Infected Mushroom – IM The Supervisor

I received my copy today in a perfect NM condition! Just one question to all owners; where is the opening of your sleeve? Mine is a the bottom, never seen this before. Top, right of even left seems normal, but the bottom? Perhaps they made this decision while on shrooms?

I had been wanting this on vinyl for sometime, and when I finally received mine I was not disappointed. The condition it came in was rather subpar, but with an album this rare, I was not worried too much about sound quality. Once I started listening to it, I was blown away with how versatile and wide the soundstage was, even with the scratched surface of the vinyls. If you have this in a better condition than I received mine in, I envy thee, but even with scratches and minor distortions, this is the only album I own that I actually am completely fine and in fact happy with it being in the condition that it is. Sonically, this is one of IM's more experimental albums. They struck gold with Converting Vegetarians, and then decided to whip out some more obscure tunes for IM the Supervisor. Still my favorite out of their early works, though.

Don't expect to get it in the shape the images show here. I got mine last Friday, and the sleeve is in a very obviously used condition. Seller didn't use a vinyl mailer but wrapped it in newspaper. Because of this, the corners bent good. What I'm trying to say: very thin cardboard, will show wear eventually... Too bad they didn't use proper sleeves back then.

Rather disappointed the seller (not on Discogs) didn't sent it packed properly but for 70€ I'm still very, happy with it. Gladly paid that over the prices it's going for on discogs and ebay nowadays.

In a 2004 interview, Duvdev told the public that Streched is a continuation of Dancing With Kadafi and not surprisingly I whined in pity the first time I tried that track: how can this crap even be compared to the greatest experimental track ever made in human history? It's no match man! In all honesty I don't think any track can surprise me more than Dancing WIth Kadafi!! With this in mind I stopped halfway through the album and left it in dustpile. Not until recently did I accidentally switch to a wrong playlist in ipad and discover the real gem!

To sum up, its an amazing album that marks the change of 'Classic Infected Sound', here the Infected duo takes a more dancefloor-friendly approach and all the stuff we get are pretty trancy, even those who never liked electronica will rock their bodies like there's no tomorrow. Overall there're much more vocals in this one than those in their previous release, it also forebodes the change the group made in their later album Vicious Delicious. My personal favourites are: 2.Ratio Shmatio, 4.Meduzz and 10.Stretched.

Awesome album! Meduzz has a killer bassline. Last track has the sweetest electric guitar lead I've ever heard, and Muse Breaks is just adorable, the female vocals remind me of Bjork (or is it Bjork?), awesome!

Hello all trance heads. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this album. Yes, IM do try to embrace other genres here, but whilst experimentation is required for progress, many experiments do not work. This experiment failed badly for the reasons cited by other reviewers: too much of an eye on the money, laughable "vocals", constant stop-start variation that induces sea-sickness and lame melodies. Rip Infected Mushroom. ~*~

I can't believe some people think this wasn't that good of an album. It blows my mind. Ive been a huge Infected Mushroom fan for a long time (like us all) im sure. I respect almost everything they have produced. This album by itself easily blows 90% of the psytrance out there (even current) out of the water. Yea it may be a crowd pleasing album, but its still a masterpiece of sound. I honestly feel like they decided to come at you with full throttle in this album. They didn't hold back and displayed their talents outright with commercial sounds. Proving that nobody could even come close. Its almost unfair the buildups and drops in this album. Bombat just might be one of the greatest songs ever produced(IMO). And B.P. Empire is good, but it doesn't even graze this album by any means. Praise Infected the Gods of Sound.

I think this is the best Infected Mushroom album. I like how they manage to make simple beats, basslines and effects sound catchy and funky. More danceable than plain rhythm, IMO.
I hate when trance music has this plain monotone 4/4 "look at me, I'm a DJ" beat. Same goes for melody. It takes a talent to make real melodies.

IM made a great progress since Classical Mushroom. CM is good, but they really perfected that on the Supervisor.

Yeah, vocals are a bit cheesy. And why the hell not? It's good to light up the atmosphere a little and show some detachment. Not like on BP Empire, which is all serious and dark, yet boring most of the time.

This is a real gem for those like me, who really love electronically altered voices and vocals :)

Overall.. The album in general has a great clean club production and it seems like a logical but unwanted progression of the ‘Trance Side’ of their last full album ‘Converting Vegetarians’. It has the same baseline and same general feeling overall but yet more simple and sweeter on the tooth. This time they seem to have focused more on making great melodies that suits a wider candy raving crowd which unfortunately balances on the edge of cheese. When it comes to Infected’s more Full-On Beat-Centered albums, I definitely prefer and recommend the masterpiece ‘BP Empire’ which is Massive. This album is great for what it is, a floor filler release that seems to be a pause album until they release their sixth album ‘Vicious Delicious’. This is simply put a gathering of club smashers that has been proven to work around the world while on tour infecting people. Perhaps Duvdev and Erez are trying to convert the world? If so, the next logical step for bne should be to get some Infected Mushroom music produced for videos that could be launched on mtv. Let’s see what their sixth studio album will have to offer on that aspect.

- Watch out, the infection is spreading.

Hooboy, how to review this one?

I'm a fan of IM since years ago, and I've gotten used to riding out the waves of haters with each new direction they take.

Sadly, the hate is somewhat justified with this album.

The underlying beats are very solid and quite deep, but they decided to take a crappe on top of some tracks using really, REALLY poor vocals. Guys, if you're going to sing in English, at least come up with vocals that sound natural! This is straight-up Engrish 80s videogame cheeze. I will never, ever play "Supervisor" or "Cities of the Future" out due to the horrendous vocals. It's unfortunate, because "Cities" is actually a pretty pounding track underneath the faux-aggro Duvdev vocals. It has a huge build and good, acidic lead. Too bad.

But, aside from those tunes, this album actually contains some absolute dancefloor bombs! Try 2, 3 (the vocals are somewhat OK here, they have been manipulated to infinity and beyond, and the build is massive), 4, 6, 7 (pretty cheezy, but also catchy), and 9 (endless melody is awesome).

This album shows the transition from old IM dancefloor to their newer, horrendous sound. One could argue that CV's The Other Side was actually the transition, but The Trance Side was still more rooted in their older BP Empire style. Supervisor is where I think they really jumped off the cheeze precipice.