The cancers of todays Psy scene

[Psycosmo]

Cancer on the scene? People thinking that things are or are not "psychedelic" and not realizing that things that are psychedelic for some people aren't necessarily so for other people. Hell maybe Brittany Spears is psychedelic to someone out there.

[pixiejanet]

the only time i get bored of music is when its overplayed and this to me is the cancer, this doesnt really happen in the psy scene as the challenge always appears to be bigger better best and no repeats...

sadly the israeli scene seems to be full of repeats now.....it was ace when it first appeared but now i get bored.

i cant give names as i`m too bored to find out who was playing!

 

 

 

I`ll never get bored of guitars tho, so long as its played well, sends chills up my spine it does...in any genre.. and its a sure fire way of getting me back in the zone.

[NEMO.BOFH]

Cancer on the scene? People thinking that things are or are not "psychedelic" and not realizing that things that are psychedelic for some people aren't necessarily so for other people. Hell maybe Brittany Spears is psychedelic to someone out there.

Yeah, Like Minimal can be very psychedelic for me... But we do not go around calling it minipsy, do we now?

[danet]

The real cancer of the scene is the lack of creativity of the producers.

 

It is rare to hear something that really sounds new and fresh with interesting ideas that catch your attention.

And i guess this is not only cancer to the psyscene but all genres of music.

When people make music they bound it so much to the subgenre and it should sounds like this and that so they only copy their own sound and others sound time after time after time.

 

I guess that is why lets say Suomi sounds have become popular. It is something new and fresh. Soon this will sound boring to after taking it to long. Same thing with the real forest music. I hope it will last for a while and that the musicians still come with fresh ideas.

That it what has happen to Darkpsy, people higher the bpm's to make it sound more evil. Come on, a good musician can make it evil and dark without a 160+ bpm.

Fullon music is what have become most boring of it all, all sounds the same and it has become a cheesefest, inspired by eurodisco and clubtrance, it is not a part of the psychedelic scene anymore and dont call it psytrance. Some psychedelic sounds over a cheesy lead dont make it psy.

 

If people started doing MUSIC instead of being so concentrated about it should sound in one way were going to have good music with new sounds. Look outside the box for new influences.

 

I quote myself from the badly mastered albums thread:

 

I must agree it is charmy with a lite shitty sound with errors and everything. If it is too well produced it loses so much dynamics and i think the soul in the music get lost.

 

I think it is sad when every producer sits with the same presets and all sounds exactly the same, the fullon scene especially but also a lot darkpsy producers sounds the same. It feels that a lot producers dont create their sounds from scratch. It is so easy to just pick a preset and add some glitch to it. Boring. I want to hear more creative sounds.

Move the music forward and not copy what allready sounds fat.

[danet]

I also blame the labels for this.

 

To many labels whant their piece of the cake and release whatever shit and it is to many producers want to release their copied sounds.

How many good releases is it out there of everything that is released?

How many new labels pop up every week pushing for their compilation?

And the big question: How many of those releases is really something fresh quality stuff?

 

They dont even put time to do a good design for the covers, and if you read the promotexts their are full of spelling mistakes. How serious looks that for the customers?

 

Now more about the music: the really moooost boring style of the psy-genres is chillout/psydub. It has sounded almost the same for 10 years now, same soundscapes, same rythms, same pads. I want to hear some real raw twisted dub! Not the same lame beats over and over again.

Look at the dubstep-scene, they have some fucking creative ideas and make music you can enjoy both chilling and on the dancefloor. But I guess soon they have take it to long to and repeat themselves.

[Malevol3nt]

Are we talking from an idealistic standpoint or are we looking at the actual music?

Because if you take full on you will see plenty of full on formulas, similar breakdowns, the bass structures. If you talk about dark-psy, they all seem to have at least one track with their squelchy synth line or atmospheric ominous pads, not counting the glitch elements -or at the very least- a track that is for the love-of-god no slower than 148 BPMs. We are full of predefined formulas, we might not talk about them, artists might not consciously use them, but they are there to make sure it sounds LIKE PSY, and not like electro, or minimal, or bloody house music.

There's a difference between full-on and darkpsy, at least I see a difference. Look, full-on is to me the equivalent of eurodance. A commercial rape of a genre just to inspire more sales (a.k.a the "cool" genre among kids, mtv and stuff). So full-on seems to me like a stripped down version of what usually psychedellic tracks contain, and the main thing that gets pushed forward in this type of music is the bassline (for the kids on E on parties).

