Paul Eye

Next up, track 4. This one was finished in early October 1998, and I have to say that personally, I don't like this one at all and I almost left it off the collection. Definitely influenced by Transwave's album Helium (the first goa trance album I bought, apparently around the end of September 1998), I guess this was meant to be nothing more than a quick experiment. It didn't even have a title until I had to think of something for this collection (and naming it "untitled" would have been just meh). It does feature a little gimmick in that the kick (and by extension, the entire rhythm section) is on the offbeat, if it seems to you that there's something a bit off about this one. File this under "growing pains", there's much better material coming up

Next up, track 3. This one is also from September 1998, and was finished just a day after the previous track (so I've probably been working on these somewhat simultaneously). It's very much a twin sister to the previous one in theme and structure. If you're wondering about the peculiar title, to quote Wikipedia it "is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, and one of the brightest stars in the night sky". If you'd ask me where I found the name of this star, the only answer I can give is "I have absolutely no idea".

Next up, track 2. This one is from September 1998, and goes back to a time when my tracks started to take on a more "goa trance" vibe. Inspired by outer space, this one is still quite simple in its arrangement, but this is when my sound really started to evolve, slowly but surely. Do keep in mind that I was 17 years old when I made this

Release info here, original post below. 25 years ago on this exact date I finished what would become what I consider the last track I did in Impulse Tracker. Today, I released a collection containing 12 of those tracks, and I'm feeling quite surreal. Get the release here for the affordable price of "name your price" (which means "free" if you put in 0€ as the price): https://pauleye.bandcamp.com/album/once-upon-a-time Tracklist: 01. Time Traveller 02. Satellite View 03. Fomalhaut 04. Liquid Crystal 05. Hyperspaceoids (2.0 Mix) 06. Virtual Trip Into Eternity 07. LumiSaDe 08. Phylogenesis 09. Hallucinative Space Voyage 10. Seven Circles 11. Spiritual Frequencies 12. Meganeura -------- Original initial announcement post -------- Well well, it's time to open the history books. After literally years of procrastination and general uncertainty on my part, I'll finally be releasing a collection of my old Impulse Tracker tracks from way back in 1998/1999 later this spring. This one is the opening track, and it was actually made in December 2000 as a bit of a "retro" throwback to early 1998 (is at least my best guess at the reason why I made this one in the first place). The track is quite a laidback and straightforward intro for the collection, running at a moderate 130 BPM. I won't bore you here with the technical hoops I had to jump through to actually get the video and audio done in a way that I was satisfied with, but there's a geeky technical rundown in the video description you can read if you're interested. I'll be posting these videos once a week, 12 tracks all in all. The whole collection will be on my Bandcamp on May 18.

I kinda agree here. Nothing really special on the downtempo side of things (or maybe I just missed all the really good ones). I have to say especially the new CBL was pretty underwhelming. Now for the Morphic Resonance album, I kinda like it, but I just feel his sound got a bit too sparkly, even if the aggressiveness is still there. On the other hand, the Triquetra album is grit and dirt done absolutely right. It'll definitely be among my favourite goa trance albums from this decade.

I didn't even get enough 2023 goa trance to fill a top 10 list lol. So this doesn't mean that I'd have fully enjoyed all of these. The downtempo list is also a top 10 only because that's basically all the 2023 released downtempo I got. Most of the music I got last year was something else. Uptempo: 1. Triquetra - Myriad Vision - Suntrip Records 2. Proxeeus - Weep From Within - Goa Madness Records 3. Xenomorph - Negative Time - Suntrip Records 4. Prana - Sense Of Unity - Matsuri Digital 5. Profetia - Divergent Species - Self Released 6. Morphic Resonance - Extrasensory Perception - Suntrip Records 7. Triquetra - Access Denied - Suntrip Records 8. Ephedra - Deep Nothingness EP - Goa Madness Records 9. Veasna - Providence - Goa Madness Records Downtempo: (not in order yet) 1. Children Of The Bong - (Not Sirius) - Disco Gecko 2. Asura - Renaissance - N.L.E. Records 3. Sundial Aeon - Regenesis - Impact Studio Records 4. Seb Taylor - Collected Downtempo Vol. 5 - Tribal Shift Records 5. Proxeeus - Cydathria EP - La Transe Insoumise 6. Benji Vaughan - Eidolon - Twisted Records 7. VA - Ethneomystica Vol. 11 - Mystic Sound Records 8. Cosmic Trigger - Forager's Delight - Twisted Records 9. VA - Save The Children - Ensancha El Alma Records 10. Carbon Based Lifeforms - Seeker - Leftfield Records (added the Xenomorph EP, and assuming single releases are okay here, the Prana single, uptempo almost a top 10 now)

Here's my downtempo set from the latest Trip To Goa, played on October 6th at Kaivohuone, Helsinki. Features a selection of music mostly with a dub-influenced backbone. Not much ambient parts here, since my time slot was 23-00. This one was recorded live at the event. Tracklist: Spatialize - Zen In Frankfurt Bluetech - Prayers For Rain (Ott Remix) Key-G - Curled Up Dimensions (Geoglyph Remix) Globular & Geoglyph - Flight Stimulator Radioactive Sandwich - Homunculus Radioactive Sandwich - Melek Taus (Live Edit) Boucle Infinie - Escape (Cartoon Theory Remix) Eat Static - Persepolis (Shpongle Static Mix) Umberloid - Neon Tetra

