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Let's be honest, Goa Trance truly emerged around 1993-94 and started dying in 2000, that's about 6 or 7 years of peak popularity. Then it came back around 2006-07, and now we are in 2025, that's almost 20 years of what we used to call new school Goa. Do you think Goa Trance evolved much in that time? After so long it's not surprising to see it decline, it's a natural phenomenon. Listen to a random Goa Trance album from 2023 and tell me how different it is from a 2013 album...

I don't really feel like getting into the pissing contest about how people (or kids these days) are listening to wrong music and listening to music wrong, but we can check some trends for sort of hard facts. One go-to place is IFPI's global music report. Right now the main site is acting up, but you can get a referring article or the pdf. For some possible key points: Music revenues as a whole crashed by about 50% from the late 90s peak (or "peak CD, no Napster yet") to the 2015-ish "how should we even get stuff" confusion low, but now they've actually made a new all-time high again. Nowadays the big money comes from streaming (51.2% subscriptions, 17.7% ad-supported, 69.0% together), but obviously not for everyone equally. Physical media is 16.4% globally, probably less in the US and similar countries. (You can find US stats separately.) Vinyl has outsold CDs since 2020. I still buy CDs and vinyl - for reliable hard copies and simply for collecting, but overall CD buyers are a small minority and people actually listening to CDs even smaller. That "I don't even own a CD player" boast was popular already 20 years ago. Today I know people who actually hoard CD/DVD/Blu-ray drives because their production is dwindling and eventually you won't be able to get any new ones even if you wanted. Anyway, streaming is how people get music. It's another story how "kids these days" listen to music. I'm not saying that everyone only checks six second video snippets, but I do think that swiping, skipping, shorter attention span and instant gratification are real trends. I'm obviously old and grumpy, but in my opinion psy-trance in general got a bit weird already in the 00s when it still insisted on 8 minute tracks, yet placed some crowd-hyping filter effect or fill in there every 20 seconds. It was different in the 90s when listening involved the effort of loading a physical disc, and a few minutes of gradual building was a thing, acceptable, or even expected. I don't know if I'm getting anywhere here but let's just say that goa, CDs, and goa CDs are on the losing side of major trends. Also, there is so much of everything that marginal stuff is ridiculously marginal now. I'm almost literally drowning in music and I'm buying it on physical discs. If I tried to follow even a fraction of all the digital stuff, RIP me. It takes me more than a month to process what I can easily get on a single Bandcamp Friday. I'll stop here because it's late again, but maybe I'll dedicate another message to Cronomi. Let's see.

Thanks!!! ❤️ ...and only 10 copies left

As Cronomi is unfortunately about to disappear off the face of the Earth I am listening to, and yeah in many cases purchasing, their various releases. I will try to do some mini reviews of some of the ones I have missed. Portamento - The Portal Cronomi Records – CRONOMI005CD 1. White Dwarf 08:41 2. 48 Hours 08:05 3. The Portal 08:07 4. Monkshroom 08:41 5. Injected Spawn 08:17 6. Biosphere 09:24 7. Vitamin E 07:56 8. A Grain Of Sand 07:33 9. Controlled Experiment 09:12 This is such a cool album because it really nails the sound of early Goa, with tons of croaky acid, highly resonant synths and classic sawtooth basslines. It is incredibly old skool and yet the sound production sounds a lot more clean and modern. It manages to be highly energetic, highly melodic and highly acidic all at the same time. Very, very good. Do Cronomi a favor in their last days and BUY IT NOW: https://cronomi.bandcamp.com/album/the-portal If you don't they will actually destroy the CDs! No joke: 8/10