 

And then I hear things like "There's good full-on". Yeah, there might be and there is. But what is the point? Strip down psytrance, and then add a layer or two again and now its "good full-on". I mean that's like dripping alcohol into an alcohol-free beer can. Why not just call it psytrance in the first place? It's got a fatter bassline and now it's supposed to be called a whole different genre?

As for darkpsy, this is a genre I respect. Because it actually is different enough to be called a sub-genre of it's own. And there are inspiring artists in this genre such as psyskovsky.

 

About the predefined formula's bit: By formula's I didn't mean "140 bpm, lots of dynamics etc", as an artist you probably have some idea what you want to do with your track. But what I meant was these new artists that keep popping out like mushrooms after rain, almost all of them have this one idea in their head - "How can I become famous and do so quickly?". So they start looking for formulas in other tracks and build on them. As I see it they're looking for 'recognition' in the scene, and the quickest way to do that is to copy the tested formula of other more known artists. It's like they're too scared or just lack the effort to try something new.

 

People blame it on software, how it changed everything and made it possible for everyone to make music. You know what, software doesn't make music, people make music. Sure it's easy to make music with software, but damn it, it's not easy to make good music with software. It requires a whole lot more effort, and this is what these new artists are struggling with and eventually just give up and go with the tested formula. Where with hardware you had it (almost) easy - it sounds great out of the box, the software on the other hand requires alot of tweaking (to be able to make something creative that actually sounds good). Not to mention the extra eq'ing and all sorts of effects just to level it up so it sounds like it was made with hardware.

 

The primary point of this conversation remains and thus why I had to explain this in such parsimonious detail. PSYTRANCE IS DEAD, because the term is too ethereal and ultimately meaningless, Because the culture is full of people who have their own idea of what the sound should be like and vibe and there is not a general consensus. This thread is living proof of it. Psy got diluted to the point where folks don't recognize it's many facets anymore. Back in the 70's you had led zeppelin and you knew it was psychedelic, nobody was going to argue that. Today the world is a different place, more complex and segregated.

The scene now seems to be made out of clusters, where there are strict definitions of each subgenre. It's like psytrance was a cake made out of 12 different chocolates, and a bunch of people took their own favourite chocolate slice. Then they turned that slice into a cake of it's own. And now you have a choice between 12 cakes, instead of just taking 1 cake and have all the chocolate in it at once. Now unless your name is NHJOHYENNRO, you can't label your album's genre with 'goaminimaltekkfullondarkpsy'. So these artists just choose one genre, simple formula, copy-paste, and Voilà! Cake served.

[Colin OOOD]

mmm cake

 

With software you have so much control over your cake; with hardware the flavours all munge together and it's really hard to taste the separate flavours unless you have a kitchen costing tens of thousands of pounds. Listen to the clips of the Crop Circles cake for an example; no-one can deny it's a truly awesome recipe developed by a group of Michelin-starred chefs with amazing ingredients, but because of the tools they had to use, the melody chocolate overwhelms the flavour of the hihat raisins.

[Malevol3nt]

mmm cake

 

With software you have so much control over your cake; with hardware the flavours all munge together and it's really hard to taste the separate flavours unless you have a kitchen costing tens of thousands of pounds. Listen to the clips of the Crop Circles cake for an example; no-one can deny it's a truly awesome recipe developed by a group of Michelin-starred chefs with amazing ingredients, but because of the tools they had to use, the melody chocolate overwhelms the flavour of the hihat raisins.

 

Indeed, with software anything is possible. It's a shame artists aren't taking that advantage tho.

 

Edit: It's funny how I allways mix up Crop Circles with 'Crap Circles'. An honest mistake it must be..

[Colin OOOD]

Indeed, with software anything is possible. It's a shame artists aren't taking that advantage tho.

I think they DO take advantage of the new, cheap food processors that software gives you - most trance today has very distinct flavours. A lot of the time though I don't like the ingredients they use; too bland.

[Malevol3nt]

I think they DO take advantage of the new, cheap food processors that software gives you - most trance today has very distinct flavours. A lot of the time though I don't like the ingredients they use; too bland.

By advantage I didn't mean take advantage of ready-made synths with great patches, but the advantage of the creative potential of some software that is available out there. But allready it seems like software developers are working in the wrong direction.. making it even more easy for the newbies out there to 'create' something that sounds good. One example would be Nexus, you will hear praise about it among almost every amateur artist out there. That's only because it delivers something good in just a few clicks. Pre-recorded samples and predefined patches, way to inspire creativity..Not.

