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Hello Everyone, OK, let's all take a breath and address a few things. First of all, I can see that me just taking a pause from the goa trance scene was interpreted as basically any possible interpretation ever. But let's then answer about some of the things that were expressed on this thread: A number of DAT releases expired past the original contracts with the artists after X number of years, and so we are renegotiating to continue to make remaining copies available as possible. Meanwhile, Covid also put a big halt to several planned releases for the year, which we are continuing to prepare for the time when we can move forward (in one case, mastering is done, artwork and booklets in preparation). And you will see that our Unreleased Goa sub label continues to release every couple of weeks. I realize how the no-notice suspension of our bandcamp while we undergo updating logistics and preparations could lead to speculation but the rumours being spread here are simply not true. Thank you for staying tuned while we update the website, catalogue, and new releases. About me logging in and not commenting, well, I have been a lot of time offline and a few times I connected I have read a few things but did not feel like writing explanations on how I run this venture and the choice we made in the meantime. I was more preoccupied with the global crisis, the pandemic and also the fact a lot of people have lost their job and are in difficulties, so actually we wanted to halt all operations to see how things were looking and about to be globally. I am sorry someone feels like our records are only good as frisbee and I'd like this person to write me privately and tell me exactly what were his concerns and what releases he has bought, if he feels like. Oh and lastly, I had to change my password twice, and a couple of times i got banned for retrying to log some times, so i did not feel really at ease and it might be someone tried to hack my account. In the meantime I have been living in the countryside to be safe from a terrible infection that in italy was very strong, so to be safe. And with less internet we slowed down but we indeed worked a lot on the UGR sublabel to show we were still active.

