The Opening of the Cerebral Gate

If you're thinking that the name Transllusion may in some way be related to the Transport series of progressive trance compilation discs, don't let the name fool you. Opening of the Cerebral Gate has absolutely nothing to do with anything that Paul Oakenfold or Sandra Collins has released. Instead, Transllusion, the project of one-half of Detroit electro duo Drexciya, sifts through '90s-era techno, occasionally giving way to those electroisms with which he is so familiar. Let it be known, though, that few of the tracks on Cerebral Gate ever resemble Drexciya's harsh, dark, and foreboding mixture of hypnotic pulses spewed from blown circuits. "Walking With the Clouds" and "Unordinary Realities" stand out as the most representative of Transllusion's robot-funky roots, while "Transmission of Life" exemplifies a new (albeit somewhat derivative) path for the project's future endeavors. Though Transllusion has taken a slightly different turn than his other half (the Other People Place), he does keep close ties to his Detroit roots, leaking the throbbing and quick bass beats of electro with the smooth rhythms for which techno is commonly known. In that same vein, Transllusion attempts to hinge real-life body experience with futuristic man-machine interaction. Track titles like "Transmission of Life" and "Cerebral Cortex Malfunction" would certainly suggest such a connection. Overall, Opening of the Cerebral Gate is a great album that sits comfortably between the Detroit and Dusseldorf sections of anyone's record crate. ~ Ken Taylor