Phluff

Happy New Year! Now I just can't wait for the best of 2019 and the best of the 2010s polls to get going...

I can not wait for round 2. Funk. Nasty, groovy, space-funk. Cosmic musicball dance party with melodic hors d'oeuvres and little hi-hat dental floss thingies to clean out your teeth in between bites. No, wait, make that mental floss. Go in hungry for musical caviar and come back sated. Seriously, these melodies are some earworms. Like others said, these are not your below-average, wandering, listless melodies, but actual melodic statements with intention and purpose. This is fun music. It has its corollaries to Space-era S>Range in the space-funk, Alien Protein-era Etnica in the theme-building, Dragon Tales-era Koxbox in the cosmic joker cameo, and more Koxbox in the melodic matrix everything unfolds within. The latter may be the best comparison I can come up with -- just updated. Not better, because that's really hard to do, but just with a chrome finish where Dragon Tales had 80s-era solid stainless construction. I'm not a party-goer, since I live in small-town America, but I can only imagine this BIG sick sound could only result in orgiastic, twirling, pulsating dancefloors. On headphones, it's got my neck bobbing up and down like a chicken at feeding time. Or a cheerleader after the big game. Buy it. You WILL need at least five hands to count the number of full listens you get out of it.

I've been listening to new trance for the last 5 or so hours, and this is one that I've kept on from beginning to end. I'm very excited to hear another Ektoplazm release that's finished downloading, but I'm going to wait until I'm done listening to this one. That's at least until the first play-through is complete. Definitely a goldmine of melody, a nice smooth sound with lots of ASMR going on from start to finish. Very aesthetically pleasing. Very notable is Consciousness... that one really got me in a good mood. I don't do star ratings, but 5* for sure!

Necro alert! This is my favorite too, I bought Akashic off of Psyshop early in my trance fandom because of the album art and because I had heard he had some remarkable music. This first track is one I came back to again and again, for that very reason. I found a video just of it if you want to check it out:

Sorry for the necropost, but I just had to look and see if this track had been posted, and when I noticed that it wasn't, I wanted to share: Prometheus - Fast Train

(Edited to acknowledge receipt of my 2€) And i laughed out loud when i read "howling at the moon." I'll go listen to that right... now. Ok. Yeah, their craft is bar none. I've been searching out something else that makes my stereo field feel as... stretched... as this album did. As with all of my goawakenings© I am hearing everything in a new way, since ultimately what happened was that this album opened up a new space in my listening for new music to fill. Like there was a spot in the mix that I'd never dialed into, and once I'd first noticed it, I now hear it in everything. That's what happened with "Hammerhead" and "Book of Eden," and that's what happened the moment I started playing "Neura" off of this album. There's just this whole new dimension. Anyway, thanks, Psylent Buddhi! You miracle worker, you! I hope you're partying with the Green Nuns somewhere

How can you not be dancing to this album. Newcomer here, but long time goa-head. I have had 3 goawakenings in my life: the first was while listening to Hallucinogen's the Lone Deranger while biking to and from work every day in summer 2008. The second was in 2009 listening to "Hammerhead" and "Book of Eden" from Chi-A.D.'s Earth Crossing like a bajillion times in a row. The third is today, listening to the Psylent Buddhi album. I've been listening to assorted releases from 2017->forward for the past two days and am so glad I stumbled on this. Forget ballpark, this is in an entirely different sport from what I've been listening to. Electromagnetic bass lines and smooth, metallic synths hover patiently while something is done to the stereo field that is pretty much impossible to describe but just feels so right. Now, before you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm aware of that. I haven't used headphones, especially good headphones, enough to have a proper frame of reference to what goa is supposed to sound like. Thinking back now, I have heard similar quality in much of the music I _have_ listened to on headphones, including the aforementioned artists, as well as: Infinity Project, Green Nuns of the Revolution, Etnica, Electric Universe, Prometheus, Dimension 5, S>Range, Koxbox, and of course innumerable others that just aren't coming to mind at the moment. Sorry about that. I think I get it now. This is what goa should always sound like. Maybe I just haven't been listening right. If that's the case, you can (maybe) expect me back on other review threads to throw in my 2€. Regardless, I will be listening to a lot of Psylent Buddhi while I feel out the rest of what goa _really_ has to offer. It has earned that place in my pantheon of regulars, and time will only two how many giants it will unseat. Something about this album... it is so meditative, so introspective, so electrifying that I can't shake it. To think that this was created in the 90s, and here I am thinking this is the cutting edge of modern music... I might have heard this artist on a compilation before, and I'm sure I appreciated what I heard, but nothing has ever sounded like this. It makes me want to jump, and twirl, and dab (not that kind of dab, thanks but no thanks) and laugh to the beauty of what it means to be a human. We are so lucky that we get to be here and have this, and I just want to be sure I never take this treasure for granted. These beats go on, and on, and... om.....

