Basilisk

Agreed... the inconsistency is what leads this nominally powerful form of dance music to sound washed out and ultimately uninteresting. To have so many climactic rushes stacked on top of one another is self-defeating; many full-on artists have no true conception of building tension and providing the kind of cathartic release that one would expect from a quality trance experience. Still, it is only the case with some producers... others just seem to miss the point, or their target niche is that segment of the audience that simply nibbles at the dance floor. It's hard to say, really. I just try to avoid the stuff that jumps down a level too damn often.

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You know, I think I confused it for the first album (which is pretty rare by now) otherwise I set the price higher because I was not yet totally sure I wanted to sell. Either way, no big deal

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I find all the big sellers on eBay charge way too much even for stuff that isn't so rare... with all kinds of hidden fees, exorbitant shipping rates (especially from Germany), the somewhat appealing prices can soon blossom and then you wait 2 whole months for a box of mold-encrusted CDs to arrive. Yes, some jackass sent me one of those German 2CD fold-out digipak releases coated in black mold! Disgusting! I stopped eBaying with that pretty much... too sick of paying $30+ for one CD that initially was listed at something reasonable like $9 (plus exchange rate, plus Paypal fee, plus shipping 14,50 euros etc.)

Saikosounds typically has a lot of old school lurking around... steps to check it all out: 1) look up all the relevant labels--Dragonfly, Phonokol, YoYo, and BNE especially. 2) search for specific artists i.e. CHI-A.D. 3) scan the "recently restocked" list for batches of old school You will probably find a great deal of quality old school CDs that way... just about every order I make with them I manage to snag a bunch

Such an analogy doesn't work. If you could download food for free, wouldn't you?

12 Moons and Opsis are at the forefront of my mind.

Bom $hankar!

No, you still can't beat putting the pope on a Space Tribe cover collage:

Dream on... donations don't work. In an ideal world, sure... but not in this one.

No, really, it's just that you have to offer something cheaper, more reliable, and in essence--better than the illegal alternative, at a price that people don't balk at. Yeah, I know that sounds impossible! What would really work is a paradigm shift. Consider for a moment value-added features... in fact, imagine MySpace custom-tailored to the psytrance crowd. You have to have the works: personal profiles, blogs, forums, radio, global event listings, etc. Plus, of course, music to download. You give artists/labels/whoever the choice of how to share files: for free, streamed, for a price, or whatever, with a standardized per-unit cost (by the meg in other words) and keep the price low. Some of that money goes back to the artists of course. I mean, look at how popular MySpace is with the psytrance label posse now--nearly everyone has a profile up with some songs to check out. Imagine you could either download those songs for free or easily pay for the ones that cost something. Of course you would also code in a way to browse all the music available for purchase or free download, rate individual songs/albums/mixes, and generally integrate everything good about social networking sites with a killer digital downloading app that actually respects the Long Tail i.e. doesn't bar anyone from participating and selling their music. If there is a good way to search for stuff then you're set--the more content the merrier! This is total stream-of-consciousness rambling that will never amount to much but it's conceivable, you understand... not as a flimsy one-man spare-time project but if you get some start-up cash and a team of good coders and designers the thing could be built and it could be big. Really, you just have to offer something so much more awesome than skulking around on Soulseek getting flipped off by jackasses who automatically ban your leeching or whatever. I mean, this is the truth: pirating music is bloody easy but it is not without a certain amount of awkwardness. I think that giving any producer the power to promote, distribute, and sell their music on a well-designed social networking site will have immediate advantages... you would instantly be building a pool of music the pirate networks would not be able to keep up with... I mean, you know my line RAH--I have huge respect for what you're trying to do--I think its the way forward (or at least the way through). Embracing the digital age is what people have to do; selling atoms is so last century! Haha, well you know I am not that much of an extremist (I love my physical goods) but the point is that physical releases are easy prey for the digitizing mafia. Why pay for something when you can get it for free? True, most people follow that idea! So give them something better than "just free" if you see what I mean... give them a mash-up of Facebook and Beatport/iTunes with MySpace-like customization flexibility! Now, chances are this will happen (think about it: there's a new social networking phenomenon springing up every six months!) but I doubt it would be very psytrance-oriented... but then again, why bother? With a concept like this you could take a huge market share. I wager we'll see something very much like it soon enough.

Still dreaming, eh? Here are some facts for you: - many pirating sites do a better job promoting new releases than the labels do (check Google and you'll see) - legal digital downloads often cost more than the physical product and the selection is never as good as what you can find on pirate networks - downloading has become the way people procure music yet there is no comprehensive legal source for psytrance music online - there are several barriers to entry should one wish to buy psytrance (i.e. one must own a credit card) - releases never go out-of-stock on Soulseek and if they do, one can always check back in a few minutes - many psytrance fans come from countries where people do not typically have the kind of disposable income many of us Westerners are accustomed to (an important point many people gloss over) Downloading is a symptom of the psytrance industry's failure to address the challenges of a rapidly changing marketplace. If the artists, labels, and distributors can cooperate to develop a central portal that offers a huge selection of music at an affordable price in a variety of formats there's a chance the tide could be turned... I think you have to look at it this way: the vast majority of psytrance listeners get their music illegally not only because it is free, but also because it is extremely convenient, takes place instantly, and nearly anything can be found. There is not a legal service in the world that comes close. The flawed paradigm that has precipitated this situation can be expressed as follows: the industry does not need to respond to changes in customer buying habits; customer buying habits should conform to the will of the industry. This is why hundreds of CDs have been inscribed with the phrase "copy kills your music" over the years, but only one release (that I have heard of) included a spare CD to give to a friend. No wonder so many people simply pirate music these days--the culture of entitlement that dominates the psytrance industry practically ensures it. As such, the industry has not harmoniously adapted to changing circumstances; the system has become twisted. Distributors routinely rip off their clients just to stay alive, labels don't pay their artists, and so on down the line. It all seems quite dysfunctional--a mad scramble for the elusive consumer dollar. So it goes...

Sadly, your free content is rather flimsy. This is a for-profit venture you are running here, and, as such, this would be considered spam.

The problem is one of volume... there is a ton of psytrance released, despite what the "copy kills your music" campaign was suggesting. Now, while the usual call is for "innovation" I for one am quite content with "distinction." I don't need to hear something blindingly original but it damn well better sound different from the next release over, you know? I revolt against same-sounding releases and dig into the ones that stand out. This means that there are times where a perfectly well constructed album goes unloved by me simply because it never becomes distinct in my ear. I like the process of learning to recognize music... but this is impossible if the music is without a hook. I find a lot of psytrance (dark, full-on, progressive, and chill out as well) suffers from sounding indistinct. Subsequently I try and wait it out for albums like It^Cetra, Labyrinth, Party Animals, Corridor Of Mirrors, Zero.Six.After, Solid State, Fiction, Dreamtime Enhancer, and even Byte Me... you know, stuff where I won't be searching my head five minutes after putting it on wondering "now what was that last disc I just threw on?" and coming up stumped. Too much of what is released is entirely disposable little more than a year after it comes out so why bother?

Oh yeah? http://forum.isratrance.com/viewtopic.php/.../107294/forum/8