Richpa

The biggest pressure for sure will be on Brazil and that might be some issue for them, but on the other hand, refeeres will for sure be an important part (like it's always on big competitions), plus the teams from SA and Africa might got a little adventage due to the climate. It will be interesting to see the problem with the protestors aswell, hopefully there won't be any serious troubles.

Glad you like the compilation Mike, and thank you for very funny review as always! We will see to team-up again in a year or two and maybe make 3rd part aswell

So, we're almost ready for 20th World Cup in Brazil from 12 June – 13 July so why not start a topic here where we football fans can disscus our favorite teams, give some projections for results, etc. I will introduce the groups below and after that I will try to review each group and give my favorites (will mark them with red color): GROUP A: BRAZIL CROATIA MEXICO CAMEROON I think this group got one strong favorit (and one of the tournament favorites - Brazil), they will play in front of their home-crowd and they will be very motivated to get another tournament in their homeland. As a second favorit, I think Croatia is most likely will see the next phase of the competition, but there might be some suprises, especially from Mexico. Cameroon is a big unknown for me and the adventage of the hot climatics can have impact for their performance, but Mexico and Cameroon doesn't have enough of quality mid-filders such as Croatia or Brazil. GROUP B: SPAIN NETHERLANDS CHILE AUSTRALIA This group is easiest to pick the winning teams, I think neither Spain or Netherlands will have any problems with other teams. Spain is maybe the 1st favorite of the whole tournament alongside with Brazil and Germany and the only contender here who might be able to suprise is Chile, but the projection is Spain and Netherlands. GROUP C: COLOMBIA GREECE IVORY COAST JAPAN This group is very tricky, there is Colombia who made some nice success recently but their key-player Falcao might not be in the best shape on this tournament, still they got respectable squad and I think they're one contender for the next phase of the competition. Greece, on the other hand doesn't have any super-stars in their team, but their defensive play and the experience from the past tournaments might give them some adventage against the Ivory Coast and Japan, plust they're very good as a team, it will be interesting to see the match against Ivory Coast, one good defensive team against one team that likes to play attacking football. Probably Greece will go in the next phase. GROUP D: URUGUAY COSTA RICA ENGLAND ITALY Very strong group with some amazing teams here, but honestly I think the Uruguay is at the moment a lot better team than Italy or England. The outsider here is Costa Rica. For the battle for 2nd place, Italy might be better just because the fact they know how to play on big tournaments, plus England is constantly in bad shape in recent years when it comes to big competitions. GROUP E: SWITZERLAND ECUADOR FRANCE HONDURAS Switzerland has been one of the biggest suprises recently, they got experienced coach, the young team and they play well. The lack of experience on big tournaments might be the problem, but the other teams in their group aren't that strong. France on the other hand is somehow rebuilding the reputation and they had some problems in recent years, the team got some amazing players but they still lack a lot of team play, I hope Ribery, Pogba and company will proove their quality. Ecuador might do some suprises here, but it's most likely to see Swiss and France in next phase. GROUP F: ARGENTINA BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA IRAN NIGERIA This group got one big favorite and it's Argentina. They got amazing players including Messi, but he isn't good in Argentina team as he is in Barcelona, and that is a fact. They will pass the group but I don't thing they will manage to enter the semi-finals easily. The other favorite of this group is Bosnia, they're playing their first big competition in their young history and they will be motivated. Their squad got some decent players and I think Iran and Nigeria don't stand a chance here. GROUP G: GERMANY PORTUGAL GHANA UNITED STATES This is most bad-ass group alongside with GROUP D. Germany is one of the favorites of whole tournament and the fight for the first place in the group will be with Portugal. Thoose teams are the strongest contenders here, but Ghana is also strong squad and they're good at big tournaments. USA isn't in the same league as others, but they can take a point or two from the favorites and make whole group more interesting. GROUP H: BELGIUM ALGERIA RUSSIA SOUTH KOREA The weakest group IMO. Belgium got young and strong team, but they don't have that much experience from the big competitions. The group phase will be easy for them and only team who can make the fight for the 1st place more interesting is Russia. Algeria and South Korea are outsiders here and it's safe to say Belgium and Russia will got into next phase. So, that's my predictions for the groups, now I will throw some projections for the semi-finals and finals and which teams got the most chances to win this tournament. Most likely in quarter-finals: Uruguay Brazil Spain Italy Switzerland Argentina Germany Portugal Tournament favorites: Germany (60% chance to see them in the final) Spain (45% chance to see them in the final) Brazil (35 % chance to see them in the final) That's it guys, please leave your predictions for this tournament and share your toughts

I'm not sure is it the best, but for sure it is the most underrated.

