Blair Thaumic

I'm going to a psytrance party tomorrow night, my first in 3 years, and it prompted me to think out loud about why psytrance (and even moreso goa) has been so obscure in the US. Feel free to add your own observations from wherever you live. * Lack of venues Other than festivals, there aren't many places to hear the music! I'm jealous of countries like Belgium and Japan where psy/goa is played in clubs; that rarely happens here. * Size of the country Maybe small countries have more of a pressure cooker effect? Add together all psy in the US and some kind of a scene is there, but it's very spread out. * No physical, offline presence US record stores are almost all retro-oriented, sell vinyl exclusively, and usually don't bother with dance music. Maybe this pushes psytrance towards a more atomized following; less party-based, more bedroom-based? * Psytrance isn't especially 'cool' in a way that relates to American culture Americans like irony, self-awareness, and aloof detachment, often with elements of nihilism. Psytrance tends to be earnest, direct, and optimistic, in a way that goes against both the mainstream and most subcultures. * Psytrance isn't associated with Black culture in the way that most American music is Debatable, but I think it's at least a factor. Trance in general is stereotyped as a 'White' music (There's a little bit of irony in that... arguably much of the DNA of trance is found in disco and hi-NRG, which in turn were influenced by gospel and soul. But that's a post for another time.) * Association with drugs A BIG obstacle to throwing parties. AFAIK, Japan is very anti-drug, and still has a healthy psytrance scene. But see below for why the US might be different... * Racism White Americans have a history of seeing dance music as dangerous because of its association with Black culture. Combine with the 'War on Drugs' (which has always had a large racial component), and you have a recipe for more laws that restrict dancing and dance venues. Something like psytrance is going to have a tough time in this context... while not seen as Black, it's seen as dancing on (lots of) drugs, which rests on old racial fault lines. EDM and rap are sort-of accepted, because they make money and frat boys drink to them. If goa ever becomes music for frat boys to drink to, same deal with goa. Alternatively, psy/goa might actually have a better chance in the US now, since the media didn't promote it much to begin with. ;p People are also starting to revisit 90s rave as something retro and cool, and that might generate some interest in classic goa. I'm not holding my breath for that, but it would be nice to see.

BTW, even Brainfood is welcome if I hear a good enough case against it. Here's my case /for/ it. Yes, it's a repetitive album, both from track to track and within the tracks themselves. And it's not especially melodic most of the time, favoring spiralling, interlocking patterns over tuneful riffs. Here's the thing. I like those qualities. I find its repetition entrancing, even groovy in a way. Tracks generally don't progress or 'go anywhere', but they are dynamic: they rise, fall, and rise again. And the sounds that it does use, besides being deployed in a fairly trippy manner (see above), are a good balance of organic/acidic and cosmic/spacy. Some tracks do have nice melodies/riffs as well (Paradized, Tranceformation) Nor do I mind the somewhat dated sounding production. The album has a dreamlike quality, and slicker production wouldn't necessarily be right for the atmosphere that it wants to invoke. If that doesn't convince you, fair enough. But I honestly find it good and highly original, so it puzzles me that it's considered one of the worst Goa albums ever.

OK. So, I like almost all old Goa. Melodic, unmelodic, fast, slow, repetitive, non repetitive... you get the idea. Here's a challenge for you, should you choose to accept it. Is there Goa that even I can't like or defend in some way? No nitzonot, since that's really its own style (Greek uplifting is allowed.) Also, include some reason for your pick (I may or may not agree, but it's more interesting that way.)

I confess to ignorance. But listening to it now, I don't think it's that bad.

I was never sold on Absolum, Talamasca, or Fractal Glider's albums either. (and yes, I've heard Talamasca - Beyond The Mask. Not really my thing.)

Forgot to mention: Genetic - Motion Picture Flippin Bixies - Sorkka Sonic And Star bloody Sounds bloody Orchestra. German hippy psytrance at its best.

He's had tracks on a few different compilations. I'm kinda partial to the last one. https://www.discogs.com/Various-Planet-Discovery/master/889006 https://www.discogs.com/Various-Translinguistic-Perceptions/release/6757050 https://www.discogs.com/Various-Island-Of-Misfit-Grooves/release/8298231

If it's from 95-97 and the production is somewhat lower-fi, then the odds are I'm going to love it. There was a lot more risk taking in goa back then, to its credit IMHO. Bif Tek - Sub-vocal Theme Park Brainman - Brain Food Germinator - Alosakum Digital Sun - The Spiral Of Power Polyploid - Touch Proof Masaray - Time Traveller Mathuresh - Link Cwithe - Illegal Psy Phy 6 - Metaphysical (and everything released on BTM, really) Ju Ju Space Jazz - Shloop

I knew what this thread was going to start with before I opened it. Personally, I love the Brainman album... it's like a cross between The Infinity Project (the slightly new age/cosmic sound) and balls to the walls madness akin to the faster Suomisaundi. Very ahead of its time for 1996, but it would have fit in nicely on Exogenic, Freakdance, or Antiscarp in the early 2000s.

