gfp1

can't this also apply to goa? we can learn to stop overthinking and worrying and accept goa for what it is. there's something for everyone. you either get it or you don't. some times a song will make me queasy, other times that same song will hit just the right spot. generally the best way for me to enjoy goa is loud enough that it drowns out my thoughts... once i reach that state of zen, it's easy to get lost in the silence. isn't this what it's all about? .... isn't this where we want to be? "naked, singing in the rainforest, stoned, and exalted. one with the souls of the ancestors. one with the Gaian spirit of the planet" no other music does this for me... (though goa/psy probably only makes up about 30% of my listening these days... different tools for different jobs eh)

had to dust off my account to post for this one... it's been a while since an album hit the target with as deadly accuracy as this one I remember Xamanist had the misfortune of releasing the previous album "7" on Dec 31st 2016... it would have surely been on the best of 2016 lists except i think most people had made up their mind by the last day of the year... and the idea of putting a super-late 2016 album in a best of 2017 list is a whole other bag of worms... anyways, "7" was one of the best albums within the 365 day period that surrounded it's release, and "Out of Time" continues that tradition this album sounded amazing for me in the hypnagogic state... letting the precise details transport me into a world Out of Time, only to be woken up by that pulsing melody... wild and untamed yet still under the precise control of a master one of the things that i think differentiates neo-goa and old-goa is the confidence of the pioneers in letting simpler sounds linger without overloading the track with effects... it's much easier to groove with something that shifts gears smoothly rather than redlining the whole way through, and Xamanist's album is just that... never intrusively begging for attention but rather takes me along for a ride that i can't help but want to go on undoubtedly an incredible achievement! 5/5

the website release date says Dec 7...but Bandcamp says Nov 30? either way, i have already cleared 3 hours of my schedule to fully devote my being to this behemoth of a compilation hopefully there is no apocalypse before it arrives...

never. my entire going out schedule is centred around proximity to hygienic bathrooms. if i don't have access to a 4 star minimum hotel or upscale department store within a 10 minute walk from where it's at then it's a no go.

admittedly, my first few listens of this album i was disappointed but after readjusting my expectations i find it to be quite enjoyable. a lot of goa can be too intense if i just want to have something on in the background. the screeching assault of noises and non-stop nature all blend together and i feel kind of claustrophobic and anxious after about 20 minutes. goa is great if i want to close my eyes and analyze the complexities but not so much if it's accompanying a task. but this ufomatka album is really warm and easy to digest as a soundtrack to my life. there is nothing abrasive about it, it makes an effort to be distinctive without being turgid. is music best enjoyed by carefully dissecting each part or are we meant to just feel the vibes? ufomatka has created an album full of good vibes, no thinking needed, just let it ride out. it maintains the goa sensibilities with a refined, less is more approach.

Im pretty sure the release date is the 33rd of Neveruary

it also works well when played while burning the trees in secret! lovely, lush grooves... waves of liquid aural gold cascading through my ear drums. there's not enough of this 135bpm-ish crystalline grooved psytrance left being produced these days but when it's as well made as this, it always hits the spot i saw you have 2 tracks featured on the upcoming Heart of Goa V6 compilation... congrats buddy!

warmup Goa? there is no such thing... Goa is all about immediately sticking it in and thrusting at maximum pistons at the most, you might lick your finger to give it a little lubrication but that's it thanks for this mix! gonna enjoy it!

thanks for the prompt review. i'm curious what emotion this music evokes when people listen to it? it makes me feel anxious, confused and dirty like nothing else. it might be that i've only heard it in the daytime but it's not tolerable for long before i have to put on something more soothing (like the brilliant new Rival Consoles or Jon Hopkins albums )... for me, goa psytrance is about activating the crown chakra. it's a connection to something of a higher essence, more pure and ordered than waking reality. this album is the opposite of that... it's grimey, turbulent and hellishly deranged. it's not about transcendent melodies and all about a brooding, punishing atmopshere... i don't like dark psytrance, and this is like dark psytrance on steroids... i will try to give this another listen in the middle of the night but i wouldn't dare expose myself to an album of this nature while in a delicate psychedelically induced state of mind.

