Meltwater

You know, it's not exactly full-on, but this has been my favorite psy bassline for...I don't know, 12 years? Thirteen? Whenever I first heard it, back in high school. It doesn't have the same groove feel as classic full-on but god damn does it kick so much ass.

You know, for just once, I would like to hear the big future prog/progressive psy producers try their hands at writing something with a classic full-on bassline. Psydrop, Hydrophonic, GMS...obviously they lack the flair for melody seen in goa and the songs are generally simpler, but 2000-2004 full-on had the best bass. Imagine hearing that in a Lyctum, Vini Vici, JOOF set today. Classic full-on even sounds great at a lower tempo as well:

Kind of surprised Alter Ego by JOOF didn't get a vote.

I've had this happen a lot but not with trance, rather with metal and rock. And it wasn't because I heard it on the radio, rather because the old filesharing programs like Kazaa and Limewire had so many damn misnamed or misappropriated songs. There were a lot of "Steve Vai" and "John Petrucci" songs which weren't by either guitarist, for example. So I think I know the feeling when you finally figure it out

Thank you! That's clearly the melody, cheers mate

I've been trying to ID this track for like 18 months. I cannot find it. It starts at 49:38 into the mix. https://youtu.be/XtCRH4d3QxQ?t=2976 Any ideas?

You certainly won't find them included in lists of metal bands by most dedicated metal sources (see www.metal-archives.com for example), but I don't think this is the place for arguing metal genres and even if it was you'd regret getting sucked into those discussions (trust me). Back on topic, I don't necessarily mind "commercial" psytrance if it's done well, but honestly my main issues with such commercial psy aren't really that different from my main issues with lots of lesser-known psy these days. It's not the commercial-ness of stuff like Vini Vici that bothers me, it's the modernity. It's the worship of bass at the expense of acid melodies, or really just melodies in general. You go back to the old psy and goa up until around 2002 or 2004, and often the entire song had melodies throughout. Those old Pleadians and Astral Projection songs had as many as five different melodies going on, it was very polyphonic stuff. Now we have either bass throughout with a single breakdown section for melody, or we have the 150+ psy that's pretty much entirely abstract without melodies. I like melody. If I want abstract music I listen to something like Thomas Köner, Sleep Research Facility, Lustmord, Halo Manash. If it has a dance beat I want melody. Which reminds me of the other trapping of modernity in psy, something it borrowed from commercial trance: every single song does not need a 20-60 second breakdown. It's dance music, please keep the beat going.

That melody is also amusingly close to Faithless - Salva Mea

This leads into a point I was going to make: location. Location is everything. Nightwish is very much "commercial" and something you could hear on a mainstream radio station in Finland, Sweden, Norway. This sort of variation is the case with trance as well. Trance was huge in Israel and Europe during the late 90's and early 2000's but frankly, for a long time the idea of "commercial" or "mainstream" trance in the US was an oxymoron. Just Be by Tiesto never cracked the Billboard Top 200, and I mean that's TIESTO. That album only got on the electronic Billboard charts. When trance dominated the charts elsewhere it was still something Americans didn't really buy into. I'm 29, I was in high school when that album came out. I think there were 10 people in my school (including me) who knew who Tiesto was (out of 700). If it wasn't something you'd hear at a baseball game or on an SNL skit (a la "Sandstorm" or "What is love"), trance was unheard of. For comparison, since we brought up metal as well: Cannibal Corpse has made it to the Billboard 200 five times, one of which was in the top 50. In the US, Cannibal Corpse has been more mainstream than most trance for much of the last 20 years. Nile's 5th album placed higher in the Billboard 200 in 2007 than A State of Trance 2008 did the next year. For those who have no idea what we're talking about, Nile sounds like this (link). That sold better in the US than something Armin van Buuren made in the same time period. Now, I understand what sort of music people mean when they talk about "commercial psytrance," mind you, but as a matter of verifiable fact psytrance is not and has never been commercial in the US. Not even Astral Projection or Infected Mushroom; IM made it onto the Billboard 200 once, AP never has. These are considered underground here.

This is an example of where high bpm's are not your friend. That cheesy part sounds a lot less cheesy at a lower BPM.

Listening to this dark treasure from 1996 <3

My brother and I refer to these as "alien burps" but I like your phrase better.

Yeah there's more to it but rolling bass has easily supplanted any other bassline as the norm in the last 5 years or so. This is true whether you're talking about Liquid Soul or Lyctum or Electric Universe these days. The only thing that might be more common is single-note basslines in triplets. There should be more to it, of course. I want there to be.

I mean, it's got the modern psy rolling bassline but that's it. And I complain about stuff like Lyctum not being psychedelic...if this is the new normal I won't ever do that again. I didn't know Vini Vici and Sesto Sento were related. That's interesting.

This made me chuckle/cringe. Vini Vici is really giving psy a bad name.

Do you have any links to this new "Dr. Process" project? I can't find any. I once had a years-long streak of listening to almost nothing but dark ambient/industrial ambient and drone, this has me curious. Edit: just saw your other post. Sort of a shame it's live-only but as long as he's doing what he likes I guess.

No psy or goa gatherings like this around me. Cool to see people enjoying it in a club/live setting.

Listened to this twice today and a few times yesterday, been stuck in my head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TZ3K410DIQ

I haven't listened to any full albums released this year, at least not all the way. You guys have given me some new stuff to check out. The five tracks I heard from Alter Ego by John OO Fleming were good, "Desert Rider" particularly. I'm not really sure the Chi-A.D. album counts as "new," since it was released as mp3 and FLAC files in like 2007.

I think it's too perfect, yes. The only other way I would want to hear this track is with a touch more bass punch, but that was a product of the equipment in use at the time, not a criticism of the producers.

I was going to recommend JOOF as well, not so much with individual songs as with his output as a whole. Granted he also does a decent amount of deep/techno stuff, but as far as his trance material he tends to straddle both worlds. I agree with Padmapani though, he's really let his goa "background" (ancient history by this point) shine through in the last two years.

Hello, new here. First experience was the song "Dancing Galaxy" when I was 16. I was mostly into metal then. I continued to mostly listen to metal for some years while also listening to old Astral Projection, Hallucinogen, and Chi A.D. Now 12 years later my listening habits are predominantly trance (about evenly distributed between psy or goa on one end and uplifting on the other) with a good dose of ambient and the occasional metal song. Hoping to explore psy and goa a bit more, which is why I'm here.