The Flux Komplex - Lost Illusions

What a way to retract my former statement. Here is, available at long last, the final and most elusive Karsten Hamre project. I've heard a fair bit about this project, it's a mix of darkwave, ambient, and trip-hop, and it features Karsten working along side another Romanian artist, Ioan Barladeanu.

The packaging and disc captivate me immediately, with their Oceanic Blues, and Hazy imagery. Doesn't take long for the music to establish itself either, this is definately triphop - a slow fusion of trippy drums mixed with ambient Church bells. That's "Terra Mater". Impressing debut track.

"Lux Aeterna" doesn't hold back either, with it's unmelodic but strangely beautiful warbling intro, before the track once more breaks out into a rhythmic, superior trip hop anthem. I find the ambient backdrop adds so much more to this niche of the electronic spectrum.

Like many typical Trip Hop releases, all the tracks on here push past the six minute mark, bar a couple of slight exceptions. There is more than a slight indication of drug-induced propaganda here, and if you were to listen to The Flux Komplex while under some hallucinogenic or disassociative guise, I'm pretty certain you would reap far more out of this music than an average person could ever wish to.

Those of you wanting to know which KH album to get first? Make it this one. Why? I'm never wrong. Dec 15 2006