Good find but I expect Yuta will be playing a more techno oriented set to fit in with the theme of the night. It would be awesome if he busted out the old school goa but I wouldn't anticipate it. if you're heading to Contact, make sure you register to be a member... http://www.contacttokyo.com/members/ you can click for English registration but let me know if you have any trouble signing up... if I was going out tonight, I'd be heading to Daikanyama Unit for sure cause I'm an on the fringes kind of guy (and if you promise not to tell anyone, i love GMS/1200 Mics!) ... but it's my wedding anniversary today and I'm not sure what it says about my marriage if the night was spent rubbing up against strangers...

What are you doing online!? Get over to Koenji Cave, they're having their psytrance night right now! Tomorrow night (saturday) G.M.S is playing at Unit in Daikanyama. I don't know how you feel about their brand of Full On but they're veterans and will definitely know how to get a party started. Daikanyama is definitely a hipper area than Koenji, so even if it's not as psychedelic a venue, there will be more hot chicks a better crowd. Fineplay Records is hosting the event, they have a decent following from their annual beach parties. http://trancelife.net/event-3295/ truth be told, when the weather is warmed up Saturday Night in Tokyo is a magical feeling and unless you're really gung ho about the artists at a psy event there are much better parties in Shibuya and Roppongi. the music might not be as good but the girl/guy ratio will be much more pleasant and you can get a feel for the actual Japanese club culture rather than the psytrance culture which is more on the fringes. Saturday in Shibuya, John Digweed will be at Contact and Uto Karem will be at the legendary Womb. Roppongi/Azabu Juban always has stuff going on but the cheap bars/1000 yen entry clubs are terrible, expect to pay 3000-5000 yen entry for the good places around there. A strategy I've used is to find some attractive girls obviously dressed up for a club and ask where the good clubs are and where they are going. They might invite you along if you're cool. The dark psy event in Chiba recommended a couple posts up is in buttfuck nowhere. Monday is a national holiday in Japan, so there will be more parties on Sunday for sure!!!

maybe it's just me but to my ears this album is severely lacking in bass... i'm not sure if it was Mr. Lectro Spektral Daze's intention or the mastering choices but the low end frequencies feel neutered. whatever beautifully sequenced bassline and kick that there might have been gets de-emphasized to the point that my enjoyment of the album is reduced. the fact that tsotsi mentions pulling out his earphones from one of the sweeps should tell you something... while listening on speakers is kinda okay, listening on my v-moda headphones, which are usually excellent at reproducing booming club-like bass, the low ends are often anemic. when the bass is more isolated it sounds fine but when the music becomes more complex, the highs have very little to push up against, there is no groove to the music, it's far too treble-y. i know some people prefer that old school sound but i feel that in order to enter into the trance-state (the whole point of this genre of music, i would think) the mind focuses in on the repetitive nature of the bass and allows the effects surrounding it to create the psychedelia. turning the volume up to get more punch to the bass hurts my ears and there is only so much i can tolerate fiddling with equalizers. i don't think modern era goa (or more specifically Neogoa Records) as a rule needs to be trying so hard to re-create that 90's aesthetic. comparing the recently released remastered Etnica album Juggeling Alchemists with the original 1996 release, it's apparent that DAT records considers thickening up the bassline as part of what constitutes an improvement for modern sensibilities and equipment. or to take another example, Timewarp's recent compilation Call of Goa 3, they've managed to maintain the integrity of the trippy goa highs without sacrificing the low end. in the past i've praised Neogoa's mastering as being gentle as it felt like the layers of sound were in good balance and thus easy to listen to at high volumes. though maybe part of what necessitated listening at higher volumes was the fact that the basslines lacked drive. so, ultimately i would like it if different approach was taken in the future to make the basslines more aggressive and prominent... i'm curious what Lectro Spektral Daze himself has to think about how his album came out...his previous albums had a much denser sound.

magnificently said review... made me want to dust it off and give it another spin this album is almost too much to swallow in one go (that's what she said). it's just one atomic blast after another. the quality is so high that it can be difficult to wrap around it (that's what she also said.) Global Sect is taking a smart approach with their 2018 lineup by focusing more on solo albums. it gives artists a bit more chance to vary the tempos and experiment. the new Median Project album is incredible... if you can hear your neighbours complain, you're not listening loud enough. the idea is to listen at a volume that drowns out any doorbells, walls being banged on or angry voices.

