I have just returned from one psytrance festival. I like to go there, not mainly for the music (which I like mostly), but for the atmosphere. Meeting all kind of different people and getting out from the usual "reality" and norms and rat race and jumping into crazines, relaxing the norms and trying new things. It is so refreshing, I always return home more happy and enthusiastic about life. And yes, people eat like tons of drugs at festivals, but I had never ever seen or experienced anything bad from people on trance festivals (which I can see everywhere where alcohol is the main drug). Sounds too hippy maybe, but that is my experience.
This is why I love techno festivals and parties. I also like the music (and I'm a hobbyist producer myself) but the sheer freedom you have for a whole festival or even evening/weekend is liberating, is a escape from reality. And the hypnotic sound also gets me to other places, even when sober.
P.S.: and by "techno" I mean the genre of EDM called techno, starting in Detroit in late 80s/early 90s and spreading through Europe by the UK, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany, not the "general techno" that is used in US to mean any kind of electronic dance music.
Sure! One thing that I love about the music producing/synth community is that we all love to share :)
I have dedicated myself to use only hardware for a while, working on a computer for 8+ hours a day really puts me off on being creative on it so I went to the only-hardware route.
With that said, my current setup is:
* Roland TR-8S for the drums, recreations of the classic drum machines (TR-606, 707, 808, 909, etc.) and it also plays samples, it's a really cool instrument to play live and perform instead of programming but with the A-H variations per pattern it also is much more powerful than the previous TR-8
* Elektron Analog Four Mk II as my main analog synth, it can do 4-voice polyphony if you aren't using all 4 tracks for different sounds or you get 4-in-1 synths with 2 oscillators per track, a lot of options for modulation (2 envelopes per track, 2 LFOs per track, etc.). I use it mainly for basslines and some leads but sometimes will use for pads, sample them and free up the tracks for playing other stuff.
* Elektron Octatrack Mk II is my brain for the setup, my sampler, my pickup machine, looper, and so it goes. It's a VERY deep machine with tons of possibilites, artists across many genres use it (from Radiohead to a lot of techno producers) and I'm even using it to help a friend who has a solo ballad rock project to add some cool ambiance to his tracks.
* Elektron Digitone, my FM and polysynth, 8 voices, 2 per track but as the A4 it can steal voices from other tracks to play up to 8 notes at a time from a single track. This machine is really cool and inspiring, it's FM-made-easy as apart from the FM engine you also get the world of subtractive synthesis with its filters. I also love that that it has 4 MIDI tracks that I can internally route back to it to use more than 2 LFOs per track to have even more modulation.
I'm very happy with this setup, it covers all the bases while keeping it more or less compact (for a 4 synths setup).
Feel free to ask any more questions if you've got them :)
Been wanting to get a digitone, how easy is it to sculpte basses (similar to dnb like artists similar to bredran)
Also what is the inputs left and right used for?
It looks amazing especially when you need to travel
It's really easy to get a good bass from the DN, with the filter and amp env you can totally get a bass similar to a more common subtractive synth.
I'd say that the A4 can give me a "deeper" bass when I need but the DN comes loaded with quite a few basses presets for you to start from while you are getting the hang of it. I'm not sure how close to bredran's basses you can get (as I don't produce DnB) but if you can try a DN from a local music store for a bit do it! It's quite fast to get inspired with it and much easier to design sounds than it first appears.
And yup, I've been carrying it around sometimes while traveling, I'm starting to consider getting an external battery capable of powering my Elektron gear as I'd love to bring the OT and the DN while off the grid.
Thank you very much, that looks impressive. I'm looking for professional drum sound, but honestly can't justify the price of the TR-8S, hoped that there's some sample set that I could use from software. Anyway it's useful to me as a reference.
For drum samples I recommend to check out the packs from Samples From Mars[0], they are very thorough in how they sample hardware equipment and real music lovers that use most of the revenue to buy more gear to create new packs.
I haven't published anything yet as I don't feel comfortable with my creations, haha, most of the fun I have now is playing live with a friend or jamming by myself and recording 30-90 minutes sessions, mostly to track my own improvement. I hope I can publish something in the next year or so.
P.S.: I'm linking their "All Products From Mars" combo pack so you can dig into each one individually to check them out.
I definitely have been! I live in Sweden also so it was very cool to find a local maker with such unique instruments.
A big selling point for me was the Elektron sequencer and workflow, I just "got it" from the start as I didn't have much experience with other synths before. I don't really mind the menu diving as, after you get familiar with it, it feels like the machine is a keyboard of shortcuts for you to get around easily.
Mind sharing what is your setup like? Sometimes I've even thought about selling the TR-8S to get an Analog Rytm but the TR-8S is so much fun to play live (and the AR is more than double the price) that I've put the idea to rest, haha, also trying to not fall too much into GAS.
