Asana Archive Play: Lo-Fi   Mid-Fi   Hi-Fi   Download: Lo-Fi   Mid-Fi   Hi-Fi (Excerpt from track 'Simran Vision')

This single disc encompasses the bulk of Asana's output to date, the only album missing is 'Trikuti', but most excitingly the majority of the material has until now been previously unavailable.Summarising the previously released material first, you get the 'Live at Jodrell Bank' set, the remastered version of 'Shrine', and the 'Enshrined' CD EP. These released need no introduction, they are all essential. Believe me. First of the new projects is 'Remixes', and what a cornucopia of tracks you have here - remixes from demo CDR's, rare compilation tracks, embryonic versions of existing tracks, and completely unreleased items. 'Saviour' features in 3 different guises, blistering new releases such as 'Devil Devine' leave you gasping - and such is the scale of this release you really do find yourself over faced! Your brain is locked in a constant battle between basking in the glories currently playing or instead diving into the other goodies which are just a click of the mouse away. Also featured is an extended version of 'Simran Visionary' from 'The Sky Goes All The Way Home' project. An extra 6 minutes of complete magic, over 11 minutes in all!

The next new project is 'Sampler CD Tracks' which features pieces previously available on SMD and Gold Tri compilations, as well as the original short version of 'Simran'. 'Rise' is the next project, this is an experimental album using looped samples. 8 tracks are features, two of which have appeared already on SMD compilations, the rest are completely new. Must admit I haven't made my mind up about these yet, they tend to be more "edgey" than the usual Asana style, but they are growing on me.

Next project is 'Sacred', this is material created in collaboration with Mark O'Hara and pre-dates Asana. This is unashamed dance territory, and it's fascinating to hear the foundations from which Asana's trance style Electronic Music emerged. Again, I haven't heard all the tracks anywhere near enough times to do them justice in a review, suffice to say there's not a bad moment to be found.

Finally we get 'Live' which features 5 sections from a brace of Derby Guildhall concerts from the mid 90's. Again it's all remixed and cross faded, and there's even another previously unreleased piece called 'Ceremonia' which is an absolute corker of a track. All in all it's a gargantuan amount of music. how is so much music fitted onto a single disc? It's because it's all MP3 encoded, but the quality is virtually indistinguishable to normal CD quality, plug your computer into the HiFi and let it rip!