i don't want to deter anyone from buying the album and supporting Suntrip, so i will keep most of my thoughts to myself... but you pretty much summed it up Mr. Trance2MoveU. i'm not sure if the album is meant to be appreciated as historical artifact, or as a technical achievement of what was possible in the nascent digital age, or as a nostalgic reminiscence of goa's early days but it just wasn't scratching the itch for me on a musical level. i'm probably at fault though since my overloaded dopamine receptors have been utterly desensitized with so much complex and maximal music (among other things) that this album simply isn't adequately prepared to deal with it lots of people seem to be enjoying it though, so that's good.

if you're going to create a currency that has no intrinsic value, it would be best to name it the Vini Vici

it's out! christmas came early and so did i!

smooth like a belgian tripel. wouldn't look out of place on one of those VA compilations populated by the psy scene's heavy hitters... it would probably even stand out as a highlight. i can definitely hear the care that you've taken to develop each section and i like there's 2 nice big peaks that build on each other before it tapers off. there's this indescribable effect in well made psy that i will attempt to describe where it feels like the sound effects are dancing around the bass and being carried by an oscillating rhythm. on lesser quality full-on it can feel like the bass is abrasively tacked on and the melody exists as a disparate part. not with your music however, as there is always optimum synergy between the highs and lows. as far as constructive criticism, i will say that the full on technique of dropping out the sounds (around the 5 min mark) in order to transition to a climax feels like a bit of a trope by now... i find it to be more psychedelic when it's more in the goa style of contrasting confusion and order where short sequences of dissonance/ambiance (or just repetitively maintaining a melody throughout) transitions more subtly towards the climax portion. that's what i enjoy about the sequence around the 3 min mark, the theme and tempo is constant and the energy doesn't dissipate but the tension still mounts and gets released over the coming few minutes. at the 5 minute mark it feels like it goes from 0 to 100 in an instant, almost like the track was over but it wasn't... maybe that's what you meant to do, i don't know, i am just a consumer not a producer. i don't normally use my left brain to analyze psytrance. it sounds good so it sounds good and that's a right brain type feeling, but i tried to analyze this track for you... are you getting more efficient in dreaming the tracks up? are you able to objectively judge your music while being so close to the creation process?

outstanding review! hopefully this doesn't get lost in the shuffle when people start checking out the 2018 release subforum... i had no idea this album was on the horizon but would have definitely checked it out regardless since i am one of those masochists that subjects themselves to random psytrance regardless of quality all in the name of novelty.... interesting how the BMSS bandcamp describes this album as a collaboration between Psilocybian and Lunar Dawn, rather than just one half of the duo. that's kind of like going to a Simon and Garfunkel show, and only Simon showing up and in Garfunkel's place is Jimmy Hendrix. does anyone know which member in Lunar Dawn is considered the Simon and which is the Garfunkel?

Apparently music is like any drug, in that if it's is overused, tolerance sets in and it becomes less and less enjoyable as the novelty wears off and the chemical rush becomes blunted. So even if I love a song or album, care is taken not to overplay it since I fear wearing it out. The other side to this is that I think when our brains can predict the melody, there is an increase in the enjoyment of the music. So the only way to fully understanding a song's core structure is to listen to it enough that it becomes ingrained into our memories. So I try to find a blanace between those two aspects...

I love hearing about stuff like this... Neogoa always has an immediately recognizable sound thanks to the Deimos touch. I wonder if there is a market for packaging albums with bonus materials of the Making Of process... stuff like videos of the artists creating their tracks and explaining what inspired them and the techniques used to master it... or would that just ruin the magic?

music definitely takes on a different flavour when comparing the airy and lush sound of speakers versus the intensely detailed headphone experience. i try to listen to my favourite albums both ways to get a feel for them. i bought my subwoofer used for $30 and it might be for PA systems since it's about the size of a mini fridge, so i can create that club listening vibe... i don't worry about my neighbours, if anything they're lucky to get the sweet DUDU-DU, DUDU-DU, DUDU-DU, DUDU-DU, DUDU-DU, DUDU-DU sounds thumping through the walls.

i prefer 5... the songs seem better developed. more complexity/unpredictability/psychedelic trippiness and more atmospheric variety from track to track. also within individual songs there seems to be a more interesting progression. it's not just taking a single melody and developing it forward linearly but rather a theme is used and multiple ideas are built around them, so while it may be a single track, it feels like going on a journey of 3 or 4 tracks blended together. DG4 feels more like it's about pace. every track pushes forward without letting up and as a whole it is probably the more dance-friendly of the two releases. i think it would serve as a better introduction to people who aren't familiar with the awesomeness of Goa, whereas DG5 takes a bit more concentration to understand the subtleties in the track structures. both solid releases with high replayability... i would easily recommend them both.