> not mainly for the music (which I like mostly), but for the atmosphere
He for me it's actually the other way around. Well, sort of: I really go for the music or more specifically for dancing hours in row. It does get me in a trance and that is the main aspect which makes me return home more happy and enthusiastic as you call it (too bad that effect doesn't last long but that's something else). But this wouldn't be possible without the atmosphere: I can only dance like a maniac because it feels ok there, exactly because no one cares and/or does what I do. The feeling of unity is very strong at goa parties, possibly the strongest of all genres I've been to. Even if I barely talked to anyone for a whole night, I exchanged smiles with many strangers and felt like we all wanted the same thing. It's a pity this only exists for more underground parties; other genres have this as well (punk and all subgenres, acidcore and the likes, some techno but definitely not all/everywhere). Society would be a better place if people would behave like this always and everywhere including daily life. So it's a pity not everyone experiences this.
Note I wouldn't be too fast blaming alcohol for problems at other parties i.e. I'm not convinced there's a causal relationship. There's quite a lot of drinking at trance/... parties as well, and I yet have to see parties where apart from alcohol no other drugs get used. I think it's more of a correlation between the type of people and their general mindset and the use of alcohol and the abberant behavior and those people not going to trance parties.
also in my experience people will get drunk and quite physical at hardcore (punk) shows, but are also quite caring and considerate about it. I think the community around the music is much more causal than the inebriant of choice.
I'm glad you had a good experience. When I was younger I was producing psytrance (I played the guitar) and I would do liveacts with a dj + my guitar. I had some pretty cool gigs and nice songs too.
Unfortunately, what made me quit the scene was the transformation I saw on my friends and acquaintances due to drug abuse. I don't know if it is a cultural thing, but I have witnessed people losing some or all of their mental sanity due to drug abuse; one time I was at a party when someone died - in the end I called it quits because I didn't want to become involved with that in any way.
I also know a number of people in the scene who lost their sanity through drug abuse. It is sad, but when you are partying and abusing yourself every weekend for years on end something is going to give.
I'm not saying there isn't a correlation with partiers who do lots of drugs and mental illness, but I have watched a lot of people lose their minds across all my social circles.
It seems like a certain percentage of people lose their minds in their early 20s.
This resonates with my experience as well. For me, the goa/psy trance community will always remain the most open-minded, friendly music community I've been part of. I'm even kind of proud to have been part of that scene, doing my 2 ct. contribution to it (mainly, connecting artists with labels and vice versa, giving artists feedback on their tracks, buying legal copies, as well as sharing obscure material to goa trance lovers). And I have been part of many (music) subcultures in my youth.
I used to be part of the goa psytrance community, introduced to it by a dear friend ( who was a little too into it). At one point he was getting Djs and throwing parties and not even taking money for entrance tickets.
It was a great time.
I absolutely fucking love trance, though my current favourite is downtempo stuff. It is the most friendly large-scale group event genre. I think it's just that the way it all started keeps it going. Like how software just managed to coincidentally have the open-source movement early on and that shaped what it would look like. I think having PLUR get in so early really made it look like what it is today.
Also, I'm not wholly unconvinced that maybe more LSD-use would make us all so much better as people.
Very similar experience. TBH after a few festivals it has gotten stale to me and I haven't been in a few years, but the experience of the first one which got me into the rave scene in general is one of my most treasured memories.
The people are amazing and friendly, even tough their beliefs are mostly batshit insane. The vibe is so much better than any other festivals (and no trash! clean nature!).
Music wise I've always preferred other psychedelic genres to actual psytrance, but there always interesting stuff at festivals.
While I haven't been, this is something I find tricky to reconcile, but appreciate that I'm not the only one. My main interest would be the super large scale hardstyle festivals— which I feel might be easier to enjoy relatively sober and feels a bit less granola—but many friends I grew up with go to Shambhala. It seems like a fun time, beautiful scenery, art, music and so on. But it seems like as they've been abusing pot and shrooms etc—abusing pot mostly—they've gone deep down a rabbit hole of paranoid thinking, naturopathy, veganism, iridology, and other nonsense. I'm far from straight-laced—though maybe somewhat straight-edge—but it irks me when "practitioners" of these things claim to other vulnerable people that eating a fruit only diet will cure their colon cancer.
I can much more easily digest and have conversations with this kind of people at festivals, than the regular majority who think human brought climate change is not real, blowing countries up will bring democraty there, TV is the best fun, killing billions of animals in cruel conditions is somehow manly and cool, etc...
