healium

Yah that was an amazing time - the late 90's to about 2002 was just incredible - so many original, brilliant albums - genre creating, genre defining - since then there have for sure been some killer albums, but that was the evolutionary leap period of psytrance from what I can tell.. That period was also the beginning of the "psychill" genre in its modern form - "Are You Shpongled" came out in 1998, and then Ott, Shulman, Entheogenic, etc followed up with their initial LPs around 2002 or so..

I will go so far as to say that here in the USA, I have pretty much never been grabbed by any psytrance being DJ'd at a festival or anywhere else - unless it was an actual artist - The Tegma, Hux Flux, Logic Bomb, and Hallucinogen shows were great but other than that it tends to be that really aggressive/annoying/generic full-on sound, at least in the Los Angeles area..

I hear what you're saying but I think you probably don't know the history of progressive and full-on psytrance.. Or maybe you're thinking that only pure "psytrance" is psytrance and genres like goa, progressive, minimal, and full-on are in fact not sub-genres but are in fact distinctly different genres? You could make that claim but that's not really accurate from a historical perspective and probably not by how most of the artists themselves would describe their music.. Back in the late 90's and early 2000's artists like X-Dream, Atmos, Krumelur and others started the progressive (often called "minimal" back then) psytrance sub-genre - pretty much everybody back then except the total haters regarded it as a new sub-genre of psytrance - which it is - it's trance, and it's totally psychedelic. Progressive psytrance just builds the sounds in a different way than typical melodic psytrance - it aims more for a hypnotic, truly "trancey" experience then the build-->climax style of psytrance - but it's still psytrance.. And honestly, I would say that some progressive psytrance is quite a bit more "psy" than is a lot of "psytrance".. Similar situation with full-on - it's just psytrance that has the beat more right-up-front - but again, go back to how it started, which was with Psysex, and a couple others, again back in the early 2000's.. Now, what is true is that both progressive psytrance and full-on psytrance have had the tendency for artists to produce more commercial/non-psy releases, thus creating some blurring of the boundaries between genres.. Remember too that "psytrance" itself started as a spin-off of goatrance - goa was the beginning, and then psytrance and full-on psytrance and progressive psytrance all sort of grew out of it - and all pretty near the same period of time.. But all are now considered part of the same family, which is considered separate from euro or mainstream trance.

Hopefully not Skazi!

Mostly I'm sober in life - no caffeine, no alcohol, etc - and listen to a lot of psytrance.. I love psychedelic music when I'm sober because it gives me that trancey headspace - "with music like this, who needs drugs??" But sometimes a nice psychedelic is just the thing - and I like psytrance then too - higher doses though I don't like psytrance as it's too aggressive, but psychill is awesome!! Me and a couple friends drank a bit of ayahuasca a few weeks ago and were blown away by Solar Fields, Shulman, Kurbeats, etc - DMT + harmala alkaloids are amazing for music, as are mushrooms.. Cannabis is fantastic for music also, but I've decided that cannabis clouds my mental vision and leeches away my dreams and goals - so I no longer use it.. That being said, THIS, is the stoniest track I've ever heard - downtempo Beat Bizarre - it takes a bit to build, but have a listen and tell me this isn't a heavy cannabis vibe.. All tracks sounds great when stoned, but this one always tranced me out like no other when I'd listen to it high on cannabis.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXffq3aZAko

Another vote for the Tengri album - "Icaros" (2013) - this is may be my favorite psychill in quite awhile - it's between that and the Kurbeats album.. What I love about the Tengri album is that it's dark - most psychill is not dark - Tengri brings a heavy tech-trance darkness to the album - in terms of mood it reminds me a bit of the first Phutureprimitive album - "Sub Conscious" (which btw is one of the best psychill albums ever in my opinion - definitely check that one out too!). Also, you may not have liked much of the Ultimae label's stuff - but check out the album "Movements" by Solar Fields - this is totally psychedelic music - doesn't get much better than a good Solar Fields track.. Here's a couple killer Tengri tracks and then a Phutureprimitive track, and then a Solar Fields track.

Hedonix - is the new Hallucinogen.. Hux Flux - the newer stuff he hasn't released yet is killer - check it on soundcloud - Dennis has made over a dozen new tracks and is touring all over - wish he would put them on an album.. Beat Bizarre - Keeps getting better and better - there is no more stylish and distinct progressive trance artist in the world right now if you ask me - I can tell BB track a mile away and they're all so fresh sounding.. Solar Fields - always brilliant, be it downtempo or trance.. Ubar Tmar - Doesn't seem to care about the trends, that's for sure.. -- As far as going downhill: How about Koxbox? Their last album was just Frank-E, and it's pretty solid technically and certainly not sell-out cheese - but it for sure followed the full-on trend and wasn't really remarkable - certainly not like the 2 albums prior which were total classics (Dragon Tales and The Great Unknown) Logic Bomb perhaps? Although, in my opinion, Logic Bomb has always sort of been the bastard child of Hux Flux - solid psychedelic trance but missing the mindblowing aspect of Hux Flux..

