Dolmot

For a few reminders... F13, a mix DL (mp3, VBR, 245 MB, 135 min, zipped) 01. Nuage - Banyan Tree Snipet ["Vivant", Purple Hexagon, 2013] 02. Entheogenic - Soma (Veda Mix) ["Phoenix", Zion 604, 2013] 03. Time 2 Live - Sacred Ground ["Inner Self", Inner Light, 2013] 04. Nervasystem - Harold Eben D'Owld ["The Kingdom", Zion 604, 2013] 05. Trinodia - Qind Mind ["Astral Clouds", Ovnimoon, 2013] 06. Shantifax - Rudra ["Complete Tranceformation", SarnarSchourt, 2013] 07. Ufomatka - Vega ["Tribal Encore", Anjuna, 2013] 08. Byte 1 - Dive 1 ["Mind Rewind 2 - Past Forward", DAT Mafia, 2013] 09. Nervasystem & Aether - Distorted Waves of OM (Slight Return) ["Lucid Flux", Anjuna, 2013] 10. Tengri with Vlastur - Dance of the Crow ["Icaros", Peak, 2013] 11. Scuba vs Yechidah - Beyond the Illusion of Life ["Turlitava 2", Neogoa, 2013] 12. Radical Distortion - Solar Storm ["Back in Time", Eutuchia, 2013] 13. Dreamweaver - Tabula Rasa ["Goa Overdose 3", Underground Alien Factory, 2013] 14. Filteria - Food Demons (Demon's Head Remix) ["Lost in the Wild", Suntrip, 2013] 15. BlackStarrFinale - Doña Aiuola ["AURYN", Neogoa, 2013] 16. Nebula Meltdown - Stardust Chronicles ["Stardust Chronicles", Suntrip, 2013] 17. Khetzal - Aramean Dreams ["Blacklight Moments", Suntrip, 2013] 18. Scooterbaba - Halleluuja ["Natural Digital", Trance Bum, 2013] 19. Oliveira - Ond Kraft ["Trolldom", Troll N' Roll, 2013] 20. Lapsus - Normality ["Sideffect", Psynews, 2013] 21. Crop Circles - Ghost Circles ["Lunar Civilization EP", DAT, 2013] 22. Dimension 5 - Alpha Particles ["TransAddendum", Suntrip, 2013] 23. Artha - Faith ["If I Wasn't Human, I'd Be a Trance Track", Cronomi, 2013] 24. PharaOm - Shiva's Cosmic Dance ["Under the Sun of Goa", Neogoa, 2013] 25. Globular - Up the Xylem Elevator ["Magnitudes of Order", self-released, 2013]

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In every genre, the majority will be mediocre by definition. We look for the best and then find out that the rest is below that. There's hardly any way around that phenomenon. Also, whenever something becomes "popular" (that is, at least somehow known), there will be followers or copycats who share the enthusiasm but not the full set of skills, tools and vision. That will happen with every genre, always. For example, I've gone through boatloads of less known "golden era" goa 12"s and compilations. Let's just say that many of them are rightfully forgotten. There were so many lazy or clumsy attempts. It's just plain BS to think that everything back then was brilliant, innovative and spiritual. A huge amount of it was produced in a day with no good idea of anything - just like in every genre. The totally forgettable stuff has been forgotten over decades. Regarding the style of "neogoa", I think there's a bit of bias in how we understand it. In 1996, we didn't bother inventing dozens of names for subgenres. It was all just goa or psychedelic. Nowadays anything that diverges too far from a certain path will be relabelled forest trance, swamp trance, desert trance, mud pit trance, hi/low/mid-tech trance, progressive, regressive or whatever. If you only accept Afgin, Antares and Merr0w albums to the definition of (neo)goa, sure as hell it's going to sound melodic and "light". Anyway, I also think there's a gap that's a tad underrepresented. I hesitate calling it "dark" because many attempts of going dark for its own sake end up being just stupid. What I'm looking for is intense, dynamic and exciting. If I can predict from the first (post-intro) 30 seconds how the next seven minutes will sound like, it probably isn't very exciting. How to prevent this? Well, if the "basic formula" would dictate that you should do something, don't do it. If you're going to fill in a certain pattern without thinking about it, think again. If you have a feeling that "one can't do this", try it anyway. Many major leaps in any area of creative work are achieved accidentally. It may flop but at least it won't be boring. Finally...regarding the state of the genre as a whole, my 2013 yearmix was longer than ever so I'd say there's plenty of neat stuff floating around. It just takes a while to go through it all and find what you really like.