Ooh, nice. Will need to take a listen one of these days

After quite some silence, and not much gig activity on my part, I was invited to play in Tampere, Finland last weekend. And I have to tell you, that was a blast. I really haven't had this much fun playing a DJ set in years, so this was really what I needed. I played the closing set*, so I set the intensity proper for a closing. Thanks @Penzoline for the invite, I'll come back whenever *actually we did play a completely improvised back2back set as the actual closing, but as this was decided on location, I treated mine as the closing when picking the tracks. Tracklist: Hallucinogen - Astral Pancakes Triquetra - Escape From The Withered Temple Morphic Resonance - Chronos (Hypnoxock Remix) Total Eclipse - Absolute Zero Veasna - Infrared Slinky Nuns - Caught In The Zipper Rhythmystec - Plutonica Proxeeus - Ephraim Waite UX - Chameleon (Pixelmorph Mix Reloaded) Pleiadians - Taygeta The World Beyond - The Sphere (Ascending Towards Star-Eaters To Become The One) Profetia - Chaos Theory

Yeah, much of modern goa trance just sounds like fullon in a disguise, not that I really have anything against good fullon anyway. Styles keep merging and shifting, whether we like it or not. In any case, seems like the worst "let's just layer a ton of shit just because we can" mentality has faded, although I do admit that I haven't really been following the scene that much so in a broader sense I have no idea what's going on these days. Luckily we still have artist like Proxeeus* and Triquetra who both put out really nice albums this year, not exactly taking the super clean production route to get there. Morphic Resonance of course also released a new album this year, but somehow I think his production got a bit too clean and sparkly. * Non-Euclidean Geometry is still one of the best goa trance albums of the past decade and then some, tracks from it keep constantly finding their way into my (although very much fewer these days) DJ sets

So, I took a quick listen (now that it's out) just to see (hear) if they fixed the "oops the ending of Demention is in mono" mistake, and unfortunately, they didn't. I definitely don't know if even Simon has a version without this error, and yes, I remember him stating somewhere years ago that it actually was a mistake he made when mixing down the tracks. I'd be curious to know what was the source audio for this remaster. I don't really know if I can justify to myself paying again for the digital version of these albums as I have the originals (which is the case of several remasters that have popped up in recent years in this remastering trend).

And there's also the Shamanix Remix (by Simon) on the TIP Blue compilation, so it seems that's also a remix of a remix XD

Continuing on the subject of remixes and Hallucinogen, here's how to COMPLETELY ruin the original track. If anything, this proves that you can't just take whichever track you want, strip out the original kick/bass and replace it with a modern polished fullon bass section and expect it to work. That, and sprinkling in random bits of the original and littering the remix with tired psytrance clichés. The original track (referring to part 2) is such an organic entity that trying to pick it apart just ends in failure. I mean, I don't recall hearing one single decent *trance remix so far (Ott's dub version is of course nice). You're welcome to prove me wrong.

28 years also: Hallucinogen - Astral Pancakes (1995) Soundaholix Remix (2023)

Oh, so that's the track I've heard Benji play in a few sets of his (can't remember if a Prometheus live or Younger Brother DJ set).

There's of course also the Star Sounds Orchestra versions of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik / Die Zauberflöte but they're so fucking terrible I don't even want to link to a youtube video. Here's the Discogs release page: https://www.discogs.com/release/641933-Star-Sounds-Orchestra-Feat-Blue-Violin-Lets-Mozart Maybe this is getting a bit off topic XD

Well, those aren't even a decade apart.

Does this count? 42 years from 1975 to 2017

Can anyone find something 30 years apart? Staffan's was 29 years

28 years: The Infinity Project - Feeling Weird (1993) Hypnoxock Remix (2021) Okay, so Feeling Very Weird came out in 1995 on the TIP Feeling Weird album, but it's pretty much the same track as the 1993 original.

Sandman - Starfinder (1997) Emok & Martin Vice & Atmos Remix (2017) Thankfully the remix isn't your typical watered down psyprog remix, but a surprisingly good one. I've played it in a few sets of mine

Well, considering that around 90% of my email inbox traffic is from Bandcamp, there's your answer. On Yuggoth? But yeah, I check the forums roughly once or twice a week, often less than that too, sometimes more. I just feel I don't have much to say anymore.

Well, I'm not really sure if I'm "missing out" on anything since I barely even listen to any *trance anymore. I'll support some of my favourite artists of course, but that's as far as I care to go these days.

You expected a melodic explosion with Proxeeus? Thankfully I got pretty much what I expected, and with From Beyond being completely reworked from an early version I have, most of this album was new material to me. I like it, can't really say more than that yet. This and the new Morphic Resonance and Triquetra albums are pretty much the only goa albums I've bought in the past few years.

Well, at least the Hallucinogen remasters are done by Kevin Metcalfe and not some random nobody, so this should be good. I'm actually more interested in what tracks they're putting on the upcoming singles/compilation tracks collection. Won't be getting the vinyls in any case, as I have no use for them.