Dear friends, The votes have been uploaded to my main supercomputer and have been counted a thousand times over and over again. As always, these lists are gold. Some of you will encounter hidden gems, stuff that you missed... or you can start digging those sweet downtempo albums to find the perfect background soundtrack. A big thank you to all artists and labels for the music. Even if your score is not in the upper range, being included in the list means someone noticed your music and it means that now we are ALL noticing your music. Congratulations! Here's the link to the voting thread. Here are the results of PSYNEWS BEST OF 2019! UPTEMPO ======== 1 66 pts Psylent Buddhi - Secrets Of The Atom (Suntrip Records) 2 49 pts Ultimate Xperience - Realm Of A New Dawn (Neogoa Records) 3 47 pts K.U.R.O. & Charm - Japanese Vibrations (DAT Records) 4 44 pts Median Project - Constellation (Suntrip Records) 5 43 pts JaraLuca - The Prologue (Mammomam Records) 6 42 pts Battle Of The Future Buddhas - The Light Behind The Sun (Suntrip Records) 7 41 pts Merr0w - Odysseus (Global Sect Records) 8 40 pts GoaD - Hypnotic Mirage (Neogoa Records) 9 38 pts Sykespico - Perspective (Suntrip Records) 10 33 pts Various - ZNA Retro Futuristic Compilation (DAT Records) 11 31 pts Katedra - We Are Not Alone (Global Sect Records) 12 30 pts Total Eclipse - Tokyo Live (Suntrip Records) 13 29 pts Celestial Intelligence - Incandescent (Suntrip Records) 14 28 pts Xamanist - Out Of Time (Self released) 15 25 pts Various - Goagilde (Kali Earth Records) 16 21 pts Various - Analog Visions (DAT Records) 17 20 pts E-Mantra - Tartarus (Melusine Records) 18 18 pts Pete and Pan - Return Of The Goddess (Goa Madness Records) 19 18 pts Ree.K - Early Tracks (Hypnodisk) 20 18 pts Pleiadians - Pyramid (EtnicaNet) 21 15 pts Sneila - Rebirth (Unreleased Goa Records) 22 14 pts Spindrift - Deep Nature (StereoHemia Records) 23 14 pts Morphic Resonance - Bad Dreamer EP (Self released) 24 14 pts Sky Technology - Rainbow Spirit (Neogoa Records) 25 12 pts Various - Order Ordonata: Metamorphosis (Dragonfly Records) 26 12 pts Gubbology - Next Door To Mystery (Axios Records) 27 11 pts Dreamchild - Akashic Dreaming (Unreleased Goa Records) 28 10 pts Hedustma - Forms 03 (Ovnimoon Records) 29 10 pts Elysium - Live …And Beyond (Digital Reprints) 30 10 pts Four Carry Nuts - Single Collection (Classic Goa Trax) 31 9 pts Walpurgisnacht Projekt - Omega (Absolut Shit Records) 32 9 pts Dark Whisper - The Trivium (Alice-D Records) 33 9 pts Various - Yggdrabits (Yggdrasil Records) 34 8 pts Goch - Million Years Ago (Rules Of Nature Records) 35 8 pts Shadow Chronicles - Arcadia (Future Music Records) 36 8 pts Miranda - Cosmic Treasures Vol. 1 (Spiral Trax) 37 7 pts Wizack Twizack - The Tesseract (Spiral Trax) 38 7 pts Protonica - Symmetry (Iboga Records) 39 7 pts Out Of Orbit & Shpongle - no Disco (Shamanic Tales) 40 7 pts Omnium - Neural Geometry (StereoHemia Records) 41 7 pts Ephedra & Proxeeus & Ohm Mind - Mad Fusion EP (Goa Madness Records) 42 6 pts Various - Har Har Mahadev (Alice-D Records) 43 6 pts Mechanimal - Digital Nature (24/7 Media) 44 5 pts Material Music - MADI Experience (OHM Ganesh Pro) 45 4 pts Lunarave - Transmigration (OVNI Breakfast) 46 4 pts Blue Hue - The Mandala Effect (Plateau 5 Records) 47 4 pts MFG - Pure Energy (Suntrip Records) 48 3 pts Various - Astronauts In The Solar System (Global Sect Records) 49 3 pts Nobot - Human Update (Parvati Records) 50 3 pts Braincell - Gaia (Self released) 51 3 pts Ocelot - Iconoclast (Moon Koradj Records) 52 3 pts The Maniac - A Treatise On Acid (Timewarp Records) 53 2 pts Acid Destroyers - Monsters And Mad Man (Goa Madness Records) 54 2 pts Static Movement - SiMiN (Sol Music) 55 2 pts Goch - Forte EP (Kali Earth Records) 56 2 pts DJ Omsun - Illusorium (Moon Koradj Records) 57 2 pts Psychogen - Psychogenius (Unreleased Goa Records) 58 1 pts Rezonant - Time Code (Sangoma Records) 59 1 pts Yabzyy - Systematic Chaos (Kali Earth Records) 60 1 pts Jagoa - The First Steps (Self released) 61 1 pts Various - Fleinheim (The Cure) DOWNTEMPO =========== 1 43 pts Lauge - Dawn (Iboga Records) 2 37 pts Proxeeus - Celephais (Neogoa Records) 3 31 pts Avaris - The Forgotten Language (Axios Records) 4 30 pts Bluetech - Holotrope (Behind The Sky Music) 5 28 pts Distant System - Infinite Continuum (Self-released) 6 27 pts Saafi Brothers - Mystic Cigarettes (Remixed) (Liquid Sound Design) 7 25 pts Globular - Untangled Everything (Self-released) 8 22 pts Tengri And Friends - A Course In Miracles (Orbita Parvati) 9 17 pts Solar Fields - Origin #03 (Droneform Records) 10 14 pts Bluetech - The 4 Horsemen Of The Electrocalypse: The Pale Horse (Self-released) 11 10 pts 36 - C45 Dreamloops 1-2 12 10 pts Various - Ethnomystica Vol. 7 13 10 pts Advanced Suite - Shapes Of Nothing 14 10 pts Greg Hunter - Tantra 15 9 pts Desert Dwellers - Breath 16 9 pts Panda Dub - Horizons 17 9 pts Shamanizm Parallelii - Blue Lizard 18 9 pts Eric Electric - Run Away Controls 19 9 pts Mantra Move - Raven Dub 20 8 pts Yagya - Stormur 21 8 pts Advanced Suite - TAKING MUSic in tHe ROOMS th&t DreaMT 22 8 pts Various - Ensancha El Alma Vol. 1 23 7 pts Dreaming Cooper - Exploring The Universe 24 7 pts The Borgasm - Welcoem To The Borgasm 25 7 pts Blisswave - Manvantara 26 7 pts Various - Liquid Sound Design Collected Digital Works Part 1 27 6 pts Entheogenic - Hypatia 28 6 pts Ambient Mann - Another Dimension 29 6 pts Astronaut Ape - Deep 30 6 pts Bluetech - Liquid Geometries in Dub 31 5 pts Cabeiri - Molecule Language 32 5 pts Bluetech - Sci-Fi Lullabies 33 5 pts Bosa - Eyes Of The Jaguar 34 5 pts Pangani - Superdeep 35 4 pts Zen Baboon - Origiro 36 4 pts Unknown Reality - Gaia 37 3 pts Spatialize - Beyond The Radar 38 3 pts Various - Temple Of Dub 39 2 pts Shwamp - Inner Landscape 40 2 pts Sync24 - Omnius 41 1 pts Deep In Mind - Autumn To Spring 42 1 pts Ambientium - City Of Memories SEE YOU NEXT YEAR! Aspartic