While I could easily slag off many acts, I think it's actually a bit sad. There are trends in music. As a general rule (with exceptions, of course), those who follow the trends will get the big gigs. In a genre like this, the difference between big crowds and even medium crowds is basically the same as "making a living" or "not making it". Bill Cosmosis is one of the very few guys who can keep doing this full time. What about the rest who didn't "sell out"? I'd guess they're now spending their time on actual paying work, family and/or whatever. Spending hundreds of hours on an album, selling 500 copies and playing to 100 people just doesn't pay the bills. Reality won't reward "keeping it true". By the way, have you ever thought about how e.g. Filteria has been doing fairly consistent work for ten years now? Ten years. As a time span that's like...from 1993 to 2003. From early proto-goa through the heyday in its entirety and all the way to full-on galore. The original goa scene burned bright and fast. I think you can find much more stable careers from what we've been calling neogoa for over a decade now. (Well, maybe full-on too but is it possible to fall from anywhere there?)

I should but I don't even try. Meanwhile, I'm listening to Deviant Electronics and it's so bloody good that I'm rapidly failing my plan to do stuff outside during daylight hours. "Just this one track", I said...

On CD? Probably because even artist albums and exclusive compilations only sell a few hundred copies despite having all new, full length tracks. Meanwhile, there are boatloads of homemade mixes floating around on the "promotional licence", that is, free of charge or even guilt. With forums, soundcloud, mixcloud, youtube, net streams, podcasts etc. at our disposal, good luck selling any more than a nominal amount of mix CDs. Warming Freeze was a free extra. Sakura is 100 freebies and 100 low-price CDr copies. Demand like that hardly encourages proper pressing and licensing. It may be a different story if you're on Djmag top 100, but goa DJs rarely are. Besides, music consumption today tends to rely on single tracks, custom playlists and heavy use of the skip button. Mixes may get streamed but purchases must be in a shufflable/selectable format. Buy a mix and you're stuck with that track order forever or it sounds like crap. There's no shortage of mixes, though. In the 90s it was a small luxury to own discs, decks and good recording equipment. Download speed was 28 kbps, not Mbps. Your average mix copy was a big name CD or a cassette recorded from radio. Today anyone can cobble together a mix on a $200 laptop using an endless supply of torrented mp3s. (You don't have to but you can.) There are so many mixes that you must actively push your stuff to get a few dozen plays. It went from "oh boy, a psy mix!" to "sigh, yet another psy mix". Another thing that largely vanished are compilations of already released stuff. I guess YSE still does them, but otherwise the expectation for compilations is all exclusive content. You don't need samplers because everything can be sampled online. Labels won't bother with singles collections either, because today a "single" is an mp3 everyone has already, not a 12" owned by a handful of DJs. But hey, at least you won't feel silly any more for buying the same track five times on different albums, compilations and mix CDs...

A bumpy ride. AYS: Largely defined the whole act. Sounds like SP and RR rocking it in an opium den with aliens and everything that is cool in this world and beyond. TotI: Never liked this one that much. Some cool tracks but too bouncy in its flow. Also the world music elements didn't feel fitting back then, compared to the first album. NLbNIL: The first half is legendary. The second half loses the momentum and I usually skip the rest at some point. Nevertheless, it was probably the first album of any kind I bought on both CD and vinyl so it cannot be entirely bad. IMfS: Liner notes of I Am You: "The chorus was originally sang by the computer, but it sounded a little soulless, so Serena and I re-sang it, but we are both appalling vocalists and eventually called Hari Om to complete the job properly." There are just so many things wrong in this picture. Anyway, several good tracks. It's just heavy on world, vocals, instrument solos and romance instead of rocking in an opium den. MoC: Liked it a lot. However, I got a very unusual first impression as I was doing some heavy work and listened to this about five times in a row at night until sunrise, and then a few more times that week. It got the job done. Then I had memorised it completely and didn't listen again in a long time. I find it has more weirdness and less romance again. So my curve would be roughly an up-down-up-down-up sawtooth, although not exactly regular. Yeah, the latest ones have been very carefully produced but a bit live/hit oriented. Unique sounds are cool, some dude banging a drum kit is not so cool. But I still think the sound has evolved, instead of nose-dived like some other artists' output around the fifth album. Bought the latest in both formats again...

