fluorosis

Sounds good, like an updated Full-On MFG Bleyage... as in Johann? or am I reaching/recycling too hard

If it sounds lush and complete, I tend to like it. I have preferences, of course. (not big on close intervals way down low. Keep it at 5th and octave and THEN add some other notes...) Modally, they are all available, but you can't really switch tonic notes too often, but by all means, give us the 5th mode of the melodic minor or WHATEVER, feel something. No one said it had to have ALL THE NOTES always etc... it's more like some alternatings stacks of notes to move around between, to not always feel so STATIC. IMO, the number one issue with electronica, as music, is the feeling of static lack of motion, like a 1 chord song. Plus, an inversion is already a different sounding chord, in modal-land It's best not to get muddy, sure, but that's often due to trying to shoehorn the wrong bits where they aren't welcome, or too much in one bite, etc... I guess my dream concept I didn't hear yet (and please don't tell me to make it, I'm allowed to bitch and moan about the current state of trance like a consumer, lol): always feeling like it's moving, harmonically, and yet feeling like there's some "closing" of a phrase, like a cadence, and so there's roots and feeling grounded, but I'm not bored. The best modal piano jazz does this for me, for example. There's lovely bands out there too: Anyone remember "Jah Levi World Fusion Project"?

I suppose I am accidentally saying that the "melodic" full-on of the early 2000's wasn't melodic enough for my goa tastes. I suppose that I am saying that modern full-on only made this split more evident. Even "melodic" stuff like Avalon typically just has a few accent notes on the end of a rather dry production-heavy passage of banging percussion bassline and sound effects like whooshes, swooshes, crashes, and all the requisite single-note "stabs" of gritty "modern" synths so you know it's psy, but they typically only reinforce the bassline main tonic note, not making any harmony or melody. Modern daytime sounds rather night-time, and that's not even on a "darkpsy" party! Only the bassline remains groovier. but that Mr. Peculiar sounds rather contemporary in a way, almost like a harbinger of things to come... I suppose I am suggesting that folks have copied him a bit, lol it's funny. I've just put "Alien Pump" by Tandu on, and it's mostly gritty sounds, but somehow i patiently await it's buildups to get swept away like a wave washes a plastic coke bottle ashore... and it's wailing (mildly ridiculous) melody at the end is a fitting passionate crown to such a journey through a steel scrapyard where leaf-spring pterodactyles gimble and gyre amongs the mimsy waves, outgrabe. @recursion loop yeah, mostly good stuff from Vertigo for about a decade now, ever since they split off from that generic insomnia/deja-vu sound that became the dark side and they went more... it's not quite Suomi, but it's not full-on really... but i tend to like quite a lot of their stuff, I think they released Trold and such too.

Sorry, no, I didn't mean Mr. Peculiar, I must have missed that here in this thread. Mr. Peculiar is something *else*, quite nice at the time it came out. It was quite special, actually. I wouldn't put it into a box with full-on nor minimal. What's interesting here is that he plays a lot of harmony with the pad and string sounds, the fluffy cloud chords, not too much with overt "loud sawtooth lead melodies played on a nord lead goddammit!" Proper "melodic" psy? I dunno, "People can Fly" ? There's a lot of stuff that was inspiring as hell on a party once-upon-a-time but doesn't stand the light of day today as "melodic"... like "we created our own happiness"... there's this vague kinda sorta melody, but mostly it's just the acid sounds doing that same tonic main bassline note. (panic in paradise is still rather inspiring feeling, although it's not complex. none of this stuff is, musically speaking) Do you remember how when the melodies came "back" with full-on after minimal and tech-trance that they WERE simplified down into club melodies? I mean, Astrix and all this, it's more stripped down than goa-psy... it's more about the production already. I'm trying to point out that the wrong-road we started on happened already with the early 2000's full-on... it was ALREADY prioritizing production over melodic content. I guess you could say that we generally, as a scene, focus too much on production and too little on the musical ideas. purely abstract sound design can be a wicked layer (Prana and Psychopod were both quite good at this) but if it's the only music always? that's techno, lol

