Leaderboard

Isn't this the documentary featuring the infamous "kyklous" dude? :p

I just got a few email from psynews. I don't know whether you changed the system or whatever, but this reminded me that Cronomi Records is 10 years old this year, and I decided to share some of the early history of how it came to be. It's funny, because back then we had the "new school old school" debate, and the whole "old school" era was about as long as the time from 2008 until now. Only tells you how this division is absolutely meaningless. Anyway, the teenager me was producing generic psytrance, kind of the usual kind of Israeli full on you'd expect. Some of it even ended up being released for reasons that I'm not certain of now because it was shit. Then, a friend challenged me to produce a goa track. So I did. It was also a challenge to myself, what can I get done using only the "Vanguard" VST plugin. Turns out that it went pretty well, made some amazing goa loops. I continued to finish that track with things other than Vanguard. It was eventually released at Ektoplazm in the first Golden Vibes compilation. The name of the track, "Shomervan" is just a Hebrew way of saying "Vanguard", with "guard" being שומר = shomer. It also required that I find a new name for myself. I was into stars and stuff back then, so I looked up the names of stars in the constellation Leo (I was born August) and saw that the name for the star ο Leonis was Subra and I liked it so I picked it. A few more goa tracks later (Snel Hest which is also in an online compilation, but shit mastering so it's fucked and I don't have the originals any more, Olmec which was nice) I decided I wanted to start my own label. I have zero knowledge of doing so, I was a shit business man (and still am) but apparently it was rather easy to do. I had some money from working so I went for it. I needed a name for the label, and I always thought that all of those mystical sounding names or things influenced by eastern cultures or things based on drugs were stupid. You know, 22 old me objecting to cultural appropriation before it was cool. Then I had a revelation! My artist is Subra, and the star name is ο Leonis, aka Omicron Leonis. Omicron sounded cool, but naming it after a Greek letter seemed non-unique. Playing with the letters a bit led to Cronomi, something that I really thought represented me (at the time). There were several reasons for actually starting the label. Suntrip was doing well at the time, and it felt like there could be more than just one goa label out there. Suntrip was also focusing on just one flavour of goa trance (in my opinion at the time), so I thought I could diversify a bit. And, being a label head was really cool. Hell yea! I got my own label! woohoo. Little I knew how hard it is to actually do it... Stay tuned for the next chapter, the story of our (actually my, I was working alone at the time) first compilation: Freshly Cut Tomato. Once I find the time to actually write it. Shouldn't take long.