REVIEWS

Buy this album from iTunes

Techno Squirrels
Om Mani

Rave Police Records

Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Assistant Editor

Taking a page from the playbooks of such progressive trance artists as Banco de Gaia and Electric Skychurch, the newest EP from Los Angeles duo Techno Squirrels provides some pleasant house-infused beats laced with vaguely mystical synth arpeggios and lilting female vocals. A well-known yoga mantra provides the melodic basis for title track "Om Mani," and though it gets a bit repetitive by the four-minute mark, it's a solidly cheerful rave track, positive without being overly perky, and mystical without being too cliché about things. The remixes are solid, as well; René Patrick offers up an old-school acid house interpretation, with the synth leads drenched in drippy psychedelic effects, and while Emotiquon's "Mount Oliphant Remix" is a bit busy at first, it eventually softens into a nicely mellow bridge, which is ultimately followed by a soaring trance build. An interpretation from Swedish producer Robert Jax is more consistent, both rhythmically and thematically, borrowing a touch of Lisa Eriksson's vocals from the original and integrating it with Jax's own psychedelic trance inclinations. Perhaps the best track on this CD, however, is B-side "My Shrimplike Beat." Despite the song's title, the drum programming is hardly a shrimp, pulsing hypnotically beneath spaced out synthesizers and subtle, almost subliminal vocal melodies. Though it's a bit more minimal than most of Techno Squirrels' work, it's brilliant in its own right, confident enough in its own mind-expanding and booty-shaking qualities to eschew the usual trance music clichés. While any of the tracks on Om Mani would fit in well at an underground warehouse or desert party, "My Shrimplike Beat" is what makes this EP worth listening to at home.