Dolmot

It's right there in the description. Young people don't read any more, I guess.

Well, we have a grand total of 82 people hospitalised and 22 in intensive care in the whole country. Even at that point the recommendation is "don't come if you can still breathe, just stay home and try to recover by yourself". So, not very surprising that people who come to ER cannot breathe. There's quite a bit of selection bias there. However, things are definitely going titsup in Italy. That I won't deny.

Have you seen Hero (2002) and does it count as a fairy tale?

Sounds familiar. I'm doing R&D. I have all my gear in here and enough room for another office-like setup. In a sense, there are even fewer distractions now. Of course, some daily routines like commuting and lunches have changed, but the work itself isn't that different. Most of it happens digitally anyway. I guess we have it really easy. All hobbies and events involving physical presence have been cancelled. To be frank, I'm almost relieved right now. A forced short break from everything can be healthy if you've been doing too many different things, but after several months it probably starts to get infuriating and/or depressing. We just had the annual meeting of one club (now arranged online). The unsurprising key conclusion was that we're basically screwed with the rent if everything remains closed and consequently there's no income from monthly usage fees and such. This obviously applies to many companies, clubs and individuals. Event organisers can also be truly SOL if they're acting responsibly and cancelling the event, while the venue still argues that there's no categorical ban and therefore no refund for anything. For a couple of semi-coincidental reasons, I'm mainly eating old dry goods from a cupboard which couldn't even hold any new hoarding. There's time for all-day slow cooking if I'm in the mood for that. The contrast between the tranquility here and the apocalypse reported by shit tabloid media is striking. Now I should have plenty of time to listen to music and to reorganise my old stuff. My brain just hasn't fully adjusted to this new, weird situation. It probably happens over time, though, because right now it looks like the minimum span of this remote working will be one month. Could be more, who knows. We'll see.

That's just incredibly shitty luck. I've had a couple of events and trips cancelled too but thanks to sheer luck, procrastination and finally caution, I hadn't paid a penny for them yet. Right now there's just the sudden, eerie emptiness in my schedules for the whole spring and maybe summer. (OK, also a thing or two with investments but let's not discuss that.) It's totally fine and natural to feel frustrated (to put it very mildly). However, I'd also suggest not blaming anyone too much. Yes, poor decisions have been made here and there, but right now we don't have that many really good ones available either, because things are going pear shaped in general. Some agencies and hotels have been generous with their rescheduling options so I can simply hope that at least something can be recouped that way. If you ever get a second chance, let's see what we can do.

I investigated the matter in this topic! (Mainly concentrating on release titles and descriptions which can be dated.)

Is there a moon in your window?

Heh, "this old chestnut". I have many thoughts regarding the matter and I don't know how to turn them into a coherent story so I'll just list some random points: 1) First, there is the principle called Sturgeon's Law, often summarised as "ninety percent of everything is crap". I won't start dissecting the full details of Sturgeon's original statement nor its later interpretations. Anyway, I think the principle essentially says that when there are quality differences and personal preferences, only so many pieces can be "very good" or "like things should be". There are boatloads of music. Even that "very good" 10% (or a smaller fraction) can be so huge that our ears cannot take any more. Therefore we can pick the best, use it as the measuring stick, and rule the rest as "crap", even though in reality the "normal" level is somewhere within that 90% and we're just getting really picky. 2) The corpus of released goa/psy has been accumulating for decades. That makes things even worse regarding the "top 10 versus the rest" comparison. A lot of totally half-arsed stuff from the earlier decades has already been forgot for good. More or less consciously, we end up comparing the very best of those past years to the average level of recent releases. That comparison cannot end well. 3) Also, after thousands of full releases, it's getting more and more difficult to produce something truly original that we still categorise as goa. Either the release "sounds like X, Y and Z" or it doesn't quite fit into the genre. Imagine a hazy blob on the genre map that we label as goa. It consists of dots, which are releases. When the amount of dots increases, it's getting difficult to find any totally blank regions among the existing stuff. You end up either close to something that already exists or too far away from the centre. 4) There is also the phenomenon called sophomore slump. It's quite generic in nature, but it can be understood as "the second attempt being worse". In personal effort like producing music, it can mean that the first try manages to capture the raw power of what you really want to express. Then you kind of run out of steam. Even though the next one may be more polished, it cannot reach the same level of inspiration and originality. Another way to view it is that if you, as a listener, fall deeply in love with some specific approach, it's just inevitable that anything that differs from it has a high chance of being less appealing simply because it doesn't hit that sweet spot. But repeating the same-ish formula would feel like copy-paste or repetition so you cannot really win there. Coming up with something fresh and appealing is possible but really hard. "Easier said than done." And the artists out there cannot really read your deepest desires, nor are they under any obligation to fulfill them. If you're getting picky, it's your task to do the "crate digging" to find your personal gems, even though it may be a tedious task. 5) Also, nobody here is getting younger. There's just something special about the age when you first discover awesome music, visit your first parties and festivals, get drunk/high/laid and so on. As Constrictor put it, you cannot "recapture the magic that once was". When you grow older, you start to observe plenty of recurring patterns - things that get re-invented every ten years or whatever. Each iteration may be slightly different, but it cannot have the same impact as the first encounter with the subject. Just accept the fact that you're getting old and hard to impress, but every day someone else out there is discovering this genre for the first time and thinks that everything is awesome. Same music, different view. I'm definitely getting old and drowned under other commitments. I cannot do the same amount of crate digging as I used to. But I do remember that already back then when I had the time and energy, it was common to load 500 tracks to a preview playlist and ultimately pick just one or two of those as keepers. More than 90% was "crap", nothing new there. If you cannot do those 500 track marathons any more and you've already found enough good stuff to last a lifetime, just cherish those, but don't get too bitter about modern times. I still do discover very good stuff, occasionally. Most releases cannot meet the crazy expectations, but someone out there still enjoys them so they deserve to exist. Nice recommendations by Manuser, by the way. I've been blasting Proxeeus, for example, at work several times like it was 1995.

