moni

Be careful what you paste. You might want to check that text for bad language first, and clean it up if necessary. Try to avoid getting warnings.

I admire how he (for sure) spends hours preparing his reviews, carefully, not to miss any detail.

Btw agia, the TOOL band i know is a rock band. Which TOOL is the one in your top5? Link?

Ale's reviews: http://www.psynews.org/forums/index.php?s=...st&p=555260

No, it's like i wrote in the beginning of this thread. If i accept your type of chart, next we'll see a forum member giving 5 points to 3 of his favourite releases. That's not the principle of our thread. Please go to the first post of the thread, which explains clearly how your TOP 5 has to be structured. Thanks!

"Best of 2006" topic starts today, 1st of January 2007, and it will be on for the whole month! Have fun! And... Happy New Year!

ETHEREAL INTERVIEW (psynews.org) Artists: Ethereal (Fredrik Haglund & Carl Larsson) Date: 04-12-06 By: Cosmogenesis Q/Before to speak about music, can you give us some personal info of yourself in order to know you better? (Name, age, nationality, studies, hobbies or passion…) A/ C: Carl Larsson, age 28, residing in Gothenburg, Sweden, studying informatics. I spend a lot of time outdoors, but I'm also active in the pc demoscene (demowhat? Check www.scene.org for details) and do lots of 2d/3d graphics as well as music. F: Fredrik Haglund, age 29, lurking in Falun, Sweden, studying software development. Beside my interest in music, I also enjoy building scale models of WW2 armoured vehicles and that collection is steadily growing (although the pile of unbuilt ones is growing even faster... hrrrm) Q/How and when did the Ethereal project really start producing? For which reasons did you originally choose to produce psychedelic trance music instead of another genre? A/ F: It was in early 1999 that we started collaborating and created the project when I sent a very early version of the track Shai to Carl. Ha, I still have the IRC-log of our conversation about that test track! Let me check the date… the 4th of Mars, 1999! Ah, the memories! Before that, we’ve both been listening to and enjoying goa for quite some time so it was only natural that we choose that genre to compose in. I remember that Carl borrowed Cosmosis – Cosmology from me somewhere back in 96. I haven’t seen it since C: What Fred said, except maybe the part on Cosmology. That album really sparked my goa interest, though Q/ Your two first released tracks, “Fireflies (extended remix)” & “Accessing Infinity (remix)” were both released on the VA/Blissful Moments. How did happen, at that time, the contact with Tranceform records? A/ Kalle contacting us was one of many things that happened after the original "Fireflies" became one of the winners in a competition hosted by psynews. The igniting spark for the album deal was the Forms of Energy party in Helsinki, where we met Kalle and shared a stage with Ra, Ypsilon5 and many others. Q/We take there the opportunity to ask you, still in relation with the same subject, if you can tell us some fresh news about your label. It’s been a long time we didn’t hear something from it and from Kalle. The “Fluorotronik” compilation has been also postponed a couple of times since two years. What’s the current situation with Tranceform? Is the label still alive? A/ Tranceform seem to be in a coma at the moment. Last we heard, the "Fluorotronik" CD's are pressed but that was some time ago. Let’s hope Kalle decide to release it soon since there really is no reason to delay it further. Other than that, we don’t know much about the current status of Tranceform. Q/Let’s talk about your first and high quality album, “Anima mundi”, released back in 2003. It got a very positive reception and was much appreciated by the fans and the goa community. How do you explain yourself this success? How much time did you spend to produce it? And finally, something that remains a mystery for all of us: who did create this wonderful and well-inspired album cover? A/ Perhaps people liked it because it offered an alternative to the common trance released at that time. Something more melodic and goaish sounding. The album was in production for a little more than a year, but several of the tracks include elements dating all the way back to 1999. The cover was created by our good friend Ako Zahir. Hopefully he will return to also do the cover for our next album Q/What kind of equipment do you use for your productions? A/ We have used a variety of hardware and software synthesizers, and the setup can change quite frequently. Over the years it has changed from a pretty large hardware only setup to a smaller scaled down studio which also include software synths – so now we use the best of both worlds! The main workhorse in the making of "Anima Mundi" was the legendary Waldorf Q, but that one is now gone and has been replaced by several other different sound sources. Nowadays we use JV/JD-synths a lot, particularly for pad sounds. FabFilter Twin is a favourite amongst the softsynths. Not much equipment really, but gear is merely tools to help us realise our musical vision. The real composing takes place in the most important piece of equipment – our brains! Q/Some people consider you as the continuators of the “space goa trance” genre, started by projects like Dimension 5, RA or Chi-A.D., and labels like Blue Moon or Novatekk, to just give a few examples. Have you been influenced by any of them or not? A/ Throughout the years we've had the opportunity to listen to lots and lots of great trance music, and there are probably many groups who have influenced us in some way but we have never deliberately tried to imitate a specific artist/group. However, similar to those groups, we also try to achieve a “spacey” feeling in the music but at the same time we have all chosen different methods and paths to do so. Q/How do you describe and define yourself your style and your