Oh, and the same goes for Koxbox. Same goes for it. I like "Dragon Tales", "Forever After", and "Too Pure" as much as I like "U-Turn", and Frank-E's new album "The Scanner" comes in just behind. But I'm specifically looking for stuff like EU. Think of it as a EU-Koxbox polarity that I'm looking for music to fall within.

I've been a bigtime fan of Electric Universe since I first listened to "Cosmic Experience" shortly after it came out. Since then, I've fallen especially in love with Boris' later sound, particularly "Higher Modes" and "Journey Into Outer Space." His new singles are bomb as well, but I'm still waiting for the newest full-length. His premiere "One Love" was excellent Goa, of course, and I'm pretty damn familiar with that era of trance as well. Around the time I got into his music, I listened to a lot of full-on to try and find similar stuff, but most of it pales in comparison. I'm not gonna lie, I still like Infected and 1200 Mics, but they're missing something that EU provides. Maybe it's the big build-ups and drops he's been writing into his stuff recently, maybe it's the straightforward full-power psychedelia he provides, maybe it's his excellent intuitive use of effects, the earworm melodies, the irresistible urge to get up and dance trance. The spiritual and cosmic themes have a lot to do with it as well - I am a very spiritual person and his stuff just makes me vibrate higher. So without further ado, what should I listen to for MORE? Thx, Psynews :P

Thanks for the recommendations, all. It gives me somewhere to take this newfound passion in categories of goa-psy. And I guess I should clarify when I say "minimalist," as listening further has shown me the rather more "polished" sound of your later releases. I use genre- and style-specific terms loosely. I would say your sound is "Ubar Tmar as played by [early] Koxbox" or something like that. I should say it's "lo-fi" for lack of a better term (organic/analog is another utilitarian description in my lexicon) whereas other artists such as the Suntrip family (idk, I'm listening to Crossing Mind) are more "wet" ' ' or crafted for big festival sound systems. Don't get me wrong, I certainly love the mainstream sound these days, but I really prefer the *hardcore underground* whether it's trance, industrial, or what have you. But isn't all goa-psy underground? I don't even know what mainstream psy is like anymore. For that, I am grateful we have people like Suntrip, Neogoa, and Ektoplazm carrying on the oldschool tradition faithfully. Not trying to stray off topic... but here I am not even responding until a month after.

I literally just found out about this artist! I was looking for tracks conducive to meditation, came across the thread about tracks that make you cry, and 2 about artists that don't use drugs. After reading his comment, I had to look into his music, and found that it already heard it on the form of Aavepyörä! I have a serious fondness for Lo-Fi/Minimalist music, whether it be shoegaze like Jesus & Mary Chain, industrial like Suicide Commando, or trance like Chi-A.D. and Juggeling Alchemists Under the Black Light. With this new discovery, I seem to have opened a Pandora's Box of new material to get into. I haven't listened to much, but already I'm inspired to embrace my musical habit again, which I can only describe as Fatboy Slim if it were performed by Daft Punk. I especially like Taika-Kim's naturalist/collective commons ethic. I'm about to listen to a lot mote of this. I guess my purpose in starting this topic is in finding some direction in my newfound passion for this particular brand of minimalist trance. Other than Texas Faggott and early Ubar Tmar, do you all have any recommendations for other artists I can check out and eventually scrape together some $$ to support?

911 it is! Thank you! That one is due for a lot more listens now that it's no longer just some unknown Koxbox kicker. Still I've had Saiko-Pod stuck in my head all day: "Mag-Netik ForcE!!"

I forget where I came across this, maybe it was on their Facebook page, but I really like the video and the song has a really cool turn-of-the-millenium vibe to it. If I accomplish nothing else, I hope to bring this animator to your attention. They have a sadly disproportionate view count for such an excellent video.