Hello world our Psynews Youtube Channel has just seen the light of day At this moment, our first video was uploaded - which is the first part of a founders interview of Children himself - one of the people who founded the site! Please find it here: I hope you enjoy it. It marks one more steps in this 20th birthday jubilee year of 2020 and I personally hope that we will bing much more content your way this year - and also maybe better edited one as my video edit skills get better aswell The next steps are: a new forum will be created here (visible for members and above only) to discuss our Youtube channel and for you to give feedback and suggest content the second part of the interview with Children will be composed by me to be released in the not-so-far-away future We would appreciate if you support us on YouTube by subscribing to our channel, commenting - hopefully in the same police and positive way most people post it on the forums here - and yeah, also by dropping a like if you enjoy it #HappyBirthdayPsynews.ORG

Lots of social factors come at play when you try to figure out how "the scene" came to its current standards. 90s was a period without internet, or at least the social media was non-existing. You'd just do your thing, with no need for constant attention seeking or self-promotion. You'd sit in whatever psyhole you had there, compose, play at a party and the feedback would occur the natural way, via real human contact. These days you need following, likes and what not - it's all virtual though. And hey! You can also buy the likes, psyscene is under capitalistic law like it or not. All that's been said is affecting us all. Social media is giving us access to infinite amount of information and what kinda happened is our minds are focused on trillion things at once trying to swim through the pool of data. The consumption mode is on when it comes to psytrance, too. So many artists, so much music! As a reflection of a sort, haste & desire for recognition have unfortunately become major driving forces for many musicians. The social media driven world shows no mercy, it's just the state of things for the time being. Patience, vision and focus. I reckon the amount of these qualities has dropped significantly and hence understand the frustration of many. Only thing that might, just might, ease the pain is the fact new Sab Kuch Milegator album is only one track away...

Basically all of this.

*clears throat* \begin{rant} So, these days, psytrance = something like vini vici or armin van buuren Real talk, just search for "modern psytrance" - I can't distinguish between any of them, there's nothing unique, it's always the same shit. That shit ain't got nada to do with psy. I mean, if they can pay their bills and make ends meet, sure, whatever, more power to em, but that shit ain't for me. Of course old school goa trance sounds dated. It's not bland and monotonous with the same god damn "kick" and slight variation to melody, if any is present in the first place - most likely some cheesy uplifting synth, hear it so often. I'm sure there are nowadays a few legit artists making legit psy, but I'm sticking to what I know - that is goa from 90s and early 2000s. God forbid someone dares to openly criticise this clowning that's going on in the psy scene right now. Funnily enough, I wouldn't have a problem with it, if they just called their generic crap something else and not Psytrance. It IS a semantics issue and it's not at the same time. You can't just make psy look bad like that.. you just can't! \end{rant}

Please don't say Thomas Vitali. Say Psynina! The guy was suspicious to me since almost 6 years... Sorry I just need to quote myself now: heh ...

