d.leerium

The strangest thing happened today. Maybe someone with a better grasp of technical mysteries might be able to shed some light on it? Recently I've been listening to some stuff on my MP3-player in shuffle mode, something I normally don't do. While washing the dishes today, I came across a song I didn't recognise, so I dried my hands to check what it was. The tags clearly identify it as a song called "Highway Appeal" by The Caroline Movement, a band I had never heard of before! I had no idea how this MP3 had ended up on my player, so I plugged it into the PC to check which folder it was in, and whether it was on my HDD as well. The Windows search doesn't give any results, neither when searching the player's internal memory, nor on my HDD. I tried several search terms. The only way to find this file is to toggle the artists on the player's interface itself: there's an entry for The Caroline Movement which then leads me to the album "West By God" with only one song showing up, "Highway Appeal". When I access the file info, its name is displayed as Highway Appeal.mp3. Once again I used the Windows search, but to no avail. Finally I used the folder navigation in Windows Explorer and checked every single folder on my MP3-player, but no such file exists. Yet, the song - having appeared out of nowhere - plays perfectly, and if I may say so, it's pretty terrible Indie Rock which I never would have put on my player deliberately! This whole thing is really bizarre... Could it be some sort of sample track that comes with the retail version of the player and is stored in some hidden region that doesn't show up in the folder navigation? All hidden files are visible, btw.

What exactly is the difference between classic/normal Trance and Eurotrance? I assume the latter is the sound that became popular around 2000/2001 with all the European bands, many of them from Belgium or the Netherlands, and often with vocals? I've noticed that Discogs labels many of those vocal artists as "Trance / Eurohouse", but I really don't hear any House in their sound. It appears that these terms are used somewhat vaguely, and in any case interchangeably...

Looking more closely at some of Poe's narrative texts in preparation for my BA-thesis.

Thanks. I just like some percussion every now and then, it can add some extra depth to the sound. Over the years, the djembe has become something of a trademark for me, having appeared in various songs of pretty different style. I've been meaning to record a new song for this project, again based on a very old, fragmentary idea, and it's not like I didn't know how to follow up on that basic idea, but somehow I couldn't find the motivation yet. I guess it'll eventually happen someday, though.

I've corrected the Facebook links in my former post - didn't even notice that they didn't work, sorry for that...

Thanks for the info about the German-speaking parts of the world, I didn't know that! Also, thanks for all the input in general - it's good to know a bit more about the background as to how things developed over the years, this does explain some of the confusion. I don't think I had a particularly stereotypical idea of what a party should be like, by the way; but I did expect to hear some music from within the Psy spectrum, and frankly, what I heard didn't have that much to do with what I perceive as Psy, apart from the occasional stereotypical warping synth effect. I had to smile about one particular track which kept repeating a speech sample saying something with "psychedelic" while the music was totally unpsychedelic. More in-depth comments from me as soon as I find the time... The twin-party on Thursday that I mentioned above cannot be found on Goabase, but here's a link to the respective Facebook pages: The main, free event and the "aftershow" party (not that there was any kind of show to begin with) that I fled after 20 minutes despite having paid the admission fee. To be fair, though, I didn't only flee it due to the terrible music, but also because I disliked the venue very much. The other two parties (or rather, two installments of the same regular event) are on Goabase: http://www.goabase.net/70910 and http://www.goabase.net/71835 - Note that I didn't catch all the DJ sets since I left relatively early on both occasions, not so much because I didn't like it (I did enjoy myself, especially at the second one in May) but simply because I'm not used to being out all night. Butshi's set in May was the clear highlight since it was fairly atmospheric throughout, albeit minimalist. I think that much of what he played was more Progressive Trance than Psy (and I don't mean Progressive Psytrance!), though I'm not entirely sure since Progressive Trance is still a somewhat vague genre term for me.