Yea by intelligent I just mean more of an "artist" album that has complexity and storytelling - rather than the simplistic "in-your-face" sound that teenagers in America like to listen to..

Can anyone recommend some good tracks or albums or artists that do shamanic chanting type tracks? I'm looking for really catchy trancey type tracks - much of the yoga/kirtan music doesn't have enough edge or darkness or trance to it - Bhagavan Das being on exception.. For instance, the music that psychill artists sample - think of the track "Sufani" by Gaudi or "Splitting an Atom" by Ott. Good icaros like for ayahausca ceremonies? Good shamanic chants from the Middle East or Africa? Also, good instrumental stuff - like the flamenco guitar that Infected Mushroom samples in the track I'm trying to compil tracks for various sacred plant ceremonies and other shamanic pursuits. I've got some good artists from the yoga/kirtan style - Bhagavan Das, Deva Premal, Krishna Das, and I've got some good icaros from a shaman I worked with - check out this track by him:

Definitely gone downhill as of late - sounds like they're trying to appeal to a broader crowd and/or make the music more show/dance friendly - but the result just comes off as a bit random and disorganized, with elements thrown together and changes that don't really flow well.. Certainly it has lost the epic psychedelic storytelling of the first couple albums.. Wish Shulman would release another album - it's been 6 years since his last one..

The first trance track on this album "Kuobo Lover" is killer!

One more from me, since I'm posting genre-defining albums: The "full-on" sub-genre of psytrance traces back to the early 2000's - and the album that, IMO, continues to be the apex of full-on is Psysex - "Hardcore Blastoff." Most full-on that followed was annoying and derivative, and so became unpopular with many old-school psytrance afficionados - "full-on" became a dirty word - but "Hardcore Blastoff" is a phenomenal album which sounds like nothing else - check this track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnl75xwzLs

I was not super exited to hear a new Psysex album.. But I'm liking what I've heard so far, which is about half the album - for some reason I thought it was going to be moving in a cheesier direction - not so, this is pure psy, and quite dark as well..

What's the issue with download only? I would think that like, 99% of the people who would buy the album anyway would have a ocmputer and be able to download it? It turns out that this album is actually an EP rather than an LP - lol, so it's a really long EP rather than a short lP. His tracks go on a long time - usually 9+ minutes, so I guess 6 tracks is just fine.. There's 2 levels of listening to Beat Bizarre - 1) his beats and rhythms are so fat and infectious that you can just groove out to the track - I find that the initial groove is so catchy and engaging that I often don't bother to really listen and go deep into the rest of the track. Which brings us to listening option 2) - get into the layers he builds in - there a ton going on, even if the first listen you miss most of it- and the way he repeats all the layers for so long, and just overall trippiness of the sounds themselves makes this music extremely psychedelic - this is truly mind-altering music if you can get into and follow the progression of his sound structures..

Here's an interview with Beat Bizarre/Martin Spanner - he talks about the whole digital download-only thing and the reasons for it - the English version of the interview is after the Polish version: http://www.psytrance.pl/interviews.php?title=beat_bizarreenglish

I'm surprised this album hasn't got more attention - the album is short, but the tracks are each so killer - the atmospheres and details that BB creates are just phenomenal - and always with such a massively swanky darkness to it all. At different times each track is my favorite - right now I'm digging this one:

Yea the "Hardcore Blastoff" album from 2001 is one of the most unique and fresh sounding psytrance albums ever - it sounds way fresher than most everything put out today - go back and listen to it and tell me those sounds aren't more modern sounding than most sound palettes other artists are using today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9aeXwCoEh4&list=PL08EC81E2E0E3F960

Lol dude those sites are propaganda BS - not the first one but the www.activistpost.com links.. Do you actually believe that stuff they write?