almost “scientific” approach of your music? In which genre do you classify them? A/ Quoting yourself, "space goa trance" really has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? We try to explore more of the mystical side of the music instead of hammering away with pure energy tracks. Therefore, we rely more on several less intensive melodic lines woven together along with a carpet of heavy pad work and FX, all to create nice flowing tracks while still keeping it energetic enough for the dance floor. This is also where one of the main differences between goa and recent psychedelic music lies. With goa, you can actually listen to the tracks in your home and enjoy it as a musical piece in comparison with modern psychedelic music that is almost exclusively geared towards the dance floor. Q/Concerning now your future projects, a question that your fans are burning to ask you: when is your second album approximately going to see the light? Did you already finish some tracks? What kind of genre will it be? Old /new-skool goatrance like Anima Mundi? A/ The album is under way, and it will be finished. Since Ethereal is something of a hobby project, we can't really tell when though. Real life (school, family, work etc) tends to steal away most of our precious studio time. Also, our workflow is such that a track could take quite some time to finish. Some of the album content is already done, and we're really trying to bring the ethereal sound to new levels. More complexity, more melodies, more of mostly everything. If you want a sneak peak, check out the track “Stream of Life” on the compilation Pyramidal Trancendence. The album will go in a similar direction. At least parts of it…. Q/I heard about the existence of some parallel ambient projects you are also currently working on. Please, can you reveal us a bit more info about that? A/ Yes, we both have several parallel projects going on, and there are some ambient projects among those. We're right now unsure if any of them will be finished before the Ethereal album. You'll have to wait and see. We don’t want to reveal anything about them until we have something finished to share. The projects span over several different subgenres of ambient so there will be plenty of material to go through, record, mix etc. They're also a great way to take a break from just composing goa and do something else for a while. Q/ What are your favourite psychedelic trance groups or tracks? And why? Is there a particular artist you would like to collaborate with? A/ C: To name a few favourites: Ra, Dimension5, Transwave, Chi-A.D., Jaïa, early Cosmosis and MFG. As for collaborating, this is hard. Very hard. Everyone has their own style of composing, and two good artists can't always create a good production. F: N.D.M.A. (especially their track Vitan – pure magic!!), Astralasia, Blue Planet Corporation, Transwave and Dimension 5. I agree with Carl about collaboration. It would be very hard indeed to adjust the workflow for a collab. If I were to select an artist to cooperate with, it will most definitely be Astralasia. I’ve always loved their music and ability to mix genres and it would be great to work together with them. Q/What other kind of electronic /non-electronic music do you like listening to? Any particular artists? A/ F: Front Line Assembly, Front 242, Skinny Puppy etc. so mostly industrial music for me. I also enjoy music from the Cold Meat Industry label. Listening to just electronic music would drive me insane so I listen to a wide variety of other genres as well, for example various types of metal, goth rock, pop, country, jazz and more. C: Lots of spacesynth (Protonic Storm, Laserdance etc) and ambient for me. I also have quite a collection of traditional music, irish in particular. Q/What’s your feeling about the actual trance scene? Are you confident about the hypothetic goa resurrection? A/ C: As far as I'm concerned, the goa trance scene never really died, it simply evolved into something else. I'm very confident that as long as there are listeners who enjoy the oldskool goa sound, there will be people producing this kind of music as well. However, since the number of active labels is not what it used to be, I have the feeling that most new goa tracks will be released on web labels or something similar. F: Yes, it has certainly evolved but not in a particularly good direction. The original goa trance scene is pretty much dead so I do not believe a “resurrection” to restore the scene to its former glory is possible nowadays. It was good times indeed but those days are long gone. All we can do now is to continue producing and listening to the music we love and see where that leads us. As Carl said, there will always be some people that enjoy the music and some artists producing as well, just not as many as it used to be. Q/At the same time, do you think personally that you can bring something new to this musical genre? What kind of evolution will happen, according to you, to the psychedelic music? Perhaps we can bring something new to the genre… perhaps not. Our main goal will always be to compose music we like and if that brings something new to the genre, it’s just a nice side effect. All music is constantly evolving, and there's no telling where it might take us. Production techniques has been improved as well, with the exception of aggresive brickwall mastering which is far too popular not only in psychedelic music. Such mastering is a sure way to destroy a potentially good record. Q/And last question, what would you like to tell to your fans? A/ To enjoy the goa trance scene for what it is. While waiting for the new album, pick up some old goa records or explore the freeware music community. You might discover some real gems. Thanks a lot for this interview and all those interesting answers. And, of course, good luck for your upcoming projects! Here is a picture of their studio:

Yes yes, i edited my previous post.

