The Musings of a Very Important Lawyer.

This past weekend, the special lady and myself took a trip down to Austin, TX to drink beers, catch Venetian Snares live, and generally be on vacation. One thing we were particularly excited about was a trip to nearby New Braunfels, home to the Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort.

Schlitterbahn was originally built there to act as a waterpark fed by the water from the river – in fact, Schlitterbahn West (aka “Old Schlitterbahn”) still uses this gross-looking, fairly cold (around 70 degrees Fahrenheit) fresh water. Schlitterbahn East is a tram ride away (they’re probably about a mile apart), uses chlorinated water, and is home to the Master Blaster, which is repeatedly voted the best water ride in America. The Master Blaster is best described as a water coaster – in a two-person raft, you go up and down a number of hills. The ride uses a bunch of really strong jets to push your raft up the hills quickly. The effect is cool, and totally different. Also, at about a minute-and-a-half long, it’s the longest water slide I can think of. The format doesn’t exactly lend itself to long ride experiences, generally.

Schlitterbahn is different, though. Back at the old park, you can get on the Raging River Tube Chute, which is a 45-minute-long experience that ends with a tube trip down the Comal River itself. Basically, a series of slides and (sloooow-moving) lazy rivers takes you all the way across the park before dumping you into the river. As a ride, it’s not particularly thrilling (except for a monute-long trip through a very low tunnel that had me pulling with my hands as fast as possible in an attempt to get the fuck out of that terrifying, claustrophobic space) – but as an experience, it’s totally unique. I’ve been on slides of this type before (all of them at old parks – Disney World’s River Country [RIP] had one, as did (does?) Wet n’ Wild in Orlando), but they were all just brief excuses to roughhouse and get hurt. This was actually a pretty trip through a bunch of trees. The experience was diminished by the insane amount of people, and by the fact that it was cold – it had rained earlier, so the air wasn’t particularly hot – but I enjoyed myself.

This year, the park opened up Dragon’s Revenge – essentially a retheming of what was previously the Dragon Blaster. Like the Master Blaster above, this was a coaster-type ride. Unlike the Master Blaster, this one was heavily themed. Super over-the-top medieval music, a line spent partially inside of a run-down castle, fog effects, lighting effects, and one of those spinning tunnels like at the haunted house all added up to a ride that was probably a lot more boring before they added all of the stuff to it.

One last thing of note was the Torrent River. Every water park has a lazy river, and Schlitterbahn is no exception. However, they also have a wave river. The Torrent River had a wave generator that fed waves down the length of the lazy river, which was awesomely fun. Before we left, we rode around it three times. That was awesome.

On top of the rides I mentioned, food and drinks and even gifts were reasonably priced – and instead of having to carry cash, Schlitterbahn will sell you wristbands with easily removable denominations of money on them, valid everywhere in the park. This means that you can just sort of drink your way through lines and crowds with a mere flick of the wrist. Like everything else in Texas, it is made of magic and absolutely perfect*.

* – Glaringly false statement

I don’t know a single goddamned biographical detail about Sami Koivikko. I know he’s on Ghostly International’s minimal techno imprint Spectral Sound, and I know that I was fortunate enough to receive a promo copy of his soon-to-be-released single, Sapphire. In fact, the EP wasn’t even self-contained – it was burned onto the end of an Audion single I was sent to review. I don’t know if the gambit was to catch me when I listened through, or what, but it worked – “Sapphire” is a slick piece of beautiful melodic techno.

The a-side builds from a single-note bassline, tagging on hats, blips and chords as it goes at its own leisurely pace. The claps and occasional stutters place it near the intersection of techno and electro, at least until about the three-minute mark. After a brief rest, a chord progression begins – wholly unexpected yet totally in-tune with everything else that’s happening – and this chord progression anchors the track the rest of the way through. It’s one of those perfect moments of golden ratio release where you just have to lean back and go “holy shit.”

“Sapphire” is followed by a remix by Daso & Pawas, and the way they jump right into the progression of the track, it feels like nothing changed except the weight. The kicks are louder and the synth touches are dubbier. It’s one of those mixes that ups the bounce quotient* of the original, doesn’t do anything life-changing but doesn’t fuck anything up. By being placed second on the EP instead of tacked onto the end, it works to prolong the joy of the original track while switching it up and injecting a nice, house-y vibe.

The last track, “Tonalite,” toes the electro line even closer than “Sapphire.” The template is the same – a single-note bassline gives way to a dream-like melody. It’d be hyperbolic to talk this one up as hard as the a-side, as the tracks are both fantastic. Strongly recommended.

Sapphire will be released as a 12″ or as a 320k, DRM-free MP3 download from Spectral Sound on June 24, 2008.

* “Bounce quotient” is totally a real thing, I learned it in physics in college