Ah yes, Armageddon Dildo and such.... I just see that as a natural pop music product for teutonic places.... a bit like the inevitability of Rammstein... back to that Laurel Canyon Conspiracy Book, there's similar stories about The CIA and The Scorpions etc, but I digress... One always has to wonder what cultural values one supports and which cultural values are being promoted by which art and which scenes. I have seen numerous conspiracies that allege that basically the hippie psychedelic scene was deliberately washed with speed coke and heroin by forces (hells angels, mafia, etc) deliberately invited in by CIA and/or FBI operations, such AS MKUltra, but our Laurel Canyon book author is an absolute expert at tying in ALL the little details to make his book nice, "bluebird = old code name for mkultra, david crosby, rich brat, coincidentally puts out song by that name!" etc... worthy of a ten-strip of acid contemplation, lol... but still, quite a reach, funny book though. I'd rather liked an old tale in which Elvis and Jim Morrison and such were all on this secret ranch in retirement after having played their acting roles...

good point, I've not read this book you speak of, but it sounds great, I'll have to read it. ah. the thematic material of industrial and EBM lyrics, lol...

True, something happened about a decade back... all the "day" music started sounding like "night" music but with a groovy bassline and lower tempos. I miss music with all the parts. I'm not keen on this "but we explicitly leave the chocolate sauce out of our genre" style things... As far as the examples given above, i don't find them melodic in the slightest. Those of us who were there KNOW, when full-on came BACK to melodies after minimal and tech trance, they weren't the same kind of goa melodies. They were "club melodies" and I put much of the early 2000's so-called-melodic in this box.

I have more conspiracy theories if you want to hear them I had one the other day where cartels were deliberately paying large event organizers to book naff live-acts and popularize them so as to drive away all the sensible types and encourage the remaining lot to take dodgy powdered things and put them up their noses... nothing like bad music to drive you to hard drugs, lol

Sorry, back to the topic. "When first darkpsy?" which is a question that totally ignores our EDM/industrial roots. Dark was there since day 1. It's more a question of "when was the first not-naff melody created in techno-land" which I'll argue has yet to occur Anyone complaining about Xenomorph song titles should look at some 80's Industrial album covers and read their lyrics. Besides Mark Petricks (I think?) interest/belief in Gnostic mysticism, there's the fact that the entire "counter-cultural" narrative of art since Rock-n-Roll is predicated on pointing out the actual devil worship of our Molochian system, see Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (famous film)... we feed people, wildlife, and our entire planet to capitalism whole like a blood sacrifice. So, back to the question, I remember loads before Xenomorph... of COURSE "night trance" had more than just gear noises going on back then, because trance as a genre wasn't split into 20 fragments. (Sandman "Witchcraft" being one epic album, UX Ultimate Experience, someone pointed out later stuff like Darshan, etc...) I have my OWN pet theory that all this rave-genre-segmentation was deliberately exploited by various nations intel agencies in a sort of "Tower of Babel" concept piece, to keep us all from getting together and ruling the planet with peace love and acid whaddya say? Fits a trancers overly-self-important view of trances role in the world, check... Of course my better half knows that we are just cunty by nature...

All these boxes are unfortunate. I separate by artist, not genre. A good artist often makes several genres or even plays instruments in bands and stuff...The genre thing is annotating after-the-fact about specific releases. To put a human being in a box is only sometimes warranted (when they go into that box as their exclusive box, declare it their territory, and don't ever fit into other boxes.) Basically, I've been disappointed by box-like-thinking across the festival social spectrum, and I've been surprised by open minds in "mainstream" contexts, so act psychedelic if you claim to be it = my take on it. I'll judge you by what you act like, lol... But yeah, I've heard good and bad stuff for about 30 years now, but the funny thing is, despite the hype, there's some one-trick-pony's out there and you can tell that they are phony baloney ponies, not naming any names here... (cough cough, certainly no one using names from dead great composers. no hubris there) But i've heard more than my fair share of "it's only the tonic note over and over" goa trance that is melodic for morons, just as I've heard my fair share of "but every sound is edgy, where is the contrast? sounds like razor-blade-spaghetti-bolognese" Sorry, (engages polite-speak filter) I mean to say, there's gems in every box, you just only find like 1 a year, typically....

sorry, i can't seem to figure out to how to directly reply to a comment... true, although that seems a bit stuck too now since it's all a bit neurofunk 2000, sound-palette-wise, which isn't a bad thing, but it's also stuck a bit IMO. As far as newish electronica, I found afro-house to be kinda interesting and pleasant. There's lots of interesting rhythms intermixed.