At least I'm not the only one who isn't crazy about Technologic, Cryptic Crunch, or Radio. I found Shpongle - Nothing Lasts and Para Halu - The World Of Peace borderline unlistenable.

Graham Vol. 2 please. Make psytrance great again

Excellent news. Will there be any Xenofish collaborations on the albums?

I'd also like to see more negative reviews/comments that go in depth about what the person didn't like. Not just "this is boring, avoid it." Explain why an album is boring. That way we get a sense of where the reviewer is coming from and whether or not we're likely to feel the same way.

I'm going to be brutally honest here. Some people may be upset by this, and that's fine. Feel free to tell me I'm completely wrong. I think there's a narrowness of taste on this forum. A lot of recent reviews, by T2MU and others who follow his lead, follow the pattern of "this is great because it's banging Goa" or "this is weak because it isn't banging Goa". Music is deeply subjective, and I don't expect that everything I like will get positive reviews, but I'd like to see more appreciation for the less 'hard' styles of psy music. Fr'ex, Total Eclipse - Delta Aquarids is a well written, well produced album by any metric. Yes, it doesn't sound like Etnica or Transwave. It doesn't have hard kick drums or screaming acid. It belongs to the more synth rock/synth pop influenced school of Goa trance. That doesn't make it a weak album. If anything I prefer it to Etnica and (most) Transwave, but I don't go around calling Etnica "weaksauce" or compare it to eating broccoli. Those comments show a lack of perspective. The same goes for more tribal, hypnotic trance music like Lumukanda, Masaray, ect. If it doesn't work for you, fair play. But if you don't understand what the music is trying to do and are comparing it to music with a completely different aim, then your review misses the point. As a positive counterexample to my whinge: I don't know if you follow djsolitare.com, but you should. He has a deep understanding of this genre, and a skill at articulating what makes a track work. EDIT: also Psytrance University. https://www.facebook.com/psyuniversity/?fref=ts

I love everything O*Men made. Suomi founding fathers and criminally underappreciated. Forget that Aquarius Leap happened and Xenomorph is up there too.

When a two track single is labeled an EP. My idea of an EP is three tracks or more. Or one or two very long tracks. So it annoys me to see EPs with two 6-7 minute tracks.

Experimental is about going outside of techno/trance styles of music, not combining one kind of trance with another. And Erpland is even less of a psybient album than Arborescence. An influence on psybient, yeah. But trance as a genre didn't even exist when it was recorded, much less psytrance or psybient.

That's Steffen Schurke. He did a lot of industrial and hard trance under different names. Most notably Controlled Fusion. Psychological Way, Galaxy Constellation, Stories Of America are some of the more 'trancy' tracks under that name. His remixes of Depeche Mode - Oberkorn (as Delta Signal) and Kraftwerk - Metropolis (as Reverse Pulse Envelope) are also good and fairly goa-ish. But his best tracks IMO are Visual Terminal and Psychological Way.

I've heard that the label interfered with this one, and that Martin wasn't entirely happy with the result. It's still a great album. I even love Seratonin Sunrise, vocals and all. It could be seen as an early crossover between Goa and synthpop.

If you can do what you're trying to do, you'll own the world. You know that, don't you?

This is straight up 80s Belgian horror trance. Love it.

Hey, I did say Rip Van Hippy was the closest thing to TF. Probably The Visitors, Shaolin Wooden Men as well. James Reipas and I think Luomohappo (need to hear more) also do some interesting things with non programmed sounding rhythms. The music recommended is great but a little more rhythmically conventional than what I'm looking for. Procs is unique though, I have his first album but I'm going to listen to more from him.

I love the breaks tracks on Texas Faggott's 1st album, like Kainalo-peukalokaukalo-sporty feta or Kikkarapia Kakkarapia. Really, the whole album is more fluid, undulating, and funkier than any other psy I've heard, using polyrhythms and funklines to such clever effect. I recently rediscovered this album and it's even better than I remembered it. Most 'breaktrance' is very aggressive, and borrows from hip hop/drum n' bass. This doesn't have any of those beats, but seems to have more of a jazz/funk/Afrobeat thing going on (I know they've sampled Fela Kuti before.) I don't think anything they (or Squaremeat) did afterwards matches it. And I've heard lots of Suomi that's kinda funky, but not funky on THIS level. This is another galaxy of funkiness. Maybe Rip Van Hippy comes close. But his music isn't usually as danceable. Has anyone else done something like this in psytrance? Any other Suomi, or Aussie, or...? random psy artist I should be listening to? Excuse my rambling and musical ignorance.

Psychopod - Seriaf is fantastic. Probably the last GREAT Koxbox/Psychopod track.