Kind of! I think the track started circulating in 2009 - 2010 as "Chomolungma". At some point it was called "Chomolungma (Aiana)" and it was available on SoundCloud. Then it evolved quite heavily and was first released on Goa Beach Volume 22 CD in 2014 (I think), then in the Collected Downtempo digital release in 2016. But that released version is quite different from the minimalistic, bass-driven promo, hence my question regarding the "original version". If they consider the later Aiana incarnation the definitive version then so be it, but I still prefer the more mystical one and I was a bit disappointed when it didn't make it on the albums.

Kind of! I know! Tell me! Of course! I have it! Correct! To be honest, I didn't even know! But then again, I'm a music collector. Tell me! Actually, not yet! Well, no, but tell me anyway! Cool! My wallet weeps even without that but cool anyway! In fact, I listened to a good chunk of it today at work. Here we go again, I guess! But has anyone released the original version of Chomolungma yet? It moves people around, even if they're sitting!

Originals or re-releases? Where? Separately? How much?

Lost and found. That was enlightening. Let's see if part 2 answers some unanswered questions!

Whee, that's a long time! I clearly remember browsing TRiP for tips in the 90s, supported by the fairly decent school internet and the not-so-decent dial-up at home. The transition to goatrance.free.fr happened when I was moving around myself so I probably almost missed it. Where were the "what is goa trance" and travel articles first released? Those were the very short wikipedia of the genre/culture back then. Also quite fascinating that Filteria was among the first reviewers in 2000. For some reason I only created an account on Psynews in 2009, although I was definitely browsing regularly for years. Nothing important enough to add? I think the discussion was also a bit...noisy back then. Of course, the music changed too over the years. There were times when I didn't find it interesting enough to follow that closely, but there have also been some very positive developments. You can still spot interesting pieces of...psy news here. And all kinds of randomness. Thanks, everyone.

Indeed. I think I downloaded it almost brand new from...Audiogalaxy? Soulseek? Anyway, that was also the time when I started to get quite disillusioned with the direction psytrance was taking, thus I was buying a lot of house instead. That set was possibly the place where I learnt about Jeff Bennett and started collecting his releases. I still have those. We were spinning those and a lot of similar sound at the club room back then. Good stuff, good times. And yes, I still have that ancient mp3 copy of the set too and it's somewhere on the playlist. Very smooth and non-distracting music for getting some work done. Right now I'm not listening to anything, but I've been browsing a lot of old and new disco releases recently. About time to place another order, I think...

I don't know either but hey, thanks for bringing that up and happy new year 2002!