What's gold is the fact that this scene was built in the back of murderous ex-military Israelites & has-been hippies abusing the seemingly liberal lifestyle afforded to them by a poverty stricken nation desperate for the money they brought, with not a care to the devastation this scene has caused to the people of Goa & India over the decades. Furthermore misusing religious prayers & symbols with drug abused while claiming its for enlightenment when it's just an excuse to drop chemicals and become wankers. This scene was and still is the ultimate in religious & culture theft for the abuse in the name of drug abuse. You're all delusional if you deny this. The majority of real Indian people absolutely despise what the scene in Goa did to them. But white folk always take what they want with little care for others and their cultures.

I'm missing colorful, story-telling 10+ min tracks... rest assured, they're rare to hear because they're difficult to make. There needs to be coherence within the change and it's actually difficult to achieve without some level of conceptual thinking. It's exactly these sort of threads on Psynews that initially sparked the flame to start composing. My personal vision can only be materialized by me. In fact, I'm gonna open my FL and try to come up with final melody to the last track of forthcoming 4th album.

Complex subject, complex melody or no complex melody, musical theory or no musical theory. Personally either complex melodic or not complex melodic tracks either have it or they don't. This is foremost dance music, its origins kicking up red laterite dust on the Goan shore line, so we can expect complex melody to have a second place to groove and atmosphere (which is often created using simple melody). Of close second importance this is trance music, the goal is to hypnotize, greater complexity melodically or with sonic layers tends to retract from this potential. I know from experience here. There are a few artists whose sound design and rhythmic programming / production discriminatory skill and attention to minuscule sonic detail stands out a cut above others IMO. Their music is as un-melodic as it could be but it is awesome and has the "spirit". I suspect this comes from immersion in the culture of Goa, living it ! You cannot intellectualize that. However, I do think melody is largely what makes tracks stand out in lieu of extremely skilled rhythmic sound design. But there is a fine line as this music is largely based around the Phrygian mode and this both limits and also gives it a worthy (and historic) home, this scale alone gives the mood, more or less dark/moody/intense/slightly eastern. So ultimately, to me personally it comes down to feel, it either has the something "Je ne sais quoi" or does not. How you got there or your knowledge does not mean very much to me, compared to how did I feel ? Traditional intellect has little place in the spiritual, consciousness expanding origins of this music. To use a rather nebulous word, for myself either a track imbues the spirit or not. What is that spirit if we "word" it ? Maybe a sense of openness, depth, space, intrigue, mystery, expanse, drive, hypnosis, sentiment, magic, togetherness, wonder, connected-ness, timeless-ness, distance, meditative focus on the moment, now. I think it is very difficult to gain the interest of those who solely or predominantly enjoy music from 25-15 years ago, you cannot garner favour against emotional sentimentality attached to memory, that is very powerful force. (even making retro tracks). Trying to make something new to penetrate the arena of sacred memories will be very difficult. (and I say that with respect as all of a certain age have them) I seemingly have more plays of my overtly retro sounding tracks than more modern sounding ones. Maybe it is because I have had some vision based concept for them and I conveyed it well and it resonated with more people. Whilst the O.P. made interesting points in his video I think he missed the aspect that extreme forms of music of any genre always tend to have their draw. Hi-Tech is not generally for me, but as it can be viewed as the extreme end of psy it will surely always have some following. I don't think psy trance conforms to the "trends" of other styles of dance music. It self propels through new experiences and advancement of the surrounding events and visual efforts, psy trance delivers a specific vibration and culture, no other genre encompasses this unique origin and international depth. By and large you know what you are going to get. To this end it is a scene like no other. Let people follow their own ways, you make this music because you love to, whatever happens is just part of the bigger flow, water finds its natural resting place. Do your thing for your little corner of the scene, be true to your little contribution. Life is short, put energy in with those and what resonates with your input. The rest will be a waste of energy.

sorry but these type of comments don't belong here, maybe go take them elsewhere

apology for poor english when were you when psy trance dies? i was sat at home eating smegma butter when pjotr ring ‘psy trance is kill’ ‘no’

Haha haha

Except that very small fraction of these melodies is any good IMO.