Not weird at all, techno and house music has been popular in Croatia for many years. During the summer days, complete Adriatic coast hosts some of the biggest names in clubs and last year Split hosted Ultra festival

Hellyeah. Track 9 sounds great, even the sample lenght is too short

I don't think the Balkans will have strong party scene like in Belgium soon, but in my humble opinion we already have a lot more artists dedicated in Goa trance. I'm not that much familiar with the very early scene here. There were people for sure who promoted music, maybe the most notable was Astralis crew who organized big indoor parties with Astral Projection, Tsyushi Suzuki, etc. and of course Dogma project who released full-lenght album Land Of Utopia in 1997 and the epicentre of all things was Croatia capital Zagreb, so I'm sure older goa-heads from Zagreb will know much more about the early movement there. Will forward this topic to Stevo, he might share some infos 10 Years of Astralis (AP live 2008):

Even Boris Blenn alongside with Simon doesn't have that much appreciation

Well, in Serbia progressive trance and full-on music scene was always very strong, in Croatia general psytrance scene was also OK, the early Underwater Overground festival, also many darkpsytrance gatherings were held later, but the absence of Goa trance music in general on parties must be one of the reasons why in Croatia many producers decided to get involved more into Goa trance. Luckly, now we got decent list of talented artists. It's possible to make such a list but I can't find each and every artist, maybe people can throw their suggestions here

In my book this album is nice, but honestly it can't match Arcana which is still one of my favorite albums in last couple of years. However, it's still much better than Pathfinder.

Well maybe they haven't see that or don't know le English. I would rather contact some of his relatives directly and ask (get someone to translate the english to ukrainian/russian before doing that) is he OK.

Have you tried to find his relatives on his Facebook friends list with surname Drumoff (if that's his real surname) and ask them about him?

It's not a big secret to see the constant rising of new artists from the Balkans area in recent years. For sure this part of Europe played a significant role in the general psytrance scene during the last decade, offering many great artists in psytrance and progressive trance genres, but in the last couple of years, the sound of Goa trance is slowly rising and we're seeing more and more gatherings, new artists and music coming from this area of very steep mountains surrounded by the Adriatic Sea on the northwest, Ionian Sea on the southwest, the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea on the south and southeast, and the Black Sea on the east and northeast. I'm not gonna writte about the exact origins and influences, but I would rather give my perception of artists and labels coming from this area who are worth checking. The Balkan Peninsual covers entirely countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania, but it also partially covers other countries such as Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Greece, Turkey and Romania. There is no dominant influence within Goa trance produced by artists from Balkans, and mostly you can experience various styles such as oldschool influenced Goa trance (Imba, Radical Distortion, Lunar Dawn), melodic Goa trance (Artifact303, Mindsphere, Goasia), full-on/psytrance influenced Goa trance (Nova Fractal, Siam, PsiloCybian), more darker type of Goa trance (E-Mantra, Arronax), and so on. Due the fact that this part of Europe has been blessed by the many cultural influences from the east through the history, the general sense for melody and especially for the Oriental type of melody (which are a common part of Goa trance music in many examples) has been developed long time ago and it became a huge part of the folklore and the tradition of these countries. The exact number of artists coming from this huge area is impossible to give at this moment, due to my limited knowledge about each and every artist, but I will list some of my favorite examples and you can check them out if you haven't already: M-Run (Croatia) Nova Fractal (Croatia) Liquid Flow (Croatia) Goasia (Croatia/Serbia) Lunar Dawn (Croatia) Omnivox [ex-Vox] (Croatia) Adrenalin Run (Croatia) Project Shidartha (Croatia) PsiloCybian/Screw Loose (Croatia) Artifact303 (Romania) E-Mantra (Romania) Primal Source (Romania) Suufi Astrolab (Romania) Radical Distortion (Greece) Zed Reactor (Greece) Siam (Greece) Omegahertz (Greece) Psychedelic Quest (Greece) Ion Vader (Greece) Arronax (Bosnia & Herzegovina) CoaGoa (Bosnia & Herzegovina) Imba (Serbia) Hybrid FX (Serbia) Space Elves (Serbia/Bosnia & Herzegovina/UK) Oxi (Serbia) Goasia (Serbia/Croatia) Chemical Products (Serbia) Nemesis (Serbia) Mindsphere (Turkey) Travma (Turkey) Boneva (Turkey) InnerSelf (Macedonia) Cosmic Dimension (Macedonia) Celestial Intelligence (Macedonia) Sirius (Macedonia) Paramatma (Macedonia) Astraveta (Albania) Dhamsuta (Albania) OGO (Bulgaria) Record labels specialized in Goa trance sound which are active are Ezel Ebed from Turkey, Neogoa netlabel from Croatia, Underground Alien Factory netlabel and Ultiva Records from Serbia, Goa Galaxy netlabel from Bulgaria, Moonquest from Romania and ElxisDG from Greece. The party scene also is getting bigger and bigger and often we're seeing parties 100% dedicated to Goa trance music only. This tred for sure will continue to grow in upcoming years thanks to the rising interest in Goa trance music on bigger festivals aswell, to name one of the biggest in this part of Europe - Lost Theory Festival. I hope you guys liked this short review of Goa trance music present in this area and please feel free to improve my lists and add your own suggestions, or leave a comment! Cheers

