Splitting hairs...

[Twisted D*U*O]

So I realized that this whole South African/Twilight Psy thing is growing. Don't get me wrong, I like it. Hell, I play it. In fact, it's a nice evolution of full-on that brings the complex layers of dark with the bouncy dancefloor friendliness of Israeli Full-On. But I'm wondering why it is that people always have to classify things in order to validate themselves?

 

I mean, I've played "Twilight" psy at 2am and it's gone over great. I've mixed Full-On with Dark and it progresses well. In all honesty, I've tried narrowing down a set to one element and it's become rather trite. I like to switch genres around and intermingle them. And do it quite successfully. A good dj doesn't play a certain style, he/she plays the dancefloor. They play the energy of the timeslot and room. And the great part is that this energy can change in a moments notice. There are many tracks that play with people's emotions like this (Simon Posford is great for this wide range).

 

Anyway, maybe I'm just getting older. Maybe I was schooled by the likes of guys like Goa Gil and Raja Ram who would drop punk rock, techno, psytrance, and even country. I remember Goa Gil two years ago for his birthday threw down Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places in the set. It was nuts!! But it went off. People were singing along, raising their smokes, drinks, whatever and then he went right into dancing to an aggressive beat.

 

This isn't a topic about which is better. They all have their merits. It just reminds me about the whole "progressive" conjunctive that is placed on much music (including psytrance). I realize that in a sea of music and artists and djs that people want to be "known" for something. But pigeonholing isn't the answer. As a dj, I play psytrance and house music, but I've played just about everything. Even in my sets, I'm not afraid to drop an industrial track (last week I dropped some Combichrist during a psytrance set, people went nuts!). You can't pigeonhole that kind of thing. Psytrance is so layered in production that calling it anything specific really defeats the purpose.

[@reyu]

I agree if it works...it works. It's all about the money and some guy's taste now. It used to be different. Starting a party with more progressive beats making way for the more psychedelic sounds of the night and then top it off with more melodic stuff for the morning hours. Those were my kind of parties. It seems to me that those parties were exceptionally well organised in terms of which Dj plays when which is important to create a flow throughout the night.BTW I' m talking about the Belgian partyscene here. Now with all the subgenres we have the connection we had is lost in a way. I still love going to parties and I don't wanna be cynical but that's just the way I feel after too many bad parties.

[Twisted D*U*O]

I agree if it works...it works. It's all about the money and some guy's taste now. It used to be different. Starting a party with more progressive beats making way for the more psychedelic sounds of the night and then top it off with more melodic stuff for the morning hours. Those were my kind of parties. It seems to me that those parties were exceptionally well organised in terms of which Dj plays when which is important to create a flow throughout the night.BTW I' m talking about the Belgian partyscene here. Now with all the subgenres we have the connection we had is lost in a way. I still love going to parties and I don't wanna be cynical but that's just the way I feel after too many bad parties.

 

No, you're absolutely correct. I throw parties now and then and have organized several lineups. I'm all about the energy and the buildup. It's about that rollercoaster ride that psytrance gives us. I just think that psytrance as a whole incorporates so many sounds in it that pigeon-holing it into a specific realm is defeating the purpose. "I play, proggy-tech-trance."

 

Psytrance was never about the ego, it's about the inner psyche. But somehow the ego made it's way there. And that's where I think all this sub-sub-sub-classifying is going. Just crank out good music. No need to complicate it more than it already is. I'm reminded of a Juno Reactor record I bought over a decade ago. The b-side had a drum-and-bass track on it!!! Goa Trance Masters, Juno Reactor used to make DnB. Talk about not giving a shit and just making music.