 

Instead of choosing these virtual synths by their creative potential, people choose them by their ease of use. It's like the software developers are now taking the role of music making from them, and just putting a few buttons for that minimal ammount of control. The role of the music maker behind this new (commercial) software is continuing to fade. Of course I'm over-exaterating a bit, but it sure seems to go in that direction.

 

Rant rant rant.. Who cares. I still use internal FL instruments made like half a decade ago, and with a bit of tweaking and eq'ing they can sound terrific. Anywho, I'm out of this thread.. no reason to continue discussing this.

[danet]

dnb-producer Teebee said a good thing in Knowledge Magazine:

 

"Every motherfucking kid out there is sitting with the same presets of beats, the same soft synths, the same filters, the same plug-ins, and if it doesnt sit right there's this little button called "mixdown" that will let the computer do it for you. That to me was the day the music died.

 

Digital still sounds a bit harsh for me, that's the thing, if the beat doesn't sit right they'll just chuck another beat in there and then they compress the fuck out of it until it sounds so snappy that it sounds like a tin can set. For me, it's all about the brute, anabolic, rough edge - it's got to be fucking warm, it's got to be alive. I'm trying to create a monster here, not a fucking tin can soldier. So you gotta have some tubes, you gotta have some wiring, you gotta have some hiss and you gotta have some overloads, and if you look at the big boys, you can go to any massive studio and see that it's becoming more and more digital but there's always that little angle of really expensive outboard gear and it will always be there"

 

Teebee (Knowledge Magazine March 2005)

 

 

I think we can apply his opinion on the psytrance music to, when everything sounds superclean and all producers uses the same presets.

On many of the old tracks you hear they are much more warm than todays 100% digital sounds.

I can admit I am a part of it to because for the moment I can't afford some real gear but at least try to do some creative things with the tools I have.

[Malevol3nt]

The bit about warmth, well this is mostly software developers fault. It is possible to have that "warmth" in a virtual synth, just needs some hard work on algorithms that's all. Zebra is one of those synths that can do some very warm stuff for example.

[danet]

Yeah but it is not so many producers today that even try to do a thick and nice warm sound.

[Malevol3nt]

Yeah but it is not so many producers today that even try to do a thick and nice warm sound.

Ye. Lack of effort. That's what it is. Lazy attention seeking effortless newbies. Where all the pro's at?

[p(sy)ayam]

what do you guys expect? 500 decent albums each year!!?!?

[Malevol3nt]

what do you guys expect? 500 decent albums each year!!?!?

No, we expect 20 overkill albums each year. The rest of the 480 can be used for campfires.

[p(sy)ayam]

No, we expect 20 overkill albums each year. The rest of the 480 can be used for campfires.

i think i have 20 overkill albums from this year releases (but that includes downbeat albums)

[Malevol3nt]

i think i have 20 overkill albums from this year releases (but that includes downbeat albums)

[Filteria]

Yahel's covers

 

Other than that, I would say software.. I mean to have the same production (compression and eq settings), plugins and even the same samplebanks as 60% of the scene (if not more) . Doesn't these artists get bored? I seriously wonder...

[Nyarlathotep]

Being a fun of the darkside of the music (stuff like Xenomorph,Sandman,Menis,Ubar Tmar,Battle of The Future Buddhas etc made me check this music) i cant say that the cancer of todays psy is a particular sub genre.I believe the cancer in this music is basically the same with almost all the music genres iam listening to.

1 is money:when dj/acts start to make 1312312 tracks per year its almost 100% certain that the quality will be crap or at best something you listen and next year you cant remember

2 is short minded people: :People that cant understand that no music cant stay the same and always evolve.Also they cant understand that as time passes tracks cant have the same originality like when the music was at infant stages

 

PS:Thank the acts mentioned above for the tracks they made/make all this hippy attitude this genre had was way too much.Its ok if you dont like the dark side even i dont like most of the so called darkpsy coming out today cause 9 out of 10 albums is bassline bassline random samples from terror movies and loop again and again but yeah if you dont like dark sounds generally just dont listen to them .-

[alleycat]

One cancer I see is how many REALLY REALLY FUCKING AWESOME TRACKS get shoved into the same pigeonhole with the obnoxious, over-fast loop-horror sample-loop 'darkpsy'. The really sad part is that people hear that its 'darkpsy' and automatically its just as obnoxious to them.

 

For example, I give you, for your perusal, artists whose work gets placed in the darkpsy category whose work has nothing to do with darkness or horror.