People that scream: We are all the same! are equally stupid like people that try to find big differences between Humans. All in all: Black People are Stronger and have digger Bick Asians are Smarter and faster, also they can draw comics...Mangos or something like that Whites are the prettiest homosexuals and are producing awesome music for taking drugs and turning even more gay White Women have the ability to shapeshift into Dogs, Snakes and Bunnies. All three forms are Toxic, hairy and have claws. Slavs have just all the positive and strong abilities of all humanity multiplied by the slavic population + Age of Lord Putin They also can shapeshift into Space Whales and travel through Time when "Artifact303 - Feelings" is playing in the background. Everyone has his power sides and we are all together humans! Just forget everything what i have written Peace

Heh, "this old chestnut". I have many thoughts regarding the matter and I don't know how to turn them into a coherent story so I'll just list some random points: 1) First, there is the principle called Sturgeon's Law, often summarised as "ninety percent of everything is crap". I won't start dissecting the full details of Sturgeon's original statement nor its later interpretations. Anyway, I think the principle essentially says that when there are quality differences and personal preferences, only so many pieces can be "very good" or "like things should be". There are boatloads of music. Even that "very good" 10% (or a smaller fraction) can be so huge that our ears cannot take any more. Therefore we can pick the best, use it as the measuring stick, and rule the rest as "crap", even though in reality the "normal" level is somewhere within that 90% and we're just getting really picky. 2) The corpus of released goa/psy has been accumulating for decades. That makes things even worse regarding the "top 10 versus the rest" comparison. A lot of totally half-arsed stuff from the earlier decades has already been forgot for good. More or less consciously, we end up comparing the very best of those past years to the average level of recent releases. That comparison cannot end well. 3) Also, after thousands of full releases, it's getting more and more difficult to produce something truly original that we still categorise as goa. Either the release "sounds like X, Y and Z" or it doesn't quite fit into the genre. Imagine a hazy blob on the genre map that we label as goa. It consists of dots, which are releases. When the amount of dots increases, it's getting difficult to find any totally blank regions among the existing stuff. You end up either close to something that already exists or too far away from the centre. 4) There is also the phenomenon called sophomore slump. It's quite generic in nature, but it can be understood as "the second attempt being worse". In personal effort like producing music, it can mean that the first try manages to capture the raw power of what you really want to express. Then you kind of run out of steam. Even though the next one may be more polished, it cannot reach the same level of inspiration and originality. Another way to view it is that if you, as a listener, fall deeply in love with some specific approach, it's just inevitable that anything that differs from it has a high chance of being less appealing simply because it doesn't hit that sweet spot. But repeating the same-ish formula would feel like copy-paste or repetition so you cannot really win there. Coming up with something fresh and appealing is possible but really hard. "Easier said than done." And the artists out there cannot really read your deepest desires, nor are they under any obligation to fulfill them. If you're getting picky, it's your task to do the "crate digging" to find your personal gems, even though it may be a tedious task. 5) Also, nobody here is getting younger. There's just something special about the age when you first discover awesome music, visit your first parties and festivals, get drunk/high/laid and so on. As Constrictor put it, you cannot "recapture the magic that once was". When you grow older, you start to observe plenty of recurring patterns - things that get re-invented every ten years or whatever. Each iteration may be slightly different, but it cannot have the same impact as the first encounter with the subject. Just accept the fact that you're getting old and hard to impress, but every day someone else out there is discovering this genre for the first time and thinks that everything is awesome. Same music, different view. I'm definitely getting old and drowned under other commitments. I cannot do the same amount of crate digging as I used to. But I do remember that already back then when I had the time and energy, it was common to load 500 tracks to a preview playlist and ultimately pick just one or two of those as keepers. More than 90% was "crap", nothing new there. If you cannot do those 500 track marathons any more and you've already found enough good stuff to last a lifetime, just cherish those, but don't get too bitter about modern times. I still do discover very good stuff, occasionally. Most releases cannot meet the crazy expectations, but someone out there still enjoys them so they deserve to exist. Nice recommendations by Manuser, by the way. I've been blasting Proxeeus, for example, at work several times like it was 1995.