I loved that people on psytrance festivals seemed to eat more vegan food than average. Such a breath of fresh air to not see everyone stuffing their faces with meat 24/7
Psychedelics and amphetamines are in a very large majority (not taking into account weed which is very common with anyone who does any drug). But people do all kind of drugs in some percent. For example I had one friend who once per year took heroin, but only once. He has a very normal and responsible job and a career.
Wow. I'm old enough to remember when it was just goa trance.
And then towards the end of the 90's the kicks became more pronounced and the melodies were dropped in favour of more psychedelic soundscapes. From that it seemed the genre split into daytime trance that was brighter and more uplifting and nighttime that was darker and more psychedelic. As a dj, people would grumble at you if you played daytime trance at night, or vice versa!
Even then most psytrance was played at a more sane Bpm < 145. And then I think the Russians came in around 2006. Artists like Kindzadza pushed the Bpm up to 150+ and it all went crazy. It seems artists started to compete with eachother to write the craziest tracks, and rather than reaching for more psychedelia, they just made the track faster. I'm almost a bit sad to see that the guide lists Forest as 150+ bpm. It was much more psychedelic at 145 (imho).
That was kind of when I dropped out of the scene, its quite crazy to look back and see how categorized it has become. Im going to have to have a browse..
For more, there is a ton of psytrance available to download for free on https://ektoplazm.com/.
I find it painful to see my favourite all-time genre of music, goatrance, getting more and more obscure and snowed under the abundance of time and psytrance. I can relate to oldschool house, trance, and techno lovers alike.
Consider the introduction in this article to goatrance, at the very bottom of the website after all kind of psytrance subgenres.
Roland TB-303? Not mentioned. The archetype synthesizer of acid and goa trance.
Acid? Not mentioned. A genre related and inspirational to goa trance. Same with trance, and techno.
SH-101? Not mentioned. Frequently used synthesizer in trance, including goa.
4-4-4-4-1 bass-line? Not mentioned. Its the bass-line which is typically found in goa trance. Some tracks by Miranda even have a slightly different bass tone on every bass hit which creates a kind of 3D effect in the bass (it feels like salsa to me).
Etnica? Not mentioned. Huge name (with sub projects like Crop Circles and Pleiadians) in the 90s.
For me, a band like Juno Reactor is much more according to the psychedelic values than the conventional psytrance.
Also, goa trance wasn't formed in Goa in the 80s. It was the very end of the 80s, but more the early 90s (91-93). It was normal to combine all kind of genres back then (trance, techno, house, etc). Consider, for example, the legendary Paul Oakenfold - Goa Mix from 1994. Or this very mix which combines different genres in one [1] (though it includes acid, not goa trance).
Another Oaky fan here, he was great in the early '90s. Enjoyed Fluro, and some of his Global Underground mixes. Wish I still had a good copy of the original Goa Mix - I know there are variants of it on YouTube and Spotify.
You mentioned some of the artists from the Blueroom Released label where I cut my teeth with audio and video streaming with RealMedia. And learned that productive offices can be equipped with high-end loudspeakers. The web's come a long way since those days.
Don't want to be "difficult" but the 303 isn't really the typical psy synth. Although it's used, psy trance required a bit more sophisticated equipment for chords and layering etc.
The concept of "acid" appeared in Chicago.
It's fascinating how goa trance came about. At first they were just strumming guitars out there and then came the drugs and the very early electronic music from labels like Harthouse and Eye Q ... those were the roots of this movement.
Early goa did have a lot of acid lines, although I dont think they strictly used 303s. I know Cosmosis used a Novation BassStation for all the lines on their Cosmology album. That album is full of acid (and thoroughly recommended, even 25 years on).
Oaky's Goa Mix (the original version, not the one used with all of the cleared material) was pretty much legendary stuff in the UK in the '90s and I do think he helped make trance fairly mainstream. The knock on effect was that when it went mainstream it got kind-of boring. Gatecrasher was also popular in the UK at the tail end of the '90s. I can remember psytrance breaking through, but it just didn't sound amazing after Goa, etc. Not sure if you remember the harsh joke about trance - there was one original trance record and everything else afterwards was just a rehash of it :) I thought the track in question was "Age of Love". I agree with it, but Donna Summer's I Feel Love predates it by a few decades and that is a pretty trance-y record.
I have a youtube channel, where in 12 years ago, I uploaded some Astral Projection songs, racking up over 300k views in total. This is the only reason my channel has 100+ followers.
I considered deleting the videos, because of clear copyright violation, but I feel it's a bit of history that might get lost. Also, because of copyright claim, the producers are still getting ad revenue.
Definitely keep it. I enjoy it when yt's autoplay random walks me onto older and more obscure music. While I've been listening to AP for years, this has happened with other groups.
I'm gonna have to go listen to Trust in Trance now, such a classic.
> As a dj, people would grumble at you if you played daytime trance at night, or vice versa!