But...but...but...I spent a few years trying to id this track from a set, and them some medium cash to get it.

I call it nothing-on, as in "99 channels but there's nothing on".

Alright, that's the best single track this year...maybe decade.

Local news are reporting that several popular pages have been removed yesterday in a wider operation against breaches of terms. Typical cases seem to concern advertisement. (Well duh, they make their revenue selling ads so any perceived attempts of circumventing the system definitely are a major PITA to them.) I assume FB's terms of service are so convoluted that they can find a justification for removing anything they want if needed. Still, a shitty way to handle it if no prior notification was given nor any questions asked. Sod them and their law.

Possibly the best release this year...so far. But any challengers really must deliver to match it.

I only wait for Kung Fury. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72RqpItxd8M

Something like seven years ago my ISP had a guideline of 100 GB monthly, but I don't think it was strictly enforced even back then. Nowadays they really don't care at all unless you run a worldwide high-traffic warez server in the network... I definitely get already more than 7 GB of album downloads (counting just legit purchases and free releases) monthly. Any modern video content would gulp it in a few days. Is that a mistake or a joke?

Strange Things is on Global Psychedelic Trance 3. Hopscotch is on a 10". Both are quite cheap...maybe not very convenient if you're looking for those tracks only, but I've ended up buying both at some point so my collection is strangely complete concerning these tracks. That leaves a few exclusives - Woodski, Sub Currents, Outro? Can't remember what's in the intro. But hey, isn't $37 for a CD just normal in Japan?

Seriously, none. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. http://www.psynews.org/forums/index.php/topic/66428-unexpected-goapsytrance-remix/ http://www.psynews.org/forums/index.php/topic/67184-best-psy-remix-of-a-non-edm-song/

So...blame Iboga?

Etnica - Tribute and TIP - Stimuli are a bit special too, although probably not the absolute #1, especially for "wider" audiences...

I like Belgian trippels.

Space would probably sound like 4'33" so the rest is largely subjective and open to interpretation. Nevertheless, my foremost thought would be that D5 really takes the cake here. They have space-related album/track names, OK, but that alone doesn't make the music spacey. However, they keep it quite heavily synthetic, mechanical, ethereal and cold. Can you recall any Indian melodies or instruments, chants or even drug samples in their work? I'd say they largely skip all that. Cosmosis - Cosmology is the most cosmic one based on the title. But that and Eat Static tend to follow the "visitors on Earth" theme so it's somewhere inbetween. What else...some Underhead, Moonweed, AP's tracks which are not about Tibet, MFG's tracks which are not about religion...dunno. I'll go with D5.

Today... Previous three direct orders took over eight weeks each so it's improving.

Trinodia - Astral Clouds Miktek - Elsewhere ...and the pre-download of Deep Fried Dub - Slow Cooked

"Too old" for anime junkies.

So awesome that I don't care a bit if it's staged... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZGNk8pUj4Y

In space, no one can hear your ambient. Latest Jaja albums are long, deep, nice and free on Ektoplazm. There was a lot of weird and...quiet stuff on Umbra. Consider getting some if you can still find them. What a shame we first lost the label and then Oöphoi himself. It was always a pleasure to trade or just to chat with him. Or get the recent reissues of Robert Rich's early albums...although it's said that those cassette or CD-length albums are fairly hectic compared to the nine hour sleep concerts he was performing back then. There's the Somnium DVD album for trying something similar. Now I realise I really should arrange more time for these myself...