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Origins of of Goa/Psy genres names


Ormion

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So we all say Goa, Full On, Darkpsy, Suomi etc., but how did these names first come in existence?

Let's try to find the origins.


Goa
Obviously named by the Indian region, but who first decided to call it Goa Trance instead of India Trance or something else. There's a Trancemaster compilation from 1992 with the name Goa. Here http://www.discogs.com/Various-Trancemaster-2-The-Goa-Gap/release/55920.
But still this is Trance. Any ideas?

Psytrance
I think Psychaos was the first artist with a Psy in his name. No idea where it first used though.

Full On
The general consensus is that is named after the HOM-Mega compilations. Any ideas?

Progressive
No idea where it first used. Obviously it had many in common with "normal" Prog Trance, but no idea where I first saw it. (Indoor's album doesn't count).

Darkpsy
I remember when Darkpsy was born and people started to call it that instead of Blackpsy or Nightpsy or something else, but I don't remember where I first saw it.

Suomi
Obviously named by Finnish artists themselves. Any idea where it first used?

Twilight
Pitch Hikers-Twilight Zone was the first time I saw it in a cover, but that doesn't count since it's an album name (there's Shift-Twilight track from 2004 as well). IIRC the first time I saw it being used as a genre name was for the promotion of Shift-Byte Me. Not sure though.

Nitzhonot
Apparently nitzhonot in hebrew means winning. No idea who first used it.

Psycore/Hi-Tech
First time I saw the term Psycore was here in Psynews by some member mocking darkpsy for being a combination of Psytrance and Gabber/Hardcore. First time I saw it "officially" used was in Ektoplazm.
Hi-Tech no idea. I was told it was named by Osom (Kindzadza and Psykovsky) to describe their music. Don't know if legit.

Forest
No idea who first called it that.

 

 

 

 

Any ideas?

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Good questions.

 

Regarding goa, as we all know, a notable dance scene was there, it adopted electronic ("trancey") music, and eventually the terms merged. But when and how did it become widely acknowledged?

 

Carlo Andrea Raggi aka Cirillo had projects like Anjuna (1991) and Goahead (1993). Especially the latter was already somewhat close to the goa trance style. The genre was still just "trance", though.

 

In 1991 there was Goa EP from Gaia Tonträger, and in 1992 S.M.I.L.E. - Tribute to Goa. Gaia released early, proper goa like Mandra Gora (Johann Bley) - Mandrake EP in 1994. I actually remember one of my friends saying something along the lines of "if it has goa or gaia in its name, it's this kind of stuff" in the mid-'90s. To him they were almost interchangeable.

 

One factor worth mentioning is Oakenfold's Goa Mix (Wikipedia), broadcast in December 1994. It had both proto-goa and early examples of what we'd consider pure goa trance, such as Hallucinogen and MWNN. It was sold as "The Goa Mix" on CD too in 1995, and surely established the connection between Goa and the sound even among the wider audience.

 

Other notable examples of early "goa" and "psychedelic" releases, really meaning the same as we do, include:

- Hard Trance + Psychedelic Techno 1 and 2 (1994)

- Global Psychedelic Trance 1 (May 1995)

- Fill Your Head with Phantasm - Psychedelic Trance (June 1995)

- Goa Trance 1 (October 1995) and 2 (? / 1995)

- edit: also Tantrance - A Trip to Psychedelic Trance (November 1995)

- Distance to Goa 1 and 2 (? / 1995)

- Goa Gil - Techno Spiritual Trance (? / 1995)

- The Sound of Goa Trance 1 and 2 (? / 1995)

- Goa Vibes 1 and 2 (? / 1995)

 

By that point the connection was already firm.

 

I find it interesting that the terms "goa trance" and "psychedelic trance" were established practically simultaneously. Especially Spirit Zone and Phantasm heavily used the latter for their compilations. "Goa" prevailed for a while, but I guess there was some kind of burnout from endless literally "goa" compilations, hindu cover art and Indian chants, which started to feel cheesy. A lot of cheap crap was released, after all, like it always happens when something is hot. As the music turned more broody and abstract, some artists distanced themselves from the goa connection and started to prefer "psychedelic trance" or "psytrance" for short. One example is the Psychedelic compilation by 3D Vision. Some of its artists and 3D as a whole were among the first in the big switch.

 

Those are my quick theories but please discuss.

 

(Also, fuck the rich text editor, which decided to remove all my urls due to one formatting error somewhere in the beginning. Never again.)

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Obviously the simple reason is that folks did some drugs and God came to them and showed them his kind of music which folks have been trying emulate that heavenly sound ever since now known as Goa and everything else.

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If I remember correctly from interviews and what I've read, what eventually became trance (trance as in general, not all the specifics) was known as Trance Dance.

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One more interesting release: Digital Alchemy (Oct 1994), which was released in the US as Concept in Dance - The Digital Alchemy of Goa Trance Dance. Check its covers and booklet.

 

Moonshine had mixes called Psychotrance too since 1994, but they were largely techno and never took the goa/psy path. Fairway had Hypnotic Trance in 1994. Sound of Gaia Party (June 1995) has "goa trance" as a subtitle on its cover.

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Full On

The general consensus is that is named after the HOM-Mega compilations. Any ideas?

Long time ago I found on the internet that it got something to do with the 'full moon' parties aswell, but I'm not sure is that the correct source of the name.

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I remember using the term full on to to describe the high energy balls to the walls kind of psy, I would guess that the fullon term came from music that was full on in the same way.

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Progressive

No idea where it first used. Obviously it had many in common with "normal" Prog Trance, but no idea where I first saw it. (Indoor's album doesn't count).

"Progressive" just describes the structure of the song, it's used on a lot of other genres too (progressive house, progressive techno ect.).

The difference, technically speaking, is: if do you a 'normal' tack, you create a drum loop repeating during a bar. Now you take this loop and build your track around. Doesn't necessarily need to have any defined structure. If you do it 'progressive' this is not the case anymore, here you absolutely need to follow a certain structure.

Progressive means 'ongoing' or 'evolving', so you do "Into - Buildup - Climax - Break - Buildup - Climax - Outro". All "Progressive" tracks have this, and exactly this structure.

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