I can understand that. The shift from raves to daytime 'festivals' basically killed the whole scene for me, the mood was all wrong (not to mention it was way too bright and often way too hot). I realise you can still find night raves but by the time the next one came around after a string of daytime events I'd lost interest.
Still have a giant playlist of live sets as my coding music though. I'll check out your link. :)
Completely agree with you here. When I was college age back in the late 90's / early 00's, there was a pretty big rave scene in my area. They started around 9:00 pm, and went until the next morning.
The vibe of those parties is completely absent from these middle of the day festivals. They're just...weird. A slammin' techno set at 3:00pm is so out of place.
I used to really enjoy playing really dirty psy in the middle of the day, but slowed right down - like -10%. I loved the effect personally, but I did get kicked off the decks quite often..
I got into Goa trance in my early teens growing up in Goa and hitting up beach shacks and Forest parties. Things have changed so much now. For one there is so much music being churned out everyday it's hard to keep up. And yes it's now a race to make crazy fast tracks that for me is almost unlistenable. I always end up going back to the classics.
My first though was Ishkur's guide to electronic music as mentioned in another comment, and which hasn't updated in ages.
I then go into the wikipedia, and along to twitter, and see that there's been a countdown going on today - hoping it's a launch of a new version... https://twitter.com/Ishkur23
I thought I was pretty hip to psytrance, but I guess not because I don't recognize any of these artists. How can there be a whole psytrance guide without mentioning 1200 micrograms, Infected Mushroom, or Shpongle?
The first couple of IM album were well regarded, that's why the backlash was so pronounced starting with BP Empire. By the time they started singing, I think the underground threw up their hands and walked away.
How can there be a whole psytrance guide without mentioning 1200 micrograms, Infected Mushroom, or Shpongle?
Thank you; I came here to flip this exact table. Especially regarding Infected Mushroom. See also: Astral Projection. harumph. /me goes off to flip some more tables. (More seriously, I do appreciate this site's work to both reveal artists working in the genre and illuminate the sub-genres.)
It's in the same vein as trying to talk to younger kids about movies that were released before they were born. So much content is coming at them that they just haven't watched (or heard music) much older stuff. It's not that they are against it, they just need to be introduced to it.
Hm, the 18-20 year olds I know know EVERYTHING from YouTube; they are really digital experts in past urban trends. I had a discussion (and subsequent alcohol excess where an old communist joined-in) on a customer event the other month with mid-20s customer supporters who described themselves as neo-punks (with lots of metal in the face) and were big in "dark" music and knew every single politically-incorrect dark metal band from the 90s. Also, it's not uncommon to enjoy a Jean Gabin or Film Noir movie, say, for the ones I know.
Hey, CBL made the cut. I think the path was released in 1998...
Vibrasphere is also ancient, as was juno reactor.
It is also very weird to see psybient classified as a sub genre of psytrance and with prominent artists such as Shulman missing. Not the best list in my humble opinion.
I was desperately reading every "notable artists" under each box trying to at least find Shpongle, even if it was mislabeled. Was disappointed in this as well.
It is a very insightful guide with good overall info, but it's missing some key points.
Yeah, was surprised by lack of mentioning Shpongle. They're in a different league as far as musicianship/composition amongst psytrance artists (though more recent albums haven't been as impressive and varied).
Shame because Hallucinogen was great (Shamanix and a few other tracks were truly awesome) and Celtic Cross was a ton of fun. I wish there was more like this, but Posford is pretty singular in this arena IMO.
Very nice guide, especially for all of us in our mid forties that liked and listened (still listening?) to all these styles when they were actually being created!!!
Recently there was a HN post about a similar site http://everynoise.com/ but for all music genres
Mid forties? I used to go to acid house clubs in 1988/9 (I think) and to Goa parties around 1992-4. I was surprised it's still a thing in 2019 apparently when I noticed a poster for an event in rural north/east Germany very similar to the flyers I knew from the early/mid '90s.
Though I have to agree with what others said: the taxonomy doesn't look representative of what was actually played, at all. For example, there was a label in my home town (Spirit Zone, with upbeat/dirty and sometimes dark Goa sound) not being mentioned, nor is the 1990's Dub scene, though another genre is described as originating from Hamburg I've never heard of. Also, I think the Berlin scene really ought to be mentioned, not only the legendary 90s tresor and e-werk clubs, but also the mid-90s ambient and drum+bass scene which had strong influence on what today is called psytrance I guess. Some of the better-known artists (live musicians more than DJs) are still in business as techno grandaddies eg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9v-dRr2T6us .
More trance than psytrance, but I recently stumbled onto Above and Beyond and their Anjunabeats label. I had no idea people were still making trance that feels like a continuation of the stuff I listened to in the late 90s. It's great!
