Otto Matta

Not a joke.

What the hell has Astral Projection been doing for the last five or six years anyway? I stopped paying attention after that one crap album - I even forget what it was called - with Trance Dance and Mahadeva '99 or whatever it was.

I never quite understood the hype around Izik. He definitely had a unique style with Witchcraft and other tracks from those days, and some tracks were really cool, but I always found his music empty in a way. And Psycho Toons in my opinion was not a very good album at all. Green House Effect, on the other hand, has some of his best work, even if it's a different style. Anyway, he seems to shift his style according to trends, which is dubious.

I'm totally out of the loop with psy ambient/chillout stuff these days. I gave up a while ago when it all started sounding the same. If I were you I'd skip Psyshop, hop on over to Sending Orbs and buy all three of their releases: Kettel, Secede and Funckarma.

You call that being objective?

Good stuff, ya? When I first got it I listened to Pinch of Peer like 50 times in a row.

Let me guess...Kylie Minogue? No? Cher. Boyz 2 Men?

Yeah, man! Do it! Put your stuff everywhere! Steel yourself for criticism both ways, though.

Totally agree with Ormion here. There was a time, especially between about 1999 and 2002 where our scene was depressingly devoid of the richness that preceded it, with only a few projects coming out that were of much value. It was a state of flux, and was in many ways responsible for what we have today, so we had to go through it, but it wasn't fun. These days, however, the scene has broadened to an extent that there are interesting things happening in all its subgenres. We have lots of options, and those options, I hope, will keep creating more options.

Right. I read in a science magazine a few years ago a really nice metaphor for luck and success. Imagine you live in the center of an apple orchard, and every day you have to go out into the apple orchard and pick a basket of apples. If you go to the same place every day you're bound to eventually run out of apples to pick. But if you go out systematically to a different location in the orchard every day, or even a random location, the chances of always having a basket of apples is dramatically increased. In other words, we are at all times surrounded by opportunity. We can choose either to put ourselves, or the representation of ourselves (i.e. our music), in as many places as possible and therefore increasing our opportunities, or we can simply do the same thing every day - like only post our tracks here at Psynews - and therefore guarantee ourselves little opportunity.

Yeah, I think it's crap, too. Crap with corn in it.

Luck to me doesn't really exist. In other words, we make our own luck, although talent does play a minor role. We create luck by working hard at wanting to achieve something - ambition. Goes back to that old saying, "Art is 5% inspiration, 95% perspiration." I've seen ambition make even mediocre artists very successful. No artist can expect talent to carry them to the top. So, regarding ambition and success in music with actual people, it's obvious that getting one's music in as many ears as possible will help one be successful. It's all marketing. And if you've got a great product to sell, and if you have the recommendations of already established people, even better. By the way: NP: Miraculix - The Arrival...Best psy CD I've heard in a long time. Great shit from beginning to end.

I'm with ya, Stalker. Music is a very social phenomenon, like I've said in other places. Music itself is dead. It's the music combined with the impressionable opinions of a group of people that make it successful or unsuccessful. LSD, for instance, is a track that in my opinion is nothing really special, but what I think it has going for it is that it's accessible to many people. It's easy to listen to, yet has a certain flair that makes it very likeable to a lot of people. The stuff that is of better quality, but is perhaps harder to access by the masses, will not achieve the same success. And then there's the whole issue of "luck", which is another thing altogether...

Of course we do.

Boshke Beats Wizzy Noise - Cyclotron album

Nice work, Stalker! You must feel tense sharing your stuff here, but I think you deserve a hand for your track. It definitely succeeds in creating a the effect of an ancient temple. I have some comments: 1. I really like your slow and patient intro. I love how the bassline begins, how it kinda sneaks in (these kind of surprises are crucial to good music). That said, I think it does your track a disservice to do practically the same thing half way into it after the break. Takes away from the novelty of it. 2. I feel your major percussive elements are a little too "dry". You create such a dark, humid atmosphere with your other sounds, so a bit more atmosphere in the rhythmic elements I think would work nicely. Especially since you don't seem to be trying to kill the dancefloor, in which case a crisper rhythm would be called for. 3. The second half I feel could use some more elements. The slow descending structure is very cool, and you pull it off, but I would expect some new element, either melodic and/or percussive to be added with every descending note, and then cut them out like you do toward the end. 4. Also the descending notes come in like a second too late. Match them up with the first beat of the new measure for what I feel would be a tighter, stronger effect. 5. Other than that, nicely done, man, and thanks for sharing. I like this track much better than the last one, which wasn't bad, just wasn't cohesive in my opinion.

Pleiadians

Has anyone claimed Juno Reactor yet?

Nah, we're just showing off.

Miraculix - The Arrival (I listened to much of this today and like it a lot.) Para Halu - The World of Peace (I'm listening to this now, and it's refreshingly original. Me likey.) Penta - Pentafiles Psyfactor - Evil Inside Twisted System - Core (Good, except there are FAR too many goofy samples, which might in fact ruin this music for me.) Twisted System - The Dealers Battle of the Future Buddhas - Demonoizer Indoor - Progressive Trance Kemic-Al - Twisted Parameters (Listened to this a little today. Very unique, a little strange, don't know quite what to think of it yet. Some of it reminded me of a psytrance version of Woob, which is a good thing.) Funckarma - Elastiq Bourbon 5 (Listened to this three times today and love it. It has that notalgic, melodic, synthetic, Arovane-ish IDM sound I love. Three out of three for Sending Orbs!)

Ha.. I'm not listening to any Aphex Twin, inspired by the other thread.

One of my all-time favorites. Love the cross-panned, whipping crashes towards the end.

And then if you like that, definitely look into Global Chillage by The Irresistable Force (which is the same guy, Mixmaster Morris, who is collaborating with Namlook on Dreamfish). Really cool stuff.

Then yeah, Dreamfish is probably your answer for Namlook stuff.

I read the first page of replies, and don't want to read the rest, but what you're looking for is Delta - Send In... Send Back, Downhill - Downhill (downtempo Delta), and Spirallianz - Blast Food. Also worth checking for that sound is, of course, the Schlab sound - I'd recommend Volume 5 or Volume 7; 2 is really good, but perhaps too psychedelic. Boshke Beats - Chronika might also be a good one. Edit: Oh, another one is PPS Project. And although later Spirallianz might not be your thing, Blast Food may. Check out the track One Way Ltd. for a great example.