Thanks everyone for : - the effort in the "admins" tribe - the support of every visitor ! Glad this still exists, I'm not really up to date in terms of the latest albums and am using the website to check what I missed in the new groups ... well now I'm using myself the website for what I wanted it to be used for at the very beginning, find new artists ! ;-)

Hi there I understand your feelings regarding the forum and the decrease of contributions. I am quite new here on psynews and this last year I became very assiduous, consulting the forum, your reviews, your 20XX tops, ... to explore every day deeper the wonderful world of good electronic psy music thank you! All that to say if you think psynews is dying, well, it is not yet. It still has the power to trigger passion and enthousiasm. Maybe it just need a kick in the butt to be more dynamic, but the machine works. No solution in my post, I agree, just a different sight, and a strong support from a newcomer! I am sure there are plenty!

Well that clears up any confusion anyone was having ;p

we've heard so many samples of new tracks now (most of it sounding very good, starting off where the astral we know and love have left off years ago), that the new album has to be a quadruple album when it finally comes out in 2030.

Artist: Pete & Pan Title: Return Of The Goddess Label: Goa Madness Records Date: November 27, 2019 1. Serra Del Estrela 2. Elysian Fields 3. passing Spirits 4. Tantric Tweak, 5. The Fool 6. Abundance 7. Nowhere 8. Solstice 9. Muse (Bonus Track) Peiter, will you tell me a story? I’ll do better than that for you Peiter, we are going to make one together Pieter Goessens & Pieter van den Broeck make up Pete & Pan. If you haven't watched the Goa Madness interview with these fella's go and do so to get an idea of what they are all about. Alternatively you can take my word for it that they are all about having a fun and bringing enjoyment to the world. And if you know about Goa Madness Records then you probably know that they pretty much only release well produced psychedelic Goa albums. Taking this into account you can expect a well produced psychedelic Goa trance album that is almost filled to the brim with good times and positive story telling. The feel good aspect of this album is something I haven't heard since listening to Spiritual Healing. ~ Serra Da Estrela Good intro's are the most wonderful little gift that makes an album so much better. Serra Estrela has Astrix level Shamanic Tale vibes and does the trick of transporting you to another world like nothing else. The baseline is deadly and the magical atmospheres carry you through to a large vibrant melody that pick you up and take you higher and higher if you let it. Elysian Fields An anthem for all the teenage boys and girls out there that could never get some. A perfect mix of despondent teenage insecurity floats around positive future outlooks. If Elysian Field (Which is perfectly titled) does not pull an adolescent from their glum self pity into a mood terrorized by hope and positivity then nothing but time will. There is a playful little surprise for us further down the line that turns into a gamechanger for the track. Passing Spirits I like the vocal samples here. They all fit in really well and remind me of old 90's vocal trance that I used to hear in my friends old gym. Body Pump in North Australia circa 2005 is written all over this track. 8 bit sounds can also be found around Passing Spirits as can some key changes that almost always leave me feeling cheated. This time is no different but I find it easier to get over it and move on to my continued enjoyment of the track. The wicked first act sets the scene for the rest of the track that is The Fool. The smooth leads form into a smooth melody that travels around the void calmly juxtaposed against a dirty bassline and kickdrum. The two take turns with your attention and build a glitter spangled storyline Tantric Tweak Cool title and another cool intro comes as no surprise. If you want a track that builds and builds and builds then this might be the track for you. The explosion of feel good vibes wrapped up in a wide melody makes you want to stroll where rays of sunshine can surround you in warmth the way that Tantric Tweak warms you from the inside. Darker atmospheres crawl out of the intro to Abundance but quickly get buddied up next to some playful positivity. The track builds and builds into something almost unrecognizable to the beginning. Absolutely incredible story telling that has so far remained impossible to not get lost in. Nowhere Melodies of raw sugar screech across your brain and etch themselves into it. Behind that you have a melodies begging you to throw your arms out to the side to glide on euphoria. Solstice Starting energetic and full of playful potential as can be expected with these bubbas. Here you're gonna get more twists, just as many feel good melodies and scorching raw leads of nuclear fusion. Muse (Bonus Track) It's been a long time since ive sat through such a purposefully uplifting banger. Muse is the sort of track you close a magical festival experience with, leaving everyone full of bliss and peace. A favourite from the album for it's pure emotional power. ~ Goa Madness continue their selection of hand crafted, top quality maestro produced Goa Trance. The production quality here is on par with Hypnoxocks Eurythmia, everything is polished, clean & purposeful. Each Track is a story and each finishes far away from where it starts. Listen to your album however you want, but try as many different ways as possible, back to forth, front to back, on shuffle. each time you get a different perspective and a different journey. Some of the track in Return Of The Goddess are the sort of music The Muses Rapt should have been producing in 2019. Well Pieter & Pieter have taken the torch and given us something that is so delightful I'm scared of listening to it too much. If Pieter & Pieter are going to go to the effort of releasing this piece of wonder then i'll face my fears and listen to this album till my heart is content. This album is certainly going into my top 10 for 2019 and something I'll be bumping every time I need a little extra aural love in my life. Thank you Goa Madness and all of the Pieters involved in this project. https://goamadnessrecordsofficial.bandcamp.com/album/return-of-the-goddess

