johnb820

Dance remixes of pop songs or music using common pop songwriting that just happens to have a dance beat is NOT what I call EDM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn7YMmw7Y-o As cold as it gets.

I started listening to this yesterday but had to give up sometime last night. For those of us who are not premium members of di.fm, we got ads played right in the middle of a set every half hour. Di never used to do that, it always had the ads between the sets so worst case would be you miss some of the first song.

Maybe someone could explain this to me, but the mix sounds really sparse all throughout the album. The basslines are thin like they've been put into a corner and forgotten about. The melodies, while they are well thought out, never blend well with the rest of the track. Almost everything lacks a rhythmic quality. It's a style that shouldn't be a surprise if you've heard his stuff before, but this album seems to take it to a whole other level. Again, maybe I just need to hear it in a different setting. It's not as if here in America we have goa trance parties all the time so I'll reserve judgement on this, but I really don't like Inner Shift. Sorry.

Why would you ever want to leave the impossible vortex?

Stars (Starstuff remix) Yea, those leads...

Part of it was just creativity, using sounds that no one else would dare to use in their music at the time. Synths and drum machines were nothing new but tweaking them out of control and throwing in large amounts of effects defined something pretty new to most people. Another part of it is that there was some truly groundbreaking material made purely from a production point of view. Nearly 20 years later and we're still trying to figure out how Simon Posford did stuff on the two Hallucinogen albums. In that sense it wasn't just music from the future, it was timeless musical creations. And many of those artists deserve the praise for doing what they did.

That would be Ra's Ultima Energica.

Just found Hallucinogen - The Lone Deranger 2xLP on some weird Chinese vendor site for $9.99 US dollars. I am praying to god it's not a scam.

Good call on Alice In Wonderland. I'm not sure a movie has ever come as close to recreating the psychedelic experience as that film whether the film makers at the time knew what they were doing or not. I have to include 2001: A Space Odyssey as well. The visuals of that movie, even outside the stargate sequence are so obviously meant to be appreciated on a psychedelic. It's interesting to me that a whole genre of music has been created solely for the purpose of tripping to, but I don't think there is an equivalent in film. Plenty of movies make reference to psychedelics or even attempt to visualize it but yet I would never trip to them.

So where does one begin with Shaltu? Goa trance listeners have been blessed with an abundance of releases the past couple years and not just from Suntrip. So much has been released it has gotten difficult to define where the genre is going. We've had everything from dark, driving goa to bright uplifting goa and everything in between. As easy as it may be to think it all starts to sound the same, in comes Shaltu. Anyone familiar with Ra would know what to expect from this track. It's got energy, lucid melodies, and a fast moving pace. Two things I was impressed by specifically included the brilliant progressions as leads started overlapping, and later a lengthy 32 beat phrase that caught me by surprise. I've been impressed by Ra's melodic and harmonic qualities before, and Lifethread is no different. The next two tracks by Crossing Mind and Nebula Meltdown both are on the brighter and softer side of things, each bringing some very nice emotional and beautiful stuff. These two are then followed by Filteria where Jannis manages to not only remix Lepton Head but take a melody from his very own Illogical Logic only slightly altering a couple of notes here and there. But I'm loving the deeper and heavier mix here, something that has been kind of absent from recent Filteria. Innerspace, aside from really liking his artist name enough to name a track after it and include a sample containing that very same name/title, delivers a really intense track. I'm not going to lie, some of the stuff on here had my jaw dropping. Again and again, the track explodes into a psychedelic landscape. I'd love to hear this one on a big open sound system. Emergency Acid System and Fractal Memories both sound like they could easily fit into a full on set, which is not to say that they are bad. On the contrary, there is nothing cliche or dull or uninventive about them and Fractal Memories has a very euphoric sound, perhaps good for morning sets. Next we have E-mantra's Time Current remix, although I'd hesitate to call this a remix of that track. The original melodies are there but Emannuel has harmonized almost all of them to give this one a completely original feel. This is brilliant from start to finish and I have to wonder why this level of musical creativity and precision was largely absent on Pathfinder. Anyway last on the album is Universe which is a deeply introspective track from Sirius. This is pretty much your standard goa trance, flying at light speed in slow motion type of stuff, a style which I'm personally a big fan of despite it not being the most original track on this album. Overall, Shaltu has delivered what I feel to be an important album for goa trance. There are some very refined, original ideas on here while maintaining everything that you would expect from goa trance and suntrip. So if you have been burning out on goa in the last couple years, this album might just surprise you. If you are not a fan of goa, this album might make you a convert. I think there is something here to offer everyone.

