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.
> 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.
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.
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 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.
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/.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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:
[+] [-] ssijak|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] piva00|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] stinos|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mping|6 years ago|reply
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 still like the music though
[+] [-] Fnoord|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarejunba|6 years ago|reply
Also, I'm not wholly unconvinced that maybe more LSD-use would make us all so much better as people.
[+] [-] emptyfile|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] GuB-42|6 years ago|reply
Even if you don't share all their ideas (my case) you won't have any problem getting along as long as you are open minded.
About drugs, sure, there are lots. But no one will force you to take them and they won't think any less of you if you don't.
[+] [-] mushtar|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bromuro|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pugworthy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] weavie|6 years ago|reply
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/.
[+] [-] listentojohan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hobbes78|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emptyfile|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] core-questions|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yoran|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdpigeon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emptyfile|6 years ago|reply
This is a modern guide to current genres and almost all tracks on it are released after 2010 (yes even the Goa tracks are recent, its not dead).
This is not a history of psytrance guide, if it was it would be huge.
BTW Sphongle definitely isn't psytrance, and Infected Mushroom isn't well regarded in the underground.
[+] [-] NKosmatos|6 years ago|reply
Recently there was a HN post about a similar site http://everynoise.com/ but for all music genres
[+] [-] codeulike|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] weavie|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] noir_lord|6 years ago|reply
It's the pretentious of wine culture applied to music basically.
[+] [-] davedx|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] empath75|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Raphmedia|6 years ago|reply
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'."
[+] [-] dintech|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] insickness|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kortex|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magicalhippo|6 years ago|reply
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.
Not like electronic music is unique here.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5ZRtcIR1po
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NjqDIgVlwA
[+] [-] emptyfile|6 years ago|reply
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.
Is this so hard to understand for you?
[+] [-] SturgeonsLaw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjpuser|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joeyspn|6 years ago|reply
http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/
And here a more modern version with near 3k genres (although not as informative and visual):
https://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/every-noise-at-once...
[+] [-] gastlee_za|6 years ago|reply
For more information on what the DJs and producers here are doing, check out the Psymedia Soundcloud page or their website. https://soundcloud.com/psymedia https://psymedia.co.za/
[+] [-] pixelpoet|6 years ago|reply
Panoramic greetings! (kind of an in-joke if you follow their newsletter last few years)
To psychill I would like to add, definitely listen to Easily Embarrassed's "Idyllic Life" album, it's absolutely brilliant: https://easilyembarrassed.bandcamp.com/album/idyllic-life
Edit: while I welcome this particular bit of content, I'm surprised to find it on HN; seems a bit offtopic, no?
[+] [-] JerwuQu|6 years ago|reply
I'd very much like to see something similar for all the hardcore techno sub-genres as well.
[+] [-] fb03|6 years ago|reply
Since everyone is sharing their favorite psytrance and coding-oriented tracks, I'm gonna share one of my own:
https://soundcloud.com/flipbit03/twothousandseventeen-feat-m...
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/
[+] [-] kortex|6 years ago|reply
Texturally, reminds me almost of big beat/ breaks. Reminiscent of the Antigravity album by Zircon.
[+] [-] troysk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delaaxe|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] visarga|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emptyfile|6 years ago|reply
Also this guide reminded me that James Reipas exists, thank you.
[+] [-] dakom|6 years ago|reply
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..
[+] [-] dylan604|6 years ago|reply
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?)
[+] [-] Myrmornis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aznumeric|6 years ago|reply
Quiteman - The Sleeper (Man With No Name Remix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjOcSatGkmo
Li Kwan - Point Zero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWIXkF_7JII
Electronic Arts - Need for Speed 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8CEJTPECxc
Blue Planet Corporation - Crystal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYtw6j1AHUw
Odyssey Of Noise - Firedance (The Sunrise) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKPMZm2O8No
X-Cabs - Neuro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy-tKoIE9C0
[+] [-] diimdeep|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SuddsMcDuff|6 years ago|reply
I'd love to see something similar for the various sub-genres of drum & bass.
'Psybreaks' really reminds me of the soundtrack to the original Wipeout game, written by Cold Storage (http://www.coldstorage.org.uk/).