I found that the progressive and tech trance styles took some getting used to - both X-Dream "Radio" album and Hux Flux "Cryptic Crunch" were albums I didn't like at all the first time I heard them (they aren't really pure progressive trance albums though, they're a semi-progressive style of psytrance that doesn't use a lot of higher pitch lead melodies, and instead uses lots of sound effects and loops).. Anyhow, progressive trance doesn't usually provide the same big euphoric climaxes that goa trance psytrance provides - it's more about being hypnotized - a true trance state - and they may seem empty a bit at first, but it's all about how they build in the layers - it's a more subtle experience but I find the genre to be delightful, if I'm in the right mood for it. Took me a couple years of psytrance before I found the joy in progressive though - now if I listen to psytrance I'd say 70% of the time it's progressive. Speaking of which, let me recommend what is debatably the most influential pure progressive psytrance album of all - this one set the standard back in 2000 - Atmos - "Headcleaner" - this is seriously brilliant and memorizing music - but you have to follow the tracks right from the beginning or it can go right over your head. A main attraction of progressive trance that neither goa/psy, or dark/forest psy have is a certain style of really killer basslines and grooves - progressive psytrance often has such a hip and swanky grooviness to it that goa just doesn't have - it's usually a bit slower and just way more booty-shaking, at least in terms of the beat and rhythms - here's a couple examples of what I'm talking about, and then a track off the Atmos album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4XkN7Q_Y9w

Nobody (I don't think) has mentioned the following albums, all which were landmarks: X-Dream - "Radio" - this is perhaps the single most influential album in all of psytrance (Hallucinogen - "Twisted" would be the other) - it marked the shift from "goa" style to a progressive, tech-trance type sound - and it's an absolutely spectacular album. The X-Dream album listed above "We Created Our Own Happiness" is solid also - but it's not groundbreaking - "Radio" changed the landscape of psytrance forever. Hux Flux - "Cryptic Crunch" - this album followed the X-Dream "Radio" album by about a year, defines the "Scando"/scandinavian sound - The sounds are mindblowing - this is album is so psychedelic and massive - nothing sounds like it - the sound style is very "computerized" and robotic - synthetic tryptamine sound - they sample R2D2 to give you an idea - there's a humor and a darkness to it - perhaps my favorite psytrance album ever. Infected Mushroom - "The Gathering" - before they went commercial IM released some tremendous albums - this one started it all, and I still love hearing tracks off it - dark and twisted style for sure - much like with Hux Flux, you won't confuse the tracks on this album for anything else. Here's a track from each album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1bUnWeMNHU

01.Astraea 02.Alpheus & Arethusa 03.Hyades 04.Galatea It's unlikely I can write a better review than my stellar effort on the Slackbaba album, but here goes - it will certainly be better than Trance2MoveYou's reviews though which are boring and dry. Koan produces some very beautiful downtempo music. It is certainly psychedelic but not overly so - this would be palatable for many mainstream type people. This particular album is perhaps my favorite of theirs, despite its brevity. Some really nice, ethereal synthesizer melodies. Enjoy!

1. The Gates Of Zion 2. Ask 3. From The Ashes 4. Interstellar Interference 5. Fortean Thieves (feat. Aliji) 6. Muraqaba 7. Colliding Particles 8. Waterfall Serpents A new Slackbaba album! For those of you who are unfamiliar with Slackbaba - check out his debut album "And the Beat Goes Om.." - in my opinion this is one of the best psychill albums out there. His second album didn't impress me that much - but here his 3rd album is excellent. This is psychill in the ethnic style - I really don't know how to describe it more properly - but between this album, the Folktronica album, and the Globular album it's been a good year for psychill..

1. Subfile HALDOLIUM 2. Two Roads HALDOLIUM 3. Sky Valley HALDOLIUM 4. Silent Sleeper (Haldolium rmx) NOK 5. Vodka Plain HALDOLIUM 6. Our own happiness HALDOLIUM 7. Tyger Tyger HALDOLIUM 8. Behind the wheel HALDOLIUM 9. Another Day HALDOLIUM 10. True and Strange HALDOLIUM Haldolium was one of the original progressive acts from back in the late 90's and early 2000's. For those of you who are newer to the scene, we used to call "progressive" trance "minimal" back then - and when it first arose it was polarizing - many people in the goa crowd loved it and many hated. We don't get enough progressive/minimal/tech trance album reviews here - this is because the neo-goa crowd has taken over from all I can tell - their girlfriends all have hairy armpits and it doesn't bother them a bit.. Anyway, this album here is moving toward a more commercial sound while also retaining some nice dark vibes and rhythms. The feature here is a great remix of the classic X-Dream track - "Our Own Happiness"(back before X-Dream was a minimal/progressive/tech trance act). I think I like this remix better than the original, which is rare.

I wish "Androneda" were on Spotify - looks like all his other albums are..

"They created their own society" -"That's right - we created our own happiness, that's what we did." I can't find it on google - does anyone know where this sample from the X-Dream track "Our Own Happiness" comes from?