Thanks for this - an entertaining read! Unfortunately, even the counterculture feel didn't really transpire at the parties I've been too; for the most part, the people looked perfectly normal and also behaved accordingly. The only hints that I was at a slightly different event than your usual club night (not that I knew what such a usual club night would be like since I've never been to one) were the occasional neon-light wristbands and - at the other two parties - a guy in a strange hat. And some psychedelic decoration randomly scattered across the room. Well, thanks for the heads-up - this confirms the impression I've had so far. Seems like I've come too late, as always... Over the last few days, I've been thinking about trying to do some DJ'ing myself someday and play some proper music, but then again, I guess nobody would come to attend such an event! You know, I've been trying to tell myself I have to go out more, try and enjoy life a little rather than sitting here moaning, but it's a lost cause when there's really no place to go. 99% of the cultural sphere has been irreparably corrupted by mainstream tendencies that bore me at the very best (mostly they put me off entirely), so it's really quite a challenge to find interesting events. It's a shame that even the Psy movement doesn't seem to be an exception. Strangely enough, though, this forum proves that there's a significant amount of people who still appreciate the 'real thing'. Wouldn't they be able to constitute an audience for proper events? I don't understand why nobody has the courage to organise something real. But I guess I'd better stop ranting...

Thanks a lot for the answers so far! To answer the question about my location: no, I'm not in the US, I currently reside in Northern Germany. Unfortunately, long trips to festivals are almost completely out of the question for me since I don't have a car and don't know any people who could take me along, and it's often very difficult (and expensive!) to get there with public transportation. So right now, I don't have much of a choice - if I want to attend parties, I have to take what I can get in the direct vicinity, but apparently that's not much. It's good to know that this tendency apparently isn't just local. Sad, though! In some cases I wondered myself whether it may have been Progressive Psy; I'm not very familiar with the style since everything I've heard so far (mostly random tracks on Ektoplazm labelled 'Progressive') was somewhere between boring and annoying to me, but even for Progressive standards, the majority of the music played at those parties was surprisingly minimal and sterile. Some tracks also seemed too aggressive and 'stomping' to be Progressive, yet they lacked all the typical characteristics of Full-On. Indeed, K-BAN, some of it did remind me a bit of Dark Minimal as heard on Ambivalent Records compilations, but it's still somehow different - and less interesting. On the other hand, I really enjoyed some of the music that was played early last Thursday, but don't know anything that could serve as a reference. The frustrating thing about these parties is that the more interesting tracks tend to be played at an early hour when the venue is still quite empty and hardly anyone is dancing - and I for one can't make myself dance as long as I'm almost the only one and would feel like everybody's watching me. When I can finally join in, the music sucks - it's a vicious circle. It's an interesting idea to ask people at the party, though I doubt I would've gotten any answer other than 'Goa' - that's the term they generally seem to use as far as I can tell from what I caught from people talking, and also from people I know who have been to similar parties. And even the organisers themselves didn't seem to have much of a clue of the styles if they consider 'Full-On' and 'Psy' subgenres of 'Harder Goa'... It's like stating that Alternative Rock and Darkwave were both subgenres of hard Blues Rock, totally absurd.

This is really nice indeed, thanks for sharing! I've bookmarked it so I can re-listen soon.

