Wake Your Mind

2011 album from the German Trance duo. From the first beat and bar of the album, C.G.'s finely tuned sonics tear relentlessly at the speaker fabric, with the strident, spiked synths of their Arnej collaboration 'Sometimes They Come Back For More' leading the charge. On Wake Your Mind, vocals play an ever-greater part of their sound-design and the album sports some of their very best. Taking time out from his film and TV singer/songwriter activities (including work on Easy A and Grey's Anatomy), Cary Brothers provides the contemplative, low-fi, Rock-ish refrain for the album's outstanding title track. Cathy Burton meanwhile applies serious uplift on 'Drifting Away', while Wake... hits it euphoric high around the stabbed synths and up-rush of 'Over The Rainbow' (vocalled by South African singer J'Something). Scene darling Jes supplies the can't-miss vocal hook to 'Flying Blind' and at the other end of the tempo scale Australia's Alana Aldea provides from-the-heart lyrics and flawlessly articulated vocal lament to the slow burning 'Never Apart'.