Their shows are pretty freaking great, too. If you can't make ABGT in Prague, I'd recommend trying to go to ABGT at The Gorge in 2021. It's a marvelous venue, great crowd, and the music is fantastic (Anjunabeats first day, Anjunadeep second day).
Some of the songs are decades old, too, which helps with that feeling. Hard to believe that "Satellite" is 15 years old and "On a good day" is 10 years old. Wild.
Well I for one think Electronic Music has too many sub-genres. Like if you change the timing of the highhat or the type of synth you're using it catapults you into a different genre. Whats that all about? Why does it need to be so segmented?
Electronic Music is generally music that is made to dance to.
A big part of what makes music good to dance to (especially when you are going to do it for hours at a time) is its predictability. If you know a beat is about to drop, and you can feel it coming you can position your body in preparation. When it does drop and you are able to move accordingly it provides a great sense of release and satisfaction.
The result of this is that when people go to dance parties, they really want to know in quite some detail about what music it is they are dancing to. So if the genre is slightly changed, it will need a new label to inform the dancers of what is going to be different so they can plan their body movements accordingly! Thus the whole plethora of sub-genres.
I guess that is why I am not too much into electronic dance music(at least not those types you mentioned), as it is too predicitable and therefore booring to me. I like music to be wild and when I am in the flow, I feel a beat coming, even if it is out of "order".
But why does it need a label to inform dancers of a genre change? You just feel the beat and move to it, no?
Most western music is 4/4 (or some derivative) time signature based, and quite predictable. Especially anything that is remotely popular. Mind sharing some of the acts/bands you like?
I like music from many genres, though what I like is usually not very popular. But I like shpongle too, for example. I just prefer it, if the music has something handmade to it, like a didgeridoo (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GLTOTN0OrBU), or in general, I prefer live concerts, over a dj. Live playing allways brings variations to this exact moment, the bands can change the speed according to the vibe of the audience. (but a good dj can do this probably, too)
But the music I had in mind, was something like Piniol. A crazy french band, but the genre is hard to describe. I heard it described as Zappamusic (from Frank Zappa), or psychadelic rogressive, but that does not really say much. Also, so far I never liked that music to just put on speakers, just enjoyed them, or similar bands, live in concert.
Oh and, yes their music is also somewhat predictable, it is just that the complexity seems to be higher.
If you're looking for non 4/4 music, the whole of prog metal is basically open to you.
Animals as Leaders, Intervals, Plini, Polyphia etc are all instrumental.
Periphery, Monuments, Tesseract, Dream Theater, Volumes, Born of Osiris, Jason Richardson, The Contortionist etc span a wide variety of sounds, and all implement unique time signatures.
Do you listen to reggae or dancehall? I have friends who are reggae DJs and joined them for an event in Yokohama years ago.....12 hours and 2 nightclubs later I was sick of reggae lol.....it's just too chaotic for me. I love EDM because I feel I can settle into a "groove" and coast along with the music indefinitely, like riding a wind. But reggae is the total opposite, constantly changing.
You might wanna check it out if you like wild, unpredictable music.
Sure, I love reggae ... and with reggae, you also can get into the "groove".
With dancehall, ragga, etc. this is much harder, yes. "Booolah!!" (something they do in dancehall, a loud sound, breaking the tune and restarting the beat. Breaks groove of dancing by definition)
Metal is the same, often it's the true(TM) fans who come up with the micro-genres as a way to beat people over the head for not knowing that "foo" is "bar".
It's the pretentious of wine culture applied to music basically.
People enjoy certain patterns in some genre and then they explore and develop it further. When that pattern becomes more known it gets a name for easier referencing.
All music eventually starts to sound boring and micro genre is how fans find what they like about genre and continue enjoy it.
I don't understand craft beer fad and obsession, but I know beer has many tastes and many interesting stuff can come out. Why would I call someone pretentious just because they develop something I don't care about.
Agreed. It wasn't until later in life that I realized how obnoxiously hipster-ish metal fans can be. Band t-shirts are great conversation starters, but it quickly devolves from finding common ground ("Oh, you like Behemoth? Me too!") to bringing up super-obscure music to look like you are "deeper in the scene". "If you like black metal of course you've heard Zarzagamel's latest, right? It's a solo project from southern France with a limited release on vinyl."
This is basically spot on. But, these micro genres can be useful for the "true" fans too, if they know a fellow fan and feel like they want something within a genre, but with some specific features (like just a tad slower tempo, more vocals or something) they can just say "heard anything good from <sub_genre>" instead of "heard anything good from <genre>, but with <list_of_really_tiny_differences>".