I was wondering whether there are some veterans here who could enlighten me. As I've stated elsewhere, I'm relatively new to both Goa and Psytrance and have been trying to explore the various subgenres for about half a year now. Although I still have some difficulty recognising the subtle differences between some subgenres and there are fields I don't have much of a clue of so far, I do have a rough idea of what it's all about and have discovered a lot of material that I enjoy. The more this style of music grew on me, the more I wanted to attend an event to see what it would be like. I was curious as to the atmosphere, the decoration, the exact style of music played there and so on. In the meantime I've been to three and a half local parties, two of which took place at the same location with "Psychedelic & Progressive Trance" in the description, the other one being labelled a "Goa" party (other subgenres were listed). Of course I expected to hear some sort of 'mainstream Psy' and not exactly the total underground stuff, but to be frank, I hardly heard any proper Goa or Psytrance at all at either of the events (and no Progressive Trance either, for that matter - as far as I can tell). The predominant style is hard to describe: it's mostly very monotonous, often rather dark, maybe somewhere near Minimal and/or Techtrance. There are few climaxes, and the psychedelic elements are rare and subtle. The music tends to be more atmospheric and melodic in the beginning (on a relative scale - there's still not very much going on!) and gets more and more minimal as the night progresses. I understand that according to cliché, Full-On is predominant on most parties these days, but isn't Full-On supposed to have rolling basslines and be fast, catchy, clubby and so on? Well, none of that is true for the music I heard at the parties for the most part. In fact, the rolling bassline that is so typical for most modern Psytrance was almost completely absent. I was surprised that this strangely nondescript style seems to be the 'mainstream' these days - I wouldn't have expected people to have the attention span it requires! I'm not saying it's all bad, some of the tracks were actually really nice, namely those that lay more emphasis on dark atmosphere and have at least a slight trace of melody. But apart from one DJ's particularly atmospheric set, I could never dance intensely for longer periods of time because soon the music would always return to such monotony that it took the wind out of my sails. I require some sort of atmosphere and psychedelic vibe to relate to; if everything I hear is a kick drum, bass line and some odd effects here and there, I might as well go to a Minimal Techno party right away! Since I haven't followed the scene in earlier years, I have no comparison and need your input: what is this style? Is its predominance typical of the entire present-day Psy-scene, or is it possibly a local, regional or national phenomenon? I doubt that other parties in the vicinity will be very different since they often feature the same DJs. Do proper Psytrance (or even old school Goa) parties even exist these days? I mean, parties where they actually play psychedelic music? Here's a small anecdote from my last experience to top things off: last Thursday I was at a free 'Goa' party. It started in the afternoon and ended at midnight to be continued at another, smaller venue which then wasn't free anymore. They even had a chill area there, but rather than playing Psychill/Downtempo/whatever, they played the exact same style of minimal Pseudo-Trance that you could hear at the main floor. In the course of the evening, I was approached by one of the organisers - he told me that if I paid the admission for the later party now, it'd be cheaper (a great gesture as such, of course). Referring to the other venue, he announced that they'd be playing "Harder Goa - y'know, Full-On, Psy etc." there. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this entire statement is hilarious and makes no sense whatsoever in terms of genres! Well, when I finally arrived at the other venue, I found that the music hadn't changed much apart from maybe being 3-4 BMP faster. I left after 20 minutes or so since, frankly, it bored the hell out of me! (Hence the rather strange remark above about having been at "three and a half" parties). I'm having trouble taking this whole thing seriously - they have their psychedelic decoration all over the place and jump around with neon lights around their arms, but there's no psychedelic music at all. What's the point? I'm probably taking this all much too seriously, but being a dedicated music fan, I can't help wondering. And of course I'd love to dance to 'proper' Psytrance someday! What I find strange is that in everything I've learned about the scene so far and also everything I've come across on this forum, the style I've described above has never been discussed, at least not to my knowledge. Still, they all refer to it as 'Goa' as though that was the most natural thing in the world. I bet 90% of the people that attend these parties don't even know Goa's a place in India.

I've found that there's a lot to be discovered in many different (often even disparate) musical genres. The most important thing is that the music touches me on an emotional level, that it gives me something special and manages to captivate me. Most of the music I enjoy is atmospheric in some way, and the atmosphere tends to be melancholic or dark in many cases. I don't enjoy any musical genre per se, it's all about those special artists within a specific genre that give me what I'm looking for. Fields of interest include (in random order) Death/Funeral/Extreme/Gothic Doom Metal, Trip-Hop, Singer-Singwriter, (Neo-)Folk, Jazz, different kinds of Alternative Rock (Slowcore, Shoegaze, Darkwave, Ethereal), Progressive Rock, Rock in Opposition, Black Metal, (Dark) Ambient, old-school Trance, Drum'n'Bass/Neurofunk...

