Search - Dave Ralph :: Love Parade [ECD]

Nice mix of surefire hits

10/18/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"overall, dave ralph's "love parade" is a nice mix of some of today's best trance songs. he's got some surefire hits on this record, such as the sasha+digweed approved "muzak" by trisco, and a remix of moby's hit "porcelain." he also includes "airtight" by max graham and "music" by jamez presents tatoine, both staples in oakenfold's record box. there are a few tracks that serve as filler, but it's worth it to sit through them to get to the gems. dave's mixing is good, but not as smooth as his live sets, or on his "tranceport 2." i wouldn't recommend this album if you're looking for something adventurous from dave ralph. pick up "tranceport 2" if you don't have it already, though. it's truer to his live sets. (to clarify, this album was not recorded live at the love parade, just the enhanced portion of the cd)"

Not the best, but worth buying still

tranceluver | Tampa, Fl United States | 03/09/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ok, so the mixes on this CD are not as tight as they could be, and I must agree the video footage should have been left out in favor of a few more tracks. But still, imagine this CD as a 5 hour set compressed into 12 tracks. For that it's pretty damn good. No Greater Love, Airtight, and Shoreline provide a couple nice climaxes, and contrary to other reviewers I like Moby's "Porcelain" as the last track. It's a very chill note to end a hard set and send everyone home with a smile. No, it's not as good as Tranceport, but personally I still like the way Dave strikes a path between the old skool progressive house, with its hyperbolic peaks and saccharine vocals, but avoids the (occasional) monotony of current trance. If you are a fan and want to see Dave's track selection and programming than this is a very good CD to get. If you are looking for "Best-of" quality Cd's you can probably leave this out and spend your money elsewhere (like Digweed's LA Underground), but if you like trance then I'd pick this one up. It won't dissapoint."

Makes you want to be there

Douglas A. Greenberg | Berkeley, CA USA | 01/25/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Dave Ralph became (reasonably) well-known to fans of trance and progressive house when he put together the fine two-cd second volume in Kinetic Records' "Tranceport" series. In that set, he stuck to a fairly conservative but still effective formula by including mostly slower, deeper material on the first cd and then more anthemic, uptempo, even "uplifting" material on the second. The mixing was nothing special, but neither did it get in the way of the flow of the music. In this follow-up cd, Ralph has "re-created" the mood and content of what he played at the world's biggest rave event, the Berlin Love Parade. Rave sets, particularly those created during the daytime, tend to be a bit more uptempo and festive than are those crafted for a late-hours club, and this mix reflects this difference. Still, Ralph has avoided falling into a carnival-like groove in this cd; in fact, his selection of tracks and mixes is just about perfect, given his task of combining a Love Parade feel with musical depth and interest. Ralph includes tracks by some of the best current practitioners of the darker, more rhythm-driven trance that emerged in 2000 as the favored sound of longtime trance fans. Canadian Max Graham, German Timo Maas, and Americans Steve Porter and Noel Sanger are represented, and he concludes the set with a daringly different mix of Moby's "Porcelain" that includes dramatic a cappella vocals. Well done! Some listeners might object that compared with Ralph's "Tranceport" sets, this mix has less of a sense of build-up and progression. The tempo and feel evolves only slightly from beginning to end. However, this is exactly the kind of mix one tends to get during large-scale rave events, and Ralph has crafted his mix accordingly. My only real objection to Ralph's work here is that it is disappointingly brief, around 61 minutes. I gather that the shortened musical set is due to the inclusion of the PC (Quicktime) viewable "enhanced video," which includes two additional tracks. This is a fun feature, but I would have prefered that the cd mix itself be extended instead."