Artist: M-Run Title: Live Session Album Label: Cronomi Records Date: March, 2020 1. Live Session 1 - A Trip to Andromeda 2. Live Session 2 - Technosonic 3. Live Session 3 - Spiral Cloud 4. Live Session 4 - Chronos (Live Version) 5. Live Session 5 - The Magic Mug 6. Live Session 6 - The Redeemer 7. Live Session 7 - Hexagon 8. Live Session 8 - Oxigenated Seal What's this? A new M-run album? Sure, I'll dig into this. Let me get a cup of coffee first to keep focused. Hold my calls. Ahhh...that's the stuff. Now let's see...M-run for those that don't know is Mario Matakovic from Croatia and this is his second album. His first Some Run Just For Fun was a revelation in the goa trance scene. Easily a classic chock full of butt shaking grooves that took goa into directions never before seen. If you're a fan of goa trance it is mandatory listening. So with his second album for the Cronomi label he embarked on a very ambitious project, giving us a behind the scene look how he creates his music in the studio. So he created his tracks, practiced and rehearsed shooting for a recording in one take. Do you realize how difficult and extraordinary that is? Easy? Sure, maybe for an octopus. But to control an entire track and play it flawlessly in one take? And each track had a different hardware setup? I wonder how much F word was uttered during those takes. How many cats were kicked because he messed up one little bit and had to start all over again? I wouldn't be surprised if he was sick to death of playing these tracks. If I were you Mario I would be looking over my shoulder for PETA. They don't take kindly to cat kicking. "Ok Mario...take 76. F*cking hell." So what's the music like? First I'll say this is not Some Run II. Yes there are plenty of grooves and his production is second to none. Each track is its own tale and it is super easy to get lost inside. While his first album was an atom bomb with one jaw dropping moment after another this one is more laid back. It's not so much a "get on the dancefloor album" (although you could certainly dance to it), but more of a cerebral relaxed vibe. There are plenty of head bobbing beats and space age sound effects and even some times where it is powerful (Spiral Cloud, Hexagon). His production is second to none (love me some kicks without hi-hats to start a track) and I can honestly say it grows on me with each repeated listen. The all important first track sets the tone, bringing an organic and mysterious allure. Technosonic with its vocoded speech brings a down and dirty groove. The Magic Mug is like sitting in a groovy cauldron during an Egyptian summer. The Redeemer carries such a funky swagger while continuously building on its foundation that it is instantly one of my favorites. I would say this is another triumph for Mario. His two albums are distinctly different, but share equally impressive music. I heartily recommend this album. Cronomi Bandcamp