Thank you very much for your feedback on the genre question - and please excuse my tremendously delayed reaction! Haven't had much time for forum activities lately... Anyway, it's good to know that in your assessment, both tracks are apparently somewhere within the Trance spectrum. The Tribal tag is only due to the percussion, I assume?

I'm a boring guy wearing plain clothing most of the time these days. I used to wear lots of band t-shirts, but from different fields of music. The most flashily colourful music-related shirt I have is a blue Portishead t-shirt. For one thing, I wouldn't want to draw any unnecessary attention, and for another, flashy stuff just wouldn't suit me in terms of identification. I wouldn't mind a few Goa/Psy-related band t-shirts though, as long as they're not too... well, flashy. But up to now I couldn't find anything from acts I know.

Not exactly today, but on Monday: Deviant Species - Hatch V/A - Creeping Ambivalent Tendencies V/A - Contra Polar Activity V/A - Further Ambivalent Tendencies V/A - Duality V/A - The Well of Enchanted Sounds

My avatar is part of a photograph I took many years ago, and I've been using it on various forums for almost as long as I can think. I just liked the poetic absurdness of a pottery sun with snow on top. The very same pottery sun even inspired me to a line in a poem back then when I was still an active writer, so the whole image just became a part of me somehow, on various levels. I originally planned to use it for some CD artwork.

I can understand your problems with overcrowded places and the overall hectic nature of people. I've never been to the area you've mentioned, but you definitely shouldn't visit Hamburg, especially at night - it's a terribly chaotic and hectic city, at least in my perception. On the whole, your description sounds as though you're suffering from sensory overloads. As Tatsu said, you can at least shut out the noise to an acceptable degree by using proper in-ears. You'll need to invest some money if you want good ones, but I really wouldn't want to live without mine anymore. Every time I take them out after an extended listening period and I'm still ouside, close to a road etc., I'm shocked at how much noise we're surroundded by all the time. But this contrast also shows that the in-ears do filter out quite a bit. I can recommend these: http://www.amazon.de/Aud%C3%A9o-PFE-112-In-Ear-Kopfh%C3%B6rer-schwarz/dp/B004991ROQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1370534075&sr=8-3&keywords=phonak+audeo Alternatively, go to pharmacy and ask them to order Noton earplugs for you - I started using them for sleeping and they are very effective. You get three pairs for under 4 euros, that's well worth the investion. Of course, all of this won't take away the overall impression of people being hectic.

Interesting... The makers of this film certainly prove to have good taste, choosing this piece by Arvo Pärt for the soundtrack.

Mate, things aren't that bad in Germany, really. I'm German myself, and there are quite a number of possibilities for disabled people, you can get support in all kinds of ways, you only have to find out about them. This is, of course, the first step which takes some research, but you're definitely not left alone with your problems. I must say I hate to seem protective of the German state system since I'm no fan of it myself, but I know from experience that disabled people do have extensive rights in this country and can make use of them if they know how and where. For instance, if you have an officially diagnosed disability (if you don't, see that you get a proper diagnosis from a specialist), you can get a so-called Schwerbehindertenausweis (disabled person's pass) which, in turn, enables you to get a job that is specifically reserved for disabled people. There is a law here which asks employers to employ a certain quota of disabled people. You then also have improved employment protection. It's always the first priority to integrate disabled people into the regular employment market, and not - as you say - to put them all away into closed facilities. The latter would be way too expensive for the state! But you're right: it's getting a little bit off-topic. If you need any information or help regarding these issues, feel free to drop me a line (or start a dedicated thread). I know enough about it, although regulations may differ slightly from state to state. Edit: I forgot to mention that you don't need that much maths and physics to get your Abitur. I didn't do any physis or chemistry throughout my last three school years, and I only took the obligatory basic course in maths. Try to get through it with "ausreichend" and focus on the subjects you're good at, you can easily outweigh a mediocre maths mark with them.