 

Mubali, Quasar, Fractal Cowboys, Alien Mental, Ocelot (check 9 Lives and tell me thats fucking dark), Bodhisattva 13:20, Pan Psychic, Whicked Hayo, Terminator, Dominator, CPC (ok I admit some of his stuff has a pretty dark atmosphere), Red, Kerosene Club, Para Halu, and on and on...

[Kryll]

PS:Thank the acts mentioned above for the tracks they made/make all this hippy attitude this genre had was way too much.Its ok if you dont like the dark side even i dont like most of the so called darkpsy coming out today cause 9 out of 10 albums is bassline bassline random samples from terror movies and loop again and again but yeah if you dont like dark sounds generally just dont listen to them .-

 

well.. then it seems i've only ran in to these 9 out of 10

 

 

i like dark sounds, but i cant say darkpsy really sounds dark to me (or has anything to do with psy for that matter)

 

but hey, could be me, that didnt listen to the right albums yet..

[Guest antic]

Mubali, Quasar, Fractal Cowboys, Alien Mental, Ocelot (check 9 Lives and tell me thats fucking dark), Bodhisattva 13:20, Pan Psychic, Whicked Hayo, Terminator, Dominator, CPC (ok I admit some of his stuff has a pretty dark atmosphere), Red, Kerosene Club, Para Halu, and on and on...

Well, last Mubali's album, Para Halu and Alien Mental are definitely dark, but maybe not horror-dark, but rather connected with psychic, subconscious, religious experiences (demons, possessions), aliens etc. How would you call it, then?

 

I agree on Ocelot, though. Have not heard others (yet), but Quasar's samples sound pretty dark to me.

[alleycat]

When I think of dark I think of, for example, Xyla, Xenomorph, that sort... The guys you mentioned, to me, aren't necessarily dark, they're just, powerful and really really trippy. I know at least Mubali is a really cool dude who is about as far from OMG IM A EVIL DARKPSY GUY as you can get. Honestly I dont know what to call it. I just call it psytrance . If I want to be specific i call it full power psychedelic. I admit 'dark' is a good description, if only people would give it a chance before lumping it in with the crap.

 

To me, and this is just my own perception, its deep, sometimes moody stuff more focused on being really trippy than anything else. It just so happens that having a lower-octave bass and a lot of squidgy noises is really trippy in... 'certain' moods. And it also just so happens that the real 'darkpsy' shares both of those qualities.

 

I really feel there should be a differentiation between the really dark stuff, the really fast stuff, and the just plain really trippy stuff. Deviant Species is really dark, Highcosmos is really fast, and Mubali and the others (to me) are just plain really trippy. But then, theres dark stuff thats fast, fast stuff thats trippy... And trippy stuff thats dark... It does get a bit muddled...

 

Para Halu has indeed made some deep, brooding tracks, however, theyve also got a good amount of not very dark stuff, check the album Space Rock and the vs The Path album, both on Zaikadelic. Their first album on Parvati, too, theres only really one track I'd call even close to dark (trk8-Animachine). From a certain point of view it could be called dark, just like for example Pink Floyd could be called dark (the Wall is pretty dark in subject matter, imo). But, to me its just really trippy...

 

My complaint is mainly that people hear 'darkpsy' and automatically hate it without even really listening to it. I think this was Ocelot's point with his famous Isra post (Stop Calling Psy Dark!). It sucks that people are that shallow to hate something just because of a name. But, its the way people are, theres a lot of sheep out there...

[Guest antic]

Well, it all boils down to the definitions used, then

 

To my mind 'dark' is not about sounding evil / satanic / horror - that's just plain ridiculous for a dance music and that's why I probably never liked Dark Soho, Xenomorph etc. First of all, I personally associate 'dark' with mysterious, uncertain, sci-fi, moody and ...well, psychedelic - in old-school this would be UX, Menis, Slide, Biot, Darshan, Ominus, Sandman etc. In current times, best example for me is Alien Mental's "Mind Hack" - this is a real jurney CD, taking the listener through the religions, subconsciousness, tribal stuff and aliens and doing so it sound like a proper album with a story behind the beats, that provekes questions and makes you think. On the other hand, you've got latest EVP "Holographic consciousness" which is touching very similar subjects, but I'd be far from calling it 'dark', because it has (few) melodies, couple of 'funny' samples and is in general more musical than your typical darkpsy - sort of like a perfect combination of darkpsy and full-on, with a pinch of good old psychedelic trance.

 

So, IMO being 'dark' is a combination of a theme AND certain production techniques (monotonous 16th bassline, short bursts of screechy & hard sounds, 'spooky' pads & atmospheres, heavy processing & editing etc.).