Blair Thaumic

There's just something about the Germans. Back in the late nineties, German artists and labels took goa in a very different direction than their British, Israeli, or French cousins. You might call it minimal goa, or proto-prog; still decidely goa, but a type of goa that placed particular emphasis on the groove and the space between the notes. The usual suspects are here -- MOS, Paradise Connection, Morphem, Planet BEN -- along with some lesser known but equally on fire contributions, among them Temple Of Ellora and Hara Gobi with their acid drenched morning minimalism. That Tim Schuldt appears no less than four times should give you an indication of the high level of quality to be found here. As with all experimenters, they break the test tube on occasion; I won't play devil's advocate for Metacosm's Angstman, although it's not THAT bad. Just not so nice they had to release it twice. No overstuffed melodies or slick production values are to be found, and as such this serves as a reminder of when goa trance allowed itself room to breathe and was actually -- gasp! -- psychedelic. If you're into the deeper, rawer, more tribal side of goa you want this.

Much appreciated. And done.

Wicked set! A little heavy on Blue Planet Corporation, but I can't complain when you mixed it all so well.

As far as future releases: if the album attracts enough interest, they'll happen. Most likely through crowd funding.

IMPORTANT: as it's looking increasingly unlikely that this album will make its budget back, I've decided to change the price to "pay what you want." 100% of all proceeds will be donated to A Well-Fed World, so please give what you can. (this also applies to money earned through other channels: iTunes, ect.)

Mana Source - Hiragana is actually really good. I disliked the first album but this one clicked with me for some reason. I also like Tomocomo, Laughing Skull (whatever happened to Laughing Skull?), and Zirrex - Ritual Dance. My VA is all new school artists; it's not 100% goa but you might find something to your taste there.

Review my album. A proper critique would be awesome. I'd also like to see a review of Asteroidnos - Galaxy Ray Of Eyes.

I'm going to say something blasphemous here: vinyl always sounded to me like an overly quiet CD with lots of noise on it. Either I don't have the setup or I don't have the brain to hear how amazing it is. I own plenty of vinyl, I just rip them and play them on my computer. And I just don't like having to back-cue when I play records. I like the predictability and instantaneous nature of pressing play. Totally lame, I know.

What are your favorite techno, trance, and proto Goa trance tracks from the early rave days? 1989 to around 1994, give or take a year. A few of my faves: Inductor Zero - Target 3 FSOL - Expander Leftfield - Not Forgotten Underworld - Spikee Blue Planet Corp - Over Bloody Flood Dance 2 Trance - Let's Get Rolling Edwards and Armani - Desert Silence The Mackenzie - No Promises Miss Lie - Claustrophobia Lhasa - The Attic Age Of Chance - Time's Up (Timeless mix) The Grid - Intergalactica Iglu - Eisbar ABS - Without A Fight + many more...

16 years old in 1997, same as Paul Eye. I started with Juno Reactor, Total Eclipse, TIP's Feeling Weird album, and Blue Room's Made On Earth compilation. Being in pre-internet days made my discovery of goa trance a very mysterious and wonderful thing, almost like finding a parallel world.

Here is some interesting early feedback. Translated from a Russian download site: And I liked it. Interesting, many tracks, though not traditional Finnish polka-BUT fit somewhere psy, goa somewhere with a touch of Suomi. Definitely recommend! Indeet, no traditional Finnish polka. Maybe next album? I do not like Suomi genre of music and tried to listen to it all the muck and this album, from menya1 stars out of 5 and that unfortunately many The music leaves a strong impression, one way or another no sign of any new kakieto in zborke on two tracks Suomi my ears is the current 05. Hypnic Lab - Drunky Knight & Shiny Courtesans 08:26 and 07. ADU - Stage Of Illusions 07:52 remaining longer Goa, but will not say it bad zborka all that is necessary is taken directly from the first track project New Born easy bleshit here wrote earlier this shnyaga but right now see changed his mind track is gorgeous. I straight had the feeling when tapping that I vgoa and there are palm trees 20 meters tall self-made speaker small party and DJ Joerg zapultom and it's all in 90 years. this zborka osyaddet long the player will repeatedly pereslushivatsya simple diamond today. do not pass by even those who do not like Suomi should enjoy it and who did not listen nachinayete setogo familiarity with svoremennym Suomi 5+ zborka thanks This is a great review. Zapultom!

Available for purchase now! https://thaumicrecords.bandcamp.com/album/island-of-misfit-grooves

I dare you to find me another track like this one.

That barking dog melody in Hoosianna still does my head in...

I'd call MWNN an artist who fits all of those categories. He's good, commercial, old-school, and a good introduction to the music for noobs.

BOTFB - Time and True Hope. "In this universe, we process time linearly forward. But outside of our space-time, from what would be a fourth dimensional perspective, time wouldn't exist. And from that vantage, could we attain it, we'd see our space-time would look flattened, like a single sculpture with matter in a superposition of every place it ever occupied. Our sentience just cycling through our lives like carts on a track" "In eternity where there is no time, nothing can grow, nothing can become, nothing changes. So death created time, to grow the things that it kills. And you are reborn, but into the same life, that you've always been born into"

This is something I've been wondering about for a while, and the mixing/production topic brought it back to mind... I know that Kevin Metcalfe was the mastering engineer for a lot of Blue Room Released albums. But I can't find mastering credits for several of their early releases (Etnica, TIP, TE, Outside The Reactor.) If you look at their Discogs entries, they just say "pressed by Disctronics S." While Dragon Tales lists the recording studio, but nothing else. Were these albums mastered by the artists/VA compiler, or was there an uncredited engineer?

I unironically love Cave Of Medusa. Pigs In Space doesn't get enough love. So damn funky. I have the digital version on Cosmosis Retro (though the mastering is too loud... as usual... grumble grumble)

I'm going to be a grumpy old schooler and say Spectral - Diffuse. Around 2000-2001 is where psy production really hit its peak for me (speaking only about sound quality, and not music) For runner ups, Chi-AD - Anno Domini and Kox Box - Dragon Tales.

You're probably right about that. It's just rare that a film will go out of its way to surprise me, blockbuster or otherwise. I also saw Europa Report recently, which was very much a non-Hollywood sci-fi, and felt like SF for actual science nerds. Pretty interesting film. I want to see Upstream Color next. And Coherence. Two movies that went completely under my radar when they came out.

Hollywood makes a lot of sci-fi films, but very few that I actually like. Frogger meets Groundhog Day with Tom Cruise worked because it was consistently fun, didn't take itself too seriously, and wasn't as predictable as the usual Hollywood action flick. I liked it a lot more than Oblivion, which just felt like Zardoz without the ideas. Sunshine had great visuals all right, but everything about it felt like it had been done before in a better film. Guardians of the Galaxy was another miss for me. It all felt too 'safe' and family-friendly. But I recognize that I'm not its target audience, if I followed the comic books I'd probably love it. I disagree completely about Jupiter Ascending. It was every bit the epic space opera that I had wanted it to be. And I'm still thinking about the ideas it brought up, which isn't something I can say about most recent sci-fi.

What do you hate about the DJMs? Just the EQ, or are there other things?

Afraid not. I found it on one of my regular prowls through Soundcloud.