Jikkenteki

Regarding the "Change Your Name" thing.... And what if an artist WANTS to be known as someone who explores a wide range of musical territory. I fall in the camp of the less names the better. I work in one side-project with a different name already, but imo that is one too many. The million different names doesn't help anyone but the manic-type fans who explore every little detail of every artist. The regular fans it just confuses more I think.

My vote for the recent stuff goes to The Commercial Hippies' and to Hydragylph's most recent albums.

Keep in mind that this percentage is also usually that percentage of the wholesale price the label sells the cd for to distributors, etc. Its not 15-20% of the price the consumer pays at the record shop.

As was mentioned before, this is usually wrong. Back in my music school days we had a class on music business where we actually went through the average contract with a major label in the US and learn how to bargain for a better deal and all. Generally the standard offer terms went something like: the artist makes between 5 to 7 cents in royalties per album sold. This money they receive AFTER all the recording studio costs, etc have been deducted from those royalities. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that at 7 cents a cd (10 cents if you have a REALLY good contract) that it will take a massive amount of sales to recoup that money before the artist sees any royalities from their CD sales at all. Most of the money mainstream artists make in live performance and in the publishing rights (through radio airplay and the like). The actual cash they earn for their actual CD sales is generally very little. Hence why selling 200,000 copies of an album in the mainstream record business is considered a massive failure that will most likely get you dropped from the label's roster.

The cover seems like a nod to the "psysex" roots if you ask me.

In my opinion, Goa trance is now basically a museum piece (and I mean this in the best way). The everyday rank and file artists of its heyday are mostly forgotten while the classics of the genre are well known, well hailed, and on display. People regularly go to the "museum" and look at them and fondly say "yeah, there was some quality stuff back in the day". Some people visit the gallery more than others, a few people try to recreate the same kind of art, regardless, everyone can enjoy the classics from time to time, but in everyday life, the rest of the world has moved on to other things. This isn't good, nor bad, it just is... It's art and art is never static.

The first disc is ambient, the second is trance.

Finally some Symphonics stuff sees the light of day. 11 played this track at my release party in June and it was a pretty serious stormer on the floor....

Yes, Psyshop doesn't carry it and probably never will. At the moment, among the major online shops PAR-2 is only dealing with Saiko Sounds Here, although this will probably change with the next couple releases. You can also get it directly at the url in my sig.

I'm well aware of the differences between "goa" basslines and the so called "full on" ones and I agree with you on a lot of points (although to be honest I find the bulk of goa basslines to be just as generic as full on ones... and I'm a very serious goa fan just to set the record straight). I just find it amusing that so many people will completely write off so much music on the basis of one part of a track that is, when all is said and done, really only a supporting part of a track (lots of exceptions granted). Couple this with the fact that I'm sure A LOT Of those classic goa artists would have been making much more in your face "modern" bass sounds back in the day if it had been as easier back then. Basically no matter what a well known artist does they are screwed... if they change, they are "selling out", if they don't change they are "ripping off their fans by selling them the same thing over and over" ... but we drift off topic.

Possibly not entirely related to Transwave since I haven't heard anything new from them yet, but I seem to notice a trend recently where people only seem to listen to the bassline production and if it is vaguely strong at all, they instantly write off everything else about the track by saying its "full on". A large number of the old goa classics have the same damn basslines yet nowone seems to care to remember and somehow they aren't "full on" purely based on the fact that the bass production wasn't as good back in the day. For that reason alone I tend to ignore any and all accusations of being "full on sell outs" until I listen to everything else. I wish people would listen to all the track like they used to back in the day...

The Long Walk Home isn't progressive in any overt way, although I think a bit of progressive style song structure creeps into a few tracks on the trance disc. As was mentioned earlier generally speaking you could say disc 1 is downtempo, freestyle stuff and disc 2 is psytrance with a strong melodic bend (and a bunch of weird time signatures as well).

Can you give us any clues as what might be the problem? What you where doing when it got messed up? Plug ins you are using? screen shots? Anyway.... elsewise your question is simply too vague to answer... As it is the only this i can offer is to check if you have something on the master channel crushing everything.

It serves as a certificate of authenicity to the eventual finder that they have indeed discovered the actual treasure and not a bootleg copy of the treasure. This is becoming an increasing problem in treasure hunting these days requiting sure steps so that treasure hunters know they aren't being ripped off by people who are simply downloading and burning copies of rare hard to find treasure and passing them off as the real thing..

Somehow I knew you were talking about this video before even seeing it. But you are missing the secret point. Those wrist bands of his are wireless midi percussion controllers so he's actually really "playing" the air drums. I can't critize him too much, I tend to go similarily nuts when playing live now and again, although the bulk of the set is still behind the computer working with the controllers or playing stuff on the keyboard....

Yeah I'm a big Talamasca fan. His Crystal Skulls track still gets a lot of play in my DJ sets. The 22 minute Odyssey also appeals to my epic track senses.

Shpongle !!! My damn computer is broken AGAIN!

PAR-2 - Swamp Monster!!!

This is pretty standard with distibution in Japan with the album being released here first. Usually its a month earlier but I've seen some cases were it was much much longer (although the most extreme case I've seen wasn't in the psy-side of the music business). In alot of the electronic music world here many Japanese distributors want first release or they simply won't deal with the release at all. Several years ago most labels won't complain since Japan only amounted to damn nere 50% of many labels' sales, but things aren't what they used to be sales-wise anymore. Twisted's stuff usually does come out in Japan first though. The last Shpongle album did, Unusual Suspects 2 did... no reason to think this time will be any different.

I've always had the best luck with choirs by combining sources. There is a sample cd I got somewhere from Pro Samples that is basically a "best of" selection from the way too expensive for me at the moment "Classical Choir" CD set. I've found when I mix that with choir patches from my Proteus, Korg M1 vst and a various other sources together I usually get pretty results. Also taking some of those layers and "lo-fi"ing them with eq, light flanging, etc, actually often makes the whole some more realistic in the mix (I've found the sample thing works for strings as well).

Vibrasphere - Echo Talamasca - Music Divinorum These two have gotten steady play since the day I got them.

I can't say much about www.itathens.com directly, but I will say that I've repeatedly had problems with Greece's Postal System with most things I've ever sent there taking up to 2 month to 3 months to arrive even if they are sent airmail. It's happened with such regularity that at this point I just assume that its the post office's fault when dealing with Greece. Whether or not this is the case with www.itathens.com I don't know, but I thought that it is a point worth making in this discussion.

Finally got some new music for the first time in awhile. Kind of a strange mix but today's package contained... Filteria - Heliopolis Hydraglyph - Kinetic Protoculture - Circadians The Commercial Hippies - If You Can't Stand The Heat Various Artists - Apsara Various Artists - Chromasome presents Tranceformers Various Artists - Raja Ram Presents The Evolution Of Expanded Conciousness LP

3/4 and triplets are not the same. Simon P's common trick is usually turning triplet 4/4 into straight 4/4. He does occasionally do some actually time sig changes as well (Snakey Shaker does go into 3/4 in the middle for a bit). However the famous "morph" he does is triplet to straight or the reverse straight to triplet.

Zekazy - Unicorn http://www.saikosounds.com/english/display...ase.asp?id=5297