, but not without purpose. You see, while this is more or less your standard fullon fodder (albeit impeccably done), there seems to me to be this very dynamic energy to the music. Which essentially, I’ve been telling myself, is what dance music is about: within its confines, you slap in all the energy you can in order to motivate the crowd as much as possible. Yes there are a lot of chord changes, yes there’s a lot of high end, and yes there’s a lot of formula going on here. But within these confines… holy crap, does it work. When Battle Of The Mind is at its best (Off The Assembley Line, X1 Filter) it has the same raw excitement as The Infinity Project’s Feeling Weird. And in general, it’s music that conspires to create possibly the tightest fullon dance experience around at the moment. It’s also fun: listening to this is not unlike listening to Rock Bitch Mafia and its ‘avin it, good-times-roll attitude. The acid frenzy drop on Off The Assembly Line is among the best bits of Goa I’ve ever heard, and the midrange run that holds Save The Future together leaves your brain with an indelible imprint of one word: “tasty”. Battle Of The Mind and iRobot offer perhaps the chunkiest smile-on-the-face, sun-streaming-down, dancing-with-a-blonde arsewigglin’ of the year. But it’s not all a bed of psychedelic roses. The ten tracks here all follow a formula. Which is fine, it’s to be understood. What it means is that the tunes themselves are often a little difficult to tell from one another; Electro Chemical, for example, is ballsy all the way through but stuck in with nine identical twins, once it’s over you can’t really remember what you liked about it (and, contrary to popular belief, I don’t normally review on drugs). The twists and tricks start to sound somewhat familiar by track four or five, and you start recognising the presets. Also there’s a lot of reliance on 2005’s fullon enemies: chord changes and high-end stabs. I respect that dance music styles all feed into and off each other all the time (it’s how they develop), and all we’re seeing is the indoor/club trance fusing with the psychedelic but… you know what I mean. At the end of the day though, it all makes for staggeringly effective music. And despite the shortcomings and formulaic music, this album has probably been played more around my house than any other of the same style this year. Whatever, it’s without doubt one of the more significant releases of the year, for which all credit goes to Tip – and to the producers (finding out that boresmiths Quadra and Alien Project are behind this act did little to spoil my enjoyment of it.) I guess what sums this up is that within the fullon subgenre, this is the current high watermark. Tight, bright and bang up to date. Whether you’ll still be digging it in six months is another matter entirely, but the energy and excitement of this alone should strike a chord with any lover of dancefloor-moving electronic music.



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