Search - Japanimation :: Area 88 Mission Cyber Trance

Fans of the TV series' music won't be disappointed!

Not My Real Name | Cambridge Massachusetts, USA | 11/26/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Unlike the Sound File discs, this is a pure trance album. The tracks also seem to be variations and extended mixes of what's found in the TV show (i.e. I think it doesn't exactly repeat anything on the Sound File discs, though I've only heard vol. 1). It also has a few tracks I don't recognize, at all. Among the more interesting tracks are two loose, trance renditions of G-Aria.



Interestingly, many or all of the artists that composed, performed, or remixed these trackes were big name European trance DJs. The artists credited on the back cover (I only recognize a few) are: DJ Tiesto, angels, Rank1, Sensation, system F, Gouryella, Markos, Svenson & Gielen, and Barthezz. I think you might find more of this sort of thing (i.e. trance remixes of JPop or anime music), in other discs in Avex's Cyber Trance series.



This music always struck me as a bit bombastic - in the way trance often is, but just a bit moreso. On the other hand, I've got to admit that I do really get into it (in fact, I'd even change my rating to 5 stars, but it seems I'm only able to edit the text of my review). So, I do tend to listen to it a bit furtively.





One more important point: this is not a normal CD. It has "copy control" measures intended to discourage ripping it to MP3. So far, I haven't had problems playing such discs on my Linux PC or on normal CD players. I haven't tried this one, but track 1 was inaccessible on one such disc, under Windows XP. The way they expect you to play it, on Windows, is to use the player software on the disc, which plays the horribly compressed (like 48 kbps) versions of all the tracks that are on the data part of the disc."