I guess my question has been answered. http://www.suntriprecords.com/news/id/154/

Definitely hearing something new from Ra is always a good thing. I am still waiting for another masterpiece from them. Anyway, from the samples this sounds like a solid release. Any chance this might go up earlier in the week or will we just have to wait until Friday?

I guess this is a rock album but the cover has this strange weirdness about it that immediately draws me in. Something I find really cool about this album cover is that it doesn't have the name of the artist or the album on it. It adds to the whole mystery. I wish more psytrance covers did that. Always enjoyed this one too. I can't find a better photo of this version of the album cover.

It's been a while since I listened to this one. Lots of cool ideas on this release. Would love to hear more from some of the lesser known artists.

This might not mean much almost 4 years since this release, but Moondawn has barely left my ears the past few weeks. I never gave this track a good enough listen coming at the end of an album with so many energetic songs, but Ethereal crafted what I believe to be the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. It just clicked immediately. Close your eyes and lose yourself in its dazzling layers, majestic soundscapes, and shimmering leads. I could only dream of making something like this.

Mostly Goa here. I'll throw on some psy, dark psy, techno for variety but it gets harder to wade through all of the releases to find good stuff amongst all of that, and don't get me started on trance. Second biggest is downtempo, dub, chill etc. Third is probably salsa and psychedelic rock.

Cybernetika's track is freaking amazing, so much energy, so much evolution, but with all the little subtleties and layers. And it's followed up with a very strong track from Daimon. Dimensional Gateway 2 is another win for Neogoa. Thanks to everyone for this compilation.

I kind of have to side with Penzoline on this one. I'm still giving it some listens to see what sticks with me. It's clear that the production on Pathfinder is cleaner and more polished. The bass section doesn't sound as muddy and the leads are gorgeous. There is an abundance of interesting high hat work which is a big change from Arcana. We even get some claps on Afterglow which is pretty cool. When I listen to this I get a strong feeling of atmospheric phenomena like clouds or auroras streaming across a night sky. My only problem with this album is the lack of focus and pace. I can't make heads or tails of what the focus is supposed to be at any given moment of these songs and as a result the songs don't travel. I mean I am not looking directly for a melody but rather at how the songs evolve. For example, I thought Distant Signals ended around the two minute mark when every element in the mix was removed and a melody lacking relation to the rest of the song pops up. Maybe I haven't given this enough time to sink in but first impression was these songs don't really flow very well. The sounds and emotions are all there and I can tell a lot of passion went into these songs, I just think they needed some focus. Of course, I had similar feelings when I first heard Arcana so maybe I just have to get used to it all.

I am curious what elements you are referring to exactly. If they are anything like the elements that are simply staples of psychedelic trance music, then E-Mantra would have to NOT make psychedelic trance music to sound truly unique. I'm not sure I can explain E-Mantra's style exactly. It's loose, spacey, fluid, driving. It sometimes makes me think his patterns are not entirely focused, like one sound just sort of melts rather than leads into the next. In my opinion, no two artists sound the same, especially in the genre of goa/psy trance. Filteria is entirely different from Darshan who is entirely different from Astral Projection who is entirely different from E-Mantra. There is a good reason why goa trance is sometimes difficult to mix much more than other electronic dance genres. As Emanuel pointed out, there are influences such as the Nitzho kick or perhaps arpeggiated leads but it will almost always result in something unique when blended together and I have a hard time imagining that given the nearly limitless possibilities of electronic sounds that two artists would come up with identical sounds.

And now the wait begins. I must remind myself not to listen to the samples too often. Arcana was brilliant and I'm sure Pathfinder will be just as good if not better.

Cheesy. Mahadeva 99 is better than that. There's no energy or punch to it, just like most crossover progressive stuff. Compare that to the original... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k00Zrc2iXUM

Excellent stuff! I highly approve of this thread. This is a sound I have given some thought to except I've been more interested in blending psychedelic sounds with salsa and latin rhythms.

Written & Produced by Piers Oak-Rhind. Helmut Glavar is not credited. Anyway, this is definitely some nice stuff in the style of earlier Entheogenic, which is not to suggest Flight of the Urubus or Golden Cap are not good because they certainly are. My first impression was that Gaia Sophia is a solid all around production with that dubby chill out sound we've come to expect from this project. I imagine a physical release is not likely, so to have these compositions available to listen to is much appreciated.

We have a new classic here, and its name is Beyond Lightspeed. I think what I enjoy most about this album is how well each track is paced. A lot of artists could have the same sounds but unless they are put together in a meaningful fashion with good evolution it won't get that transcendental feeling across. The production is also very solid with nice warm basslines even on the last 4 tracks. The detail and time taken on these tracks clearly show. Lastly, excellent choice putting Tropical Sunset in the middle. It flows very nicely and it helps break up the album between the uplifting tracks early on and the intense tracks later in the album.