Thank you! Interesting and precisely what the doctor ordered. I like it all, each for their own reasons. (this is in reference to the 3 clips shared above. all have something vaguely psychedelic trance related about them but they are all different sides of the ingredients and all quite powerful and visual as well)

Like, SERIOUSLY! I'm helpless and uninspired. Try hard. Come on. Blow my mind, show me what you've got. Pull a genre out of your arse or something. Is there some cool new secret scene everyone but moi knows about and is hiding? (I see those choccie biccies under your pillow...)

"The myth of progress" It's just changing fashions. There's been no linear "development" of the musical genre and it's sub-genres. The attention span of a fruit fly leads to jumping around willy-nilly with no regard towards developing, deepening, enriching existing themes, but just wholesale replacement with a "new" equally vapid superficial "style". People say they like this or that genre, rather than enjoying the work of a thoughtful artist across a spectrum of styles. It's all a bit sad that way, actually. A bunch of template-copy-cats pretending that their new template supercedes intelligent thoughtful structures. There's absolutely no reason to discount music of an entire decade due to 'stylistic' faddish "clothing", IMO My guess is that some 90's psychedelic trance would sound rather alternative to many of the cookie-cutter modern sounds, especially to ears that never had heard it before.

ah, i was showing a few different harmonic movements over the same riff/bassline... yes I agree, it's all a bit too muddled...i was initially going to try to make it like "comparisons" basically, i have a new respect for anyone able to carry ideas through a whole track, lol...

I think it's mostly about conscious choices in track production and conforming to the 3 "styles" circa 2003: full-on, prog, dark. (old school being considered uncool at that time) We forced everyone to copy GMS Talamasca 1200-mics, lol... well not really, but you can see where that old "unka unka" minimal vibe just completely disappeared... Paps etc... That Organic Noise track I posted the link to on the "sounds like x-dream" thread would be considered "terrible production" today but it still sounds totally awesome over a decent system, especially the beginning watery sounds with just this bassline slightly drifting in pitch until "smack pop" this funny poppy kick comes in and the whole thing is like a locomotive....choo choo!

...announcing my cheesy efforts at adding more "advanced" harmonies beyond basic 1-3-5 major/minor triads. please excuse the total lack of sound design, whooshes, swooshes, crashes, vocal samples, or decent production. hmmm I realized that there are a LOT of variables in "making a track" and that my harmony ideas quickly got lost in a pile of "what should i do?" for every single sound. If there were only a "control" song, I could happily remix it or re-harmonize it, LOL... so please don't consider these examples as a concrete proposal for what ALL harmonies sound like beyond the 1-3-5... Any cheese is strictly due to my own cheesy taste. It's literally not possible to say that "more musicality will result in cheesiness" as that's a position of ignorance about music. Knowing more music will not ever ever limit a person, but will provide more options to consciously choose a toolkit. There are certainly times in which only a "powerchord" (1-5 interval) is called for.... Anyway, enough pre-amble... here, for your laughter and amusement, my attempts at trance... (is there any preferred way of posting audio files? i just put it on mega here...) https://mega.nz/folder/zBkRTa4B#wkaDI7fI7-nIM6ccmOucEg

noosphere was quite good too, by the way...

oh

noosphere? ohhhh! you mean Organic Noise! and their hit tune "spastic elastic"