I used to follow this in rock. Despite being misused like the way you mentioned, it also serves the purpose to help you find new artists based on the genre and sub-genre. If you like a specific thing about a track and you'd want to listen more like that, the taxonomy helps you find it and how they relate to other (sub-)genres. However, I do concede that there is a lot of pretentiousness.
Eh, as a metalhead, the music is incredibly diverse and it's useful to be able to state your exact preferences clearly, and for promoters to be able to describe bands quickly. Personally I'm not too anal it, but I did laugh at a girl who thought Megadeth was death metal. That was pretty funny.
Electronic music "sub-genres" are usually BS, in my experience most producers don't go "ok, today I'm going to make some fullon Israeli south-Goa psytrance" (or retroactively label their music like this). It's just that there's a small section of fans who devote their time to obsessively trying to categorize and label every single track, making up new genres and sub-genres as they go.
Drum'n'bass has the same issue... while there are definitely differences between dnb tracks, it's not like you can't play a perfectly great set of dnb with whatever "sub-genres" mixed together. Which in my mind means the notion of the "sub-genres" is BS in the first place.
eg when I discovered from Wikipedia that the genre that Knife Party are in was called "Complextro", I was able to quickly discover other music that I enjoyed from the same genre.
Before I found that magic word, I had no way to find those other acts.
Of course, they're also listed as electro house, drumstep, and dubstep, so clearly they cross sub-genres. Anyway, I did manage to find some other music that I liked so the sub-genre'ing helped me.
Because djs like to mix songs continuously in a way that it sounds like one song is flowing seamlessly into the next. It only takes subtle differences before a transition throws you right out of the moment. It’s possible to mix these subgenres together but you have to do a lot of work to find songs in different genres that sound similar enough to make a smooth transition.
Djs don’t buy all one sub genre, generally, but they do tend to focus on a few of them and that’s why the labels and record stores try and cater to what djs are looking for.
This is like saying analog music is too segmented because both rock and metal are played with guitars. Imagine searching a huge "analog music" catalog for hours and hours until you stumble on Country music. You would go through so many other genres until stumbling on what you were looking for.
People make music first and labels appear after.
An example I like is Witch House. The name was originally conceived as a joke:
"Myself and my friend Shams were joking about the sort of house music we make, [calling it] witch house because it’s, like, occult-based house music. I did this best-of-the-year thing with Pitchfork about witch house. I was saying that we were witch house bands, and 2010 was going to be the year of witch house. It took off from there. But, at the time, when I said witch house, it didn’t even really exist..."
"Shortly after being mentioned to Pitchfork, blogs and other mainstream music press began to use the term. Flavorwire said that despite Egedy's insistence, 'the genre does exist now, for better or worse'."
The segments are an outgrowth of exploration. Electronic music is constantly evolving. New beats, styles, sounds, etc. Producers build on what others have done, influence each other, DJ each other's music, etc. When a new sound or style emerges, many producers jump on the bandwagon to explore the possibilities within the constraints of that particular segment. Constraint breeds creativity.
Sometimes musical tastes can be very specialized. When I am in overcaffeinated deep flow programming mode, nothing hits the spot light High-tech Minimal (see Boris Brejcha, Amelie Lens). It has a sparsity (c.f. Fullon) which is nice when I'm bordering on overstimulated, but still has a driving beat that gets in your bones.
Because people like to listen to more of the same. Sometimes we're open to new things, but for the most part we want more of what we already like.
Say you like a track[1], but one day you stumble upon a remix which makes you go wow. Maybe you really like that aggressive synth and the slightly higher tempo[2], and having a genre just for that makes it easier to find more of it.
>Whats that all about? Why does it need to be so segmented?
So that when I look at a party in my area I can know if its a party where artists will be playing progressive psytrance or forest psytrance. Because they're different.
Says who? You can describe your party as psytrance, or just trance if you have to.
I have an event in my facebook feed that just says "hospitalization" and a list of djs. I know what kind of music they will play because I know the organizers and djs, but it would still be helpful to write an bigger description.
You're all stuck on "micro-genres" but when I'm looking at a new dj at some event I expect a full paragraph describing their style with a soundcloud link with some dj sets.
Maybe the fundamental difference is that with a dj or even a producer you can't just download an album and see how they sound: the actual set will probably be unique, and in tune with the party. And yes I do want to know vaguely how it will sound.
Maybe the fundamental difference is that with a dj or even a producer you can't just download an album and see how they sound: the actual set will probably be unique, and in tune with the party. And yes I do want to know vaguely how it will sound.
Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Thats a very interesting point, thanks.
Because people like different music and the different genres sound different. If you don't think they sound different it's just because you haven't refined the part of your brain that can discern the differences for this type of music.
Not necessarily. If I were attending a party with some Avante Garde/Post-Black Metal and suddenly a band broke out in Djent or rap-rock....I would find it a highly jarring and unpleasant change in atmosphere.