A "BEST OF 2006 - Albums/Compilations Covers / Art Work" would be nice, and maybe even stimulating. But that would have to be a separate thread from the "BEST OF 2006 - RELEASES" thread. Edited.

Psy, prog, chill, etc. ... all styles that circulate on Psynews.

Hello psynewsers! Most of you already know (from last year) that, every end of the year, Psynews hosts the competition of the releases! For those who are new on our forums, I'm talking about the "best of 2006" in the psychedelic trance music scene and the main music styles that get listened to by our members. As 2006 is finished, we can officially review all our 2006 albums, or even re-listen, make our TOP 5 best 2006 albums and/or compilations, come to Psynews, post it, and see the results. Albums/compilations that will make your "best of 2006" valid have to be released in the year 2006, and they have to be at least in one of these cathegories: psychedelic trance, full on, neo full on, israeli full on, dark psy, dark full on, forest psy, suomi, goa, oldschool, newschool, progressive trance, progressive-electro trance, ambient, chill-out, psychedelic chill-out, etc. Generally the styles that circulate on Psynews. What you have to do here is to post your TOP 5 releases of 2006, in the right order (meaning that number 1 will be your favourite release of 2006): 1. Artist Name (or Group Name, or Project Name) - Album Name - Label - Release Date 2. Artist Name (or Group Name, or Project Name) - Album Name - Label - Release Date 3. Artist Name (or Group Name, or Project Name) - Album Name - Label - Release Date 4. Artist Name (or Group Name, or Project Name) - Album Name - Label - Release Date 5. Artist Name (or Group Name, or Project Name) - Album Name - Label - Release Date This is how we will calculate the scores (number of points): 1. gets 5 points 2. gets 4 points 3. gets 3 points 4. gets 2 points 5. gets 1 point. According to your TOP 5, we will create a database, and all albums will have a score (points) and a number of votes. Every album that is mentioned in your TOP 5 has 1 correspondant vote. If an album gets mentioned 10 times, it will have 10 votes; its score (number of points summed) will depend on which position of the TOP 5 it has been included by each one of you. To refresh your memory (or to give you a preview) on what kind of information we provide from our database, click here and you will find the results of the "Best of 2005", as an example. The BEST OF 2006 thread is open between 01.01.2007 - 01.02.2007. We will announce you what time we close the topic on 01.02.2006. This means you will have one month to decide which are the best releases of 2006! You can freely post your "best of 2005" list as you wish, may it be even longer than 5 releases, may it be splitted in genres and subgenres. We just kindly ask you to add also your final TOP 5 at the end of your post... like a best-of of your best-of, only 5 releases that is! This way we will be able to make a calculation and present you a chart. All participants in this "BEST OF" thread can edit their posts as many times as they want, until we close the thread. This means that if you change your mind about your favourite releases of 2006, you can post a new TOP 5, but please use the EDIT POST function of our forums, and don't write a NEW POST. We hope that many of you will participate in this exercise, and remember, the bigger the database gets, the more relevant the results will be!

"Best of 2006" is up next, on the 1st of January 2007! This pinned thread will go down, and a new one will replace it. Listen to your 2006 CDs/releases, think, make a list, make your top! We'll begin th year 2007 by asking you: Which are the best releases of 2006? Prepare all of you!

Please all read the rules of this section. We would like members to stick to reviewing the album. We also ask members NOT to review samples, but the full tracks.

I'm surprised Insejn hasn't posted in this thread yet. Of course the best SA act is: ARTIFAKT There are other SA acts i like, but the best is Artifakt.

Oh, I forgot... other romanian act asked me to listen to their music once and asked my opinnion. It was goa, not bad, but it was a bit "shy"... they needed to work harder. So i guess i do support romanian acts, if i see potential there! (at least considering my musical taste)

I do, cause romanian acts are not many. Some years ago (2002) i had some webspace, and i did a small webpage (html only, but it came out nice) for a romanian act (ATMA) and i uploaded a couple of tracks for people to download. Of course he gave me the tracks. He was really excited about it, and gave the link to many people. It was a good way of promotion, cause many people had heard about him until them, and were curious to hear his music... and in the beginning, the only way to hear his music was go to the parties. Now he released his debut album, he's having organised a promo tour in eastern Europe, and i'm gonna do my best and go to the party in my town, and buy the CD. No matter if i will like it or not, it will be a collection item, cause ATMA is a friend of mine, and he's a cool guy. But i think i'll like it, i always did at parties! You can also check ATMA's debut album, by clicking here for samples. (see? i do it even in this thread!)

No, I appologise in this case. I'm ashamed of myself, but i didn't get a chance to listen to Mubali's last release. I need to do that before doing an interview. I haven't had time for anything this year, except for few samples here and there.

Very nice guys

I noticed it makes you horny.

I've been around, busy busy. NP: still radio, some tune.

Radio, Beyonce.

You'll do a chillout mix? Cool, contests are always cool!