Yet, as soon as you're out of school and have completed some higher form of education, be it an academic degree or an apprenticeship, nobody will ever give a flying damn about school grades anymore. They're really only important on your last certificate (be it Abitur or any other educational qualification) to enable you to enroll at a university, for example. As for the problems you're describing, of course there's always discrimination of people who are 'different' in some way and don't perfectly fit in upon first glance, but I don't believe this is a specifically German phenomenon. Such people are likely to run into problems anywhere in the world, though the degree and form of discrimination can vary considerably. I've heard, for instance, that people in the UK are much more open-minded towards people who may seem 'weird' - rather than shunning them, they tend to show interest and view it as a special trait, not a flaw. But this may be a stereotype, I can't say I've had first-hand experience with it. Scandinavia is relatively open-minded, too, and they've got many good programs for integrating disabled people. I can give you one piece of advice from my heart: be frank about it, but not in an aggressive way. Strange reactions - be it at a job interview or in private conversations - often derive from the fact that people simply can't put their finger on what's different, or they don't understand it. Of course it's annoying if people assume you've taken drugs just because your eyes may look unusual. I'd suggest to just say something like "You're probably wondering about my eyes - it's a minor innate deficiency/variation/[fill in accordingly, I don't know enough about it], but it's no big deal", in a calm tone as if it's the most normal thing in the world to explain this. And come to think of it, it is! This way, you prevent misunderstandings and spare the other person the trouble of pretending not to notice, as well as sparing yourself the frustration of being confronted with prejudices. I know what I'm talking about from personal experience, and my 'condition' is far more complicated to explain, but so far reactions have been widely positive if I broached the subject openly. Be self-confident about it, knowing that it's nothing to be ashamed of, but merely a minor part of you that doesn't define you in any way, and that doesn't diminish your skills and qualifications.

It took an epic timespan to grow, too.

Thanks.

Wow, that's far more positive than I would have expected - thank you very much for taking the time to listen, and especially for the feedback! Any idea about the genre? The two tracks certainly don't belong to the same one at any rate, I guess... The djembe percussion in the middle section of "Ceremonial Trance" is 'real', btw (the only real instrument alongside the guitar in the faster track). The old-school feel you mentioned is quite easily explained by the fact that the original version of the track is more than a decade old (I can't date it precisely), and that the whole thing has been created with ridiculously basic equipment. But it's cool that you even see benefit in that!

Shame on me - I discovered this thread just now. Somehow I must have overlooked it all the time. So, what can I say? I'm new. I've known about Psytrance for a couple of years, but for some reason didn't investigate the genre more closely until this year. Since then, I've been discovering a lot of great music and trying to learn about the history and culture of the Goa/Psytrance movement. I've been a music fanatic for many years, always in need to broaden my horizon, seek our new territory and discover hidden gems. That's why I've come to appreciate artists from very different fields of music over the years, but the vast majority of the music I like tends to be dark or melancholic in some way. To me, it's vital that music transports some sort of atmosphere as well as sincere emotions (even if its 'just' the artist's heartfelt creative need and drive transpiring). And music with an all-too uplifting mood annoys the hell out of me! I'm a musician myself and I used to write a lot, but all my creative activities and projects have been on hold for a while due to frustration and stagnation. Other than that, I'm interested in a lot of things, including literature, film, psychology and languages. I also love to go on a hike every now and then to get some distance between myself and civilisation. And now I can't think of anything else because I'm tired - any questions, shoot!

Four at the moment: German (my mother tongue), English, Norwegian and Dutch (the latter needs some brushing-up, though). A bit of Low German, too, but it's a local variant that most other Low German speakers would have difficulties with. I should be able to do some codeswitching from Norwegian to Swedish if necessary, after a short period of adjustment. It's a shame I forgot almost all of my French.

So here's the new guy, hiking in Norway last summer (mount Ulriken, Bergen).