I go to psytrance parties reasonably often because I have friends who are into it, but I hate psytrance personally. Different strokes for different folks.
Most people in the scene (or at least the sub-scene I'm embedded in) that make it and listen to it don't really care what it's called. But for people trying to find more of a certain style, it certainly can be useful.
If anyone wants to check a really cool interactive guide of electronic music genres and their history check Ishkur’s Guide. It's old but still one of the best ones ever made. (You'll need to activate flash)
I've looked at every noise at once, but to be honest it seems terrible to me. Quantity over quality, some of the samples they chose, even for genres that aren't really obscure, are wildly off-base.
South Africa's psytrance scene is going strong and is quite diverse across a few of the psy sub genres. Maybe a little under-represented in the night full-on category...
I have a really hard time pinning the genre of the stuff I produce so if anyone could help me out on what genre this actually is (I labelled it as Psytrance but it's a blanket/general term) I'll be thankful.
Have a good one and if some of you produce on your free time as well, share on! o/
Hm, yeah it's definitely very unique. It's psytrance in the same way Juno Reactor is psytrance, as in it's the closest concrete label, but explores a space well outside the typical fare.
Texturally, reminds me almost of big beat/ breaks. Reminiscent of the Antigravity album by Zircon.
It's a matter of personal taste, of course. But yes the absence of lyrics, the long-running tracks (that are usually blended so there's no break), the pattern-based yet evolving structure and the upbeatness... These are all things that help me "get lost into code".
It helps push out distractions and it's like a canvas in my mind onto which I can load up all the abstractions I'm working on, the mental equivalent of pulling lots of papers out of my bag and spreading them onto my desk. The funny part is this kind of music makes my mental "desk" feel a lot larger and somehow allows me to work on more complex problems.
I have to thank psytrance (mostly Infected Mushroom) for pushing me deeper into exploring EDM. These days I mostly work to neurofunk (a sub-genre of drum & bass). Neurofunk + coffee + a dark room = comfort and focus.
I like to throw one of these on: https://youtu.be/f9Sxdi_82rU
Tobias's mixes with the MilkDrop visuals on my TV in the background with laptop on my lap gets me focused.
Pretty nice and comprehensive guide. Ever since I've first seen Ishkur's guide as a kid I've wanted one for all genres of music, it always seem like the coolest thing.
Also this guide reminded me that James Reipas exists, thank you.
At first I was thinking - why is this on the front page of HN? Then I remembered when I was heavy into the scene (~1999-2003) - so much overlap with tech, way ahead of its time!!!
A few examples:
* projection mapping onto surfaces like mountains in nature parties
* zero-latency visuals synced to the music (and the cream of the crop demoscene type stuff)
* custom synths written in max/msp or whatever
* designer drugs, nootropics, "bio-hacking"
* experimenting with inducing trance states with "brain machines" and certain repetitive frequencies and stuff.
I really feel lucky that I got to experience all that, since I was kinda jealous from reading the Acid Test of what the hippies had and how they combined music with visuals and tech (like microphone feedback experiments)... we had much better toys :)
There has got to be cool stuff happening these days... would be a bummer to learn that 20 years (WTF?! HOW?!?) hasn't seen much progress..
I have memories of an interview with an artist that I believe was ManMadeMan. They discussed how they preferred the BPM to be around 135-138. At that BPM with a running 16th note baseline, they said it was very easy for people's brainwaves to sync up with the music as it was very close in frequency to one of the brain waves. I can't remember where I saw it. It might have been one of the early documentaries about one of the big festivals.
Did anyone else see that video? I would love to know if there's any validity to it other than personal experience. I know that when the BPMs started creeping up, a lot of that dance floor vibe seemed to goaway (eh?)
X-Dream - We Created Our Own Happiness album, that’s one of my favorite trance albums, but maybe nothing to do with psy? Also Eat Static when he does psytrance. But I should totally listen to some stuff that’s not a quarter of a century old.
I've listened to most of the projects mentioned here and have been listening to Psytrance since 2005 but nowadays I mostly listen to 90s and early 2000s Trance and I must say that I find it better in general than the Psytrance stuff. I'd like to mention some of the legendary tracks here:
Depending on where you are, the sound track may well have included some Orbital, Leftfield and Chemical Brothers also, it was stripped out for the North American release though.
IIRC only the Playstation version had licensed music from those artists. Other versions (such as the Saturn version that I owned) had tracks written exclusively by Cold Storage.
With D&B being my main love, I might focus some time on this. In the mean time, if you want to know the subgenre of a track, or some tracks in a subgenre, let me know :)
I really love Calyx, and I have some old moving shadow mix cd's (eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkyRsbTXNuE). Which sub-genre would you call this? And do you have any more recent recommendations along these lines?