A DJ playing 90's Goa would have crossed-through about 20 million of todays "sub-genres" A "Modern" DJ often plays 2 hours of the same "sub-genre". This templated "genre formula" thing hadn't been defined yet either...we got a lot of different interpretations of the same concept. Evolutionarily speaking, it was a time of greater diversity in the musical genepool, agreed. It's all still possible now. The forces stopping us are social forces, not technological ones. You will note that I was basically told above that "using music foo at any higher than a rock level will invariably produce non-trancy results", which I find rather unpsychedelic to even think let alone write in public about...lol That's why we can't have nice things like evolution careful, or you will be assigned a homework project for being ungrateful at all you were given and questioning progress, lol. nevermind that this is the very topic of this thread "wishlisting" but ok... I'll be presenting my cheese soon enough and then folks can return to dismissing "music" as an undesired element in the perfect form of trance we have been handed from the Gods on High as soon as it's determined that my cheese is indeed cheesy, lol. which is purely my own fault, of course... I blame it on my cheesy tastes. Stilton anyone? Limburger? Brie?

but i love complaining so! What good is "doing something about the problem" when there will be nothing to talk about. Well, maybe you'll get a laugh out of it. It's likely to end up a cheese-fest regardless, due to myself, not the fault of "musical harmony" per se... I'll basically say that the "safest" option is to always play the tonic note over and over. This level of musical insecurity is paralyzing and rapidly leads nowhere, however. The next safest is to add a singular other note here and there and this forms an "interval" with the main tonic note, it's simply a relationship between them. Different cultures have different scales made up of intervals with respect to the root "tonic" note. These intervals exist between notes in the same tonic system, however, and this ALSO provides both richer harmonics than simply one interval, but also provides "pivot points" for harmonic movement. One doesn't need to continually reference rock-band level "chord progressions" to have harmonic movement, as even this Blue Planet corp track that I'm currently obsessing over (Alidade) LOL, has a chord progression over a relatively static tonic drone or pedal note that actually isn't always the tonic note of the chord above, but just as you can take a minor triad and put it a major 3rd up from your new tonic and voila, you have a new chord with a 7th. there's nothing magical about this nor does it necessitate "cheese-fests" At the risk of sounding cruel, "one is doing it incorrectly" if using intervals other than a minor 3rd and a 5th (and octave) scare one. We DO already have some artists using deeper harmony than others. It's like legos, once you understand how all the pieces fit together, say, by learning one of the principle polyphonic instruments like keyboards or guitar, and in the context of everything from Bach to Bebop, you will notice that "western" music, particularly from folk and classical, reference a movement from the 5 chord to the 1 chord as an expression of tension and release in the structure. Whereas your basic reggae or funk "lego" will be a 2-chord movement typically 1 to 4 chord back and forth all night. Spanish "Andalusian cadence" is a minor4, 3, 2, 1 typically with the 1 being a phrygian (3rd mode from the Do/C or it's relative equivalent...) It's simply that electronic music is generally weak on the music and heavily emphasizes production values and the loudness war, in my biased view. We don't need to focus more on production values, we need to turn our attention to the "music" part, rather than the "electronic" part. We have that latter part handled already... Me chiming in on a thread asking "what do you miss from trance?" saying what I DO, in fact, miss, is a rather suitable comment. I shouldn't have to SOLVE this bloody problem nor should my impending cheese-ball interpretation of trance be taken as just cause to throw away my point.

That's far too close to some of my more paranoid ac*d trips plot-lines for comfort, lol...

I'll note that no one said "epic progression from some sort of prog rock track" except you, so that's your challenge, lol... Mine is to utilize multi-part harmony without resulting in a cheese fest, as you put it, right? Ok, I'll try. It will probably take me a long time. I'll update you with my likely sorry results and you can judge if the implementation was bad or if the idea was simply a non-starter from the get-go.

Sure, that's why I said: That's distinct from the OP's point, which should be graspable and nothing to argue with, really, even if it means fuck-all about what music actually cranks yours or my sockets. Why are fans of an obscure underground-ish genre surprised at hook-laden catchy-riff music going viral and being popular n stuff? "bbut but my favorite music is valid!" Indeed it is. And Boris Blenn is now joined with Blue Planet Corp, can I get any more B's for 10 points anyone? Born Slippy vs Bob Miles "Children" for virality, OP's point notwithstanding? It's a draw folks! Perhaps the former get's played only as the original, whereas the latter is likely ripe for a Vini Vici remix