Gah, I haven't posted in this thread in a year or so! I should have, but somehow there has always been something more urgent to do, or maybe I was just out of energy afterwards. Anyway, to fix that even by a little bit, I picked some semi-random stuff from the "incoming" piles. (Sorting of the record shelves has been postponed too many times as well.) There's no very coherent theme in this selection, other than all being somehow noteworthy or fascinating. There's some repetition from earlier posts - even mine. Maybe some 2019 highlights? Maybe crowd pleasers? Maybe some showing off too, who knows? Far from being a "today" listing but whatever... And because we're search engine, vision impaired and collector friendly here, a brief listing and comments: Bluetech ‎– Holotrope, "only" the signed, limited CD. I didn't feel like ordering the vinyl version from the US due to ridiculous shipping costs, customs and taxes. Sky Technology ‎– Rainbow Spirit, of course. Closest to "today" in this batch, partially because our postal system has been a trainwreck recently. Greg Hunter ‎– μTantra Elysium ‎– Live... & Beyond Liquid Sound Design - Collected Digital Works (Part I), boxes that some weirdo in the UK keeps churning out, taking my monies in the process. K.U.R.O. & Charm ‎– Japanese Vibrations Analog Visions, hey, DAT released something too this year! There were some excellent, rare mixes on AV. Bluetech ‎– Liquid Geometries In Dub, came with a signed poster, conveniently from the UK as an LSD release so this was painless enough to get. Youth & Gaudi ‎– Astronaut Alchemists, what is this even doing here? It's a 2018 release and I listed it in January. Well, maybe it just fills the grid or something. But as it was brought up, let me mention that there still seem to be a few copies available from LSD. Don't be a muppet and pay 50€ on discogs. Solar Fields ‎– Leaving Home Solar Fields ‎– Extended, Sidereal reissues from this year. These two in particular are really special for me. Remember the early-mid 00s when this relatively new label "Ultimae" was really on a roll? These were inre 017 and 018, and times were good. I simply had to get the special coloured vinyl versions, which surprisingly aren't prohibitively expensive yet. You can still get them if you really want... Crop Circles ‎– Tetrahedron, the legendary lost album which was possibly the spark that started DAT Records. This one is quite special to me too for reasons, thus I got the splatter edition. (Should I take photos of all these fancy-coloured discs? They're kinda neat...) Globular ‎– Entangled Everything, the kickstarted vinyl version, signed. The recent collaboration album campaign was successful too, whee! Let's see how screwed I'll be with the delivery if those goons really manage to finish the brexit. Seriously, guys, don't wreck one of my main routes for getting great releases, old and new. And that's it. Now I'll pack that stuff again, clean the rest of the table, and maybe rip a few pending discs. There are some orders to place too. Special thanks to several members here who have been involved with these releases. Let's see what 2020 brings.

Well, that's still something!

Whee, it's coming soon! Are you excited?

OK, good to know what my coworkers mean when they call me fucking sick.

Is that a compliment? I'm completely unable to tell these days...

Interesting. I ordered a copy on 14th, got a shipping notification on 16th, and received the parcel later that week, so that one went very smoothly. Did you get a tracking number? I thought these are generally sent registered.

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Project-DIY-Belgians-United/release/2416295 ? My country has its very own subgenre, of course.

Gah, I haven't posted a single line to this thread yet, even though random thoughts have crossed my mind all year. Somehow the whole winter was a bit exhausting with work, hobbies and assorted BS so trance as a whole fell lower on the list. The ZNA lineup definitely looked great, but eventually I ended up visiting another festival in Croatia with a large group of old friends. Shorter travel, easy accommodation, fewer things to arrange. Then I was already running out of vacation days so I couldn't fit in another full week trip abroad. The reported epidemic was apparently...rough for everyone affected. In 2017 I only got a mild food poisoning one day toward the end of the week, resulting in a customer return of that lunch and a day of lying down. If I was looking tired in some of the last meetings, that probably played a role. Maybe it also contributed a bit to my choice of a fancy-pants city festival this summer, although it definitely wasn't the deciding factor. Anyway, beside excellent line-ups, the ZNA location itself is indeed great, especially if you like long walks on the beach. Aaand...maybe Apsara next year? Who knows. It's not in the exact opposite end of Europe like Portugal. Just remember to post enough useful info to convince me.

I got back from the only trip abroad I have planned for this summer. Croatian mountains were majestic. Right after that I went to a club meeting at a summer cottage. Now I'm finally back home and trying to relax, although there's still some backlog and hassle with monies. (Protip: avoid Norwegian airline for a while. Their performance is very dodgy ATM.) It feels strangely quiet in here, compared to all the travel bustle. It's also raining so I'm not going anywhere. What next? Check the CDs that I ordered ages ago but in some cases never even opened? Do some dull, long overdue chores? Try to produce something artistic? Just sit here and stare blankly? Decisions, decisions...

This is getting silly now... (Or did it already several pages ago?) I remember that there were goa-flavoured .mods in the tracker scene in 1993-1994. The term "goa" as a genre was barely known back then. However, soft-synths were quite limited so there was plenty of sample ripping from hardware or commercial sources (which in turn were typically hardware-based). Where do you draw the line with "no external synths used"? One landmark was Propellerhead Software's ReBirth, which was released in December 1996 and made fully soft-synthetic classic goa sound quite easily achievable. I have some tracks from 1997, which indeed credit ReBirth as more or less the only sound source. And you could distribute ReBirth-sequenced files directly too. Those were definitely 100% PC. It's also known that Shiva Shidapu was releasing tracker music in 1997 and they were hardly the only ones. No idea about all their sound sources, though. I think I made some pure AdLib FM-synth tracks in the mid-90s. The manufacturer of the original card went bankrupt in 1992 so the hardware option was definitely there earlier than goa as a named genre existed. The sound capabilities were definitely limited, but a 303 is not a strict requirement for producing goa, right?