I'm a huge music lover, but discovery is a problem. Thank you for this. May I suggest links to popular music platforms so 1. We can listen to it via common music platforms (and thus easily listen over and over.) 2. So the artists can clock listens.
Di.fm has a few channels related to goa/psytrance. The person that put this guide together, Daniel Lesden, has show that plays on one of the channels. From listening to some of his shows, it makes sense he would put something like this together.
Lol, I'll assume the OP recently returned from one of the many European trance festivals (Mo:dem, maybe?) and discovered a new passion :-)
The comments are on point: the best thing about psytrance is the community, and the extremely friendly hippie vibe found in these festivals as well as, let's be honest, the extremely copious amount of free-flowing available drugs can make any one of them a live-changing experience.
I wonder how it compares to the American equivalent, which would be something like Burning Man? I guess?
Anyone know of good guides on making this kind of music? I've tried looking into it and there are just so many options and esoteric knowledge of synths and software required that's it seems hard to get started. I've bought several MIDI keyboards that all turned out to be junk and tried several DAWs that were very unintuitive, I'd like to know the best way for a beginner to get into it
I started with Ableton a few years ago, because it is widely used for electronic music production. Also, my employer provided 50% discount on Ableton products :)
Honestly I've moved completely to progressive house since it's way more bearable to me. Still love the oldschool goa sound of course :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3aDQzR0O-A
That's sweet. I've been an occasional fan? (I would move to other genres and then back) of psytrance for the last ~13y now but it has been always seemed a bit hard (on last.fm) to find artists that are not complete rubbish and would actually do psytrance.
I honestly love that the "Mainstream" psytrance section is previously-not-at-all-mainstream trance.
great reality for music to conform to the tastes I wished was more popular 20 years ago where I grew up, where mainstream was just "rock or rap, choose one".
If I'm having trouble focusing on the code, I load up techno music. Just clicking on the play links in the referenced site (Psytrance Guide) has me in the mood to put on my headphones and work on a development project that I've been putting off.
FWIW, sounds like there's a big update to Ishkur's guide about to drop - the Twitter account has been counting down for the last month (it's at 1 now)...
I used to love listening to this all day while coding. But I've had to wean myself off it because I started feeling like my brain started becoming a bit messed up by it, compared to listening to just silence.
I’ve never liked to listen music to “pump me up”. I’m very fond of music, having been raised by a classical composer and a choral regent. Recently when I was experiencing anxiety due to the unexpected, untimely death of a pet, I used “lo-fi hip hop radios from YouTube. Precisely because it’s music that I wouldn’t ordinarily enjoy.
But: back then when Infected Mushroom and Skazi were top of the pops artists, I lived far away from work and had a long, boring, stuck in traffic bus commute. Psytrance excelled in making me feel alive at moments where I was basically stuck in a box.
That’s not how I need to feel at work, ESPECIALLY when it comes to coding. Maybe I’m not a super hacker type that just has programs flowing off his fingers — I have to think hard, even about naming functions and classes.
My work is a mix of 3D modelling, painting, and coding. For the modelling and painting I'm like that girl sitting with her cat by window ledge; the work flows with the music. When coding music is way too distracting, it requires intense mental effort. Same for technical animation; understanding how objects move is hard and I would get nowhere with psytrance thumping away in the background.
Goa Gil, Astral Projection, Juno reactor - good times!
Saw them all live, Goa Gil did a 24 hr set in the Santa Cruz mountains, absolutely blew my mind!
I suppose there is some overlap with psyambient and psychill. There was a time when not every genre had psy before it.
If you like that genre, I can recommend Ott's Hallucinogen In Dub remixes and his album Skylon [1]. I also like some specific tracks of Easily Embarrased and Koan but not sure which genre it falls under.
Good God, Ott is by far my favorite artist with not even a distant second. I've been hunting for other artists/tracks for the last few months to fill the void til his new album comes out but have only come up disappointed and empty handed. Nobody else seems to be able to be so varied and inventive with each track yet always deliver a compelling and engaging sound and melody so reliably.
I think Fairchildren is his best work yet, especially the back half. "Harwell Dekatron" was a fantastic standout and I hope he experiments more with branching out in that direction. My favorites off Mir are tracks 2-4, and off Skylon I loved "The Queen of All Everything", "Rogue Bagel", "Signals from Bob", and "382 Seaside".
An artist which uses similar “globe trans melodies” that I listen to is banco de gaiga though these are old records but are unique sounds https://bancodegaia.bandcamp.com/
This isn't the first ever psytrance styles guide. I recall seeing one on psynews.org many years ago that actually appeared more comprehensive than this one.