Long time ago I found on the internet that it got something to do with the 'full moon' parties aswell, but I'm not sure is that the correct source of the name.

I agree, they should be introduced to Astral Projection and Hallucinogen and have hope for the new albums in next 10 years

That track made me dance like a mad-man, others can't match. Ima da ti spomenik dizemo

This.

I don't need to imagine. It's already done. And yeah, it's available for free download: http://www.ektoplazm.com/free-music/pyramidal-trancendence

It won't be for free for sure, even 70% of the artists featured here released and will release music for free, at least on Neogoa. Ontopic: Looking forward to hear the remixes and to work on the artwork

Response for this project is better than I expected. In 12 days I recieved 24 tracks (around 3,5 hours in total lenght), and what makes me even more happy is that many of them sound good enough for this project, and fits perfectly into compilation concept and theme, so yeah, thanks to all who decided to participate so far and I look forward for the upcoming demos during the next couple of months. I also decided to unveil the name for this project and updated artwork, hope you guys like it

Goasia album will be amazing. I was so excited when I heard about it

Thank you Rotwang for the hard work. It's a pleasure to see AURYN featured in 2nd place among the all commercial relaeses. It gives us so much energy to push even harder. Congrats to the winners and thanks to all voters

One wise man once told me, the artists doesn't exist because of labels, the truth is that labels exists because of artists, but also, you have to know that sometimes your work won't get same reaction from different people. Some will like it some others won't. Some will find it good enough for their concept/vision, others won't. You should know that and never give up and never allow to change your vision just because somebody doesn't find it good enough. Personally I don't like to be involved in the writting process, but giving a honest suggestion to artist to improve his work (especially if we're in the situation that the material got potential to be published by Neogoa) is something that will for sure help the artist. Luckly I don't get my self involved into that too much and I only do that when the artist itself is looking for some suggestions, it's more discussions about the sound and the mix. Neogoa published music by more than 80 different projects/artists in almost 4 years, more than any other label and that speaks about the relationship between the musician and the label.

Who divided the scene and how? Please elaborate. My reply to the author of this topic was a sarcastic attempt to present the ridicilous narrow minded view towards the music we all follow and speak about it here. We all call it Goa trance and no body says it shouldn't be called like that, but also no body got right to say, you don't have a reason to label something as Neogoa or newschool when it's clear that there is a difference in terms of production and the time when its made. That is so wrong on many levels. Why? Well because I could post my list made by releases from Nova Fractal, Mindsphere, Artifact303, BlackStarrFinale and act dumb to proove the difference between the oldschool sound and the newschool/Neogoa sound in Goa trance. In the end, it's all Goa trance...but that wouldn't be helpful to the author of this topic, right? I'm not a genre purist, but when I hear the clear difference and when there is a proper name for it, used by peple, I don't see reason, why not to use it. In history of music, the evolution of the music itself happened because people decided to explore the different influences, different tools and the different areas where certain trends happened and thoose differences were named to give a better insight to the listener and to potential listeners. To give you an examples: South-African Psytrance, Israeli Full-On, Suomi, Australian Zenonesque Psytrance, etc. What would happen if we all say, thoose are ridicilous names, let's not use it, it's all psytrance. It's not something that divides like the author of the Neogoa Why topic mentioned (which isn't a strange thing, because he already compared the sounding of the term Neogoa to nazis), it's something that doesn't want to be bounded (in my opinion), at least not by a single term.