Triquetra - Ecstatic Planet Release Date: 2018-01-19 01. Gate To Happiness 02. Stormbringer 03. No Unexpected Errors 04. Homonculus 05. Gargantuan Tribes (Live) 06. Starbirth 07. Psychic Dissonance 08. Chosen By The Gods 09. Helios "Suntrip is very proud to present the debut album of one of the most talented goa-trance producers these days: Triquetra! These Belgian twins, Elric & Jurian, are blowing away the scene and played allover the world already, Israel and Japan included! Why? Because their music simply kicks ass! Acidic, uplifting but melodic for all lovers of old school goa-trance! We even heard people making a link with old Cosmosis... Can you handle that? The journey starts with a melodic track, which is supposed to be the Gate to Happiness! Good, because indeed, happiness is imminent: The following tracks are pure blissfull acidic old school goa-trance! A good portion of TB303 & acid sounds, uplifting melodies, old school kicks and an interesting rhythm section! With "Gargantuan Tribes" they take a break from the madness, and show their other side: tribal trance with live didgeridoo and drums! The second part of the album evolves to more typical melodic goa-trance for the morning hours! Many dancefloors already exploded with this music, we hope you will too! Like usual, the mastering was done by Tim Schuldt, and what is more interesting, all the instruments you hear in the music were also played by the 2 brothers!" I don't know if it's proper protocol for Suntrip Records to put this information here but I had to share the news with my fellow goa'ers. Since it's winter now... I'm just going to set my alarm for Jan 20th and hibernate until it's released. Taken from the blog on Suntrip's website Oct 15 "the Triquetra brothers from Belgium are almost done with their album. Working title "Ecstatic Planet". Nine tracks packed with Goatrance melodies, tribal influences and scratchy acid lines! Everyone is working hard so so can get it in your hands before the end of the year !!!" https://suntriprecords.bandcamp.com/music short preview clips available here http://www.arabesquedistribution.com/index.php?option=com_artistavenue&task=singleCd&id=3834&Itemid=2

awesome review tsotsi! thanks for keeping this section rolling!...do you use headphones or speakers or both while conducting reviews? also, thanks to Neogoa Records for another gem! i don't know if it's the sweet gentle caress of FLAC sound quality or just the mastering, but I listen to this album at around level 60 volume on my mp3 player, whereas most other psy is at around 40. this is totally a positive, as it feels like there is much more dynamic range in the music, compared to a lot of psytrance which gets squashed and can overwhelm. then again, i may just be listening at a higher volume to get the full blast of this fusion reaction of goa vibes. without naming specifics, i felt like 2 tracks didn't meet the standards of the other 7. they are probably good when isolated, but when surrounded by such mastery, they are lagging behind a bit. some standouts are the Proxeeus track which sounds like i am standing in the eye of a storm, calm and centred while there is mayhem going on all around me. definitely a trademark of Proxeeus, not many artists have the skill to craft such high energy tracks that don't get overly aggressive. the Lectro Spektral Daze track is incredible too... i love the trap style bassline that drops in... don't hear that too much in goa but it works really well here. looking forward to more from Neogoa in 2018!

it's hard to keep track of the overall quality of a year, year after year to make any real comparison... there's just too much music and too many burnt out brain cells. but i am consistently listening to lots of new psytrance... so i'd say it's been a solid year. i can recall moments of getting lost in the music, which is all anyone can hope for. this year i'm trying to be more selective with what i listen to, as there is not enough time to warrant wasting it on the increasing amounts of cookie cutter B.S being churned out. i'd say more than 60% is derivative, 20% is decently enjoyable and 20% is top notch. so as long as music is still getting produced, there will be some gems out there when the mediocrity has been sifted through. ... this still wasn't the year that i started to like dark/forest/hi-tech and i feel like the amount (but not the quality) of goa releases has been lacking but there's more than enough full on, progressive, psybient and dj sets to placate me. what kind of replay value people are getting out of albums? i'll often gamble by listening to something i've never heard before rather than replay something proven to be high quality... i'll leave the album recommendations for the annual top 10 list, hopefully the people who were underwhelmed by this year's output will discover some magic there