Hello ... an update again, I have been staying low the past 2 weeks and it got better, I was able to go out again ... and yesterday I was at the lung doctor and got a check up: lungs are OK. I do still have the one or other bad night ... but I hope that it will not go really bad again. I have returned to work and so far I'm alright. Sports will have to wait. For the moment I am "NRTP" : "not running to psytrance" ... The doctor recommeded me a check for sleep apnea which will be done in June in first steps ... if I get results, I might post them here for completion.

tbh most of these "subgenres" are just progressive psytrance. the whole guide seems to focus on progressive mainly and leaves out much distinction in other subgenres. what they call "psytrance" is often called "serbian style progressive" (the main label that pioneered that sound was the seribian label tesseract) or "fullon-influenced progressive". what i call "pure" psytrance is something like children of the bong - bionic bong, sex on mushroom - dirty 80s or prometheus - arcadia magik. if you look into what "hot" fresh tracks come closest to that you'll have to go with uk psytrance atm (btw, "psychedelic" really? comeon. if it isn't psychedelic it shouldn't be in that guide. calling a subgenre of psychedelic trance "psycedelic" is just nonsense). bunching up the old style of progressive "minimal psy" with zenonesque aka dark prog that has a very different distinct sound and came much later with nothing in between is also kind of strange. "tribal" is a joke here. it's not as if a track suddenly changes genre simply because you throw a sample in there. those "tribal" tracks are the same subgenre as what is called "mainstream" in the guide. the usual term would be "futureprog". so again this is progressive psytrance, but the kind where people rightfully start to question wheter it as much or anything to do with "psy". similar thing with offbeat. just because the bassline has a particular pattern it's not suddenly another genre. it is commonly called "hamburg-style progressive" because that sort of sound is most popular in nothern germany. "psytechno" is another mess. "psytek" is a subgenre from back in 2001 characterised by fast tempos and heavy focus on techno like percussion. think x-dream - thorazin, auricular - pilzvergiftung or etnica - technoshit. what was called "psytecho" a few years ago (the style has all but vanished now) was a cross between progressive (again!) and minimal techno/house. think d nox&beckers. utterly boring stuff if you ask me. "psy-tech-trance" is something i've never heard before. i've seen "techtrance" in the context of psy to refer to the "psytek" i mentioned above. but the examples here are just more regular progressive. albeit more on the commercial side. "psybreaks" i'm completely fine with. same with nitzho (although it might be useful to differentiate between new nitzhogoa and old nitzhonot which was related to but was not psy strictly speaking) "goa trance" definitely needs some differention. newschool goa has evolved to become way different from oldschool goa. and if you treated goa in the same way as they treat progressive, you'd end up with at least 20 "genres" of goa. astral projection - mahadeva would nonsensically end up in a different drawer (probably something like "tribal offbeat goa" if you apply the same rules) as astral projection - let there be light. fullon also needs differentiation. the ultra-commercial stuff they mention for regular or morning (?!?) fullon is much more different from actual regular fullon (think talamasca, post-goa cosmosis, logic bomb, optokoppler, psydrop, post-goa electric universe). morning fullon (protoculture, silicon sound, sirius isness, fatali) should be seperate if you want to go deeper than "goa, fullon ,prog, dark". night fullon (cpu, absolum, xerox) is different from twilight (slide). the division into dark, forest and hitech is sensible though i'd definitely split psycore and hitech. highko is nothing like crazy astronaut. "psychill" and "chillout"? really? either lump it all together under psychill or differentiate between at least psychill, psydub, downtempo psytrance and beatless ambient.

I mean, I know I'm supposed to like it and I really want it to be a stunning release, but... Let's be honest unless your have a Trump supporter-esque level of sycophancy this release isn't gonna make it on most people's top ten. Hell it's not even the best in their own catalog. It's good, but not Etnica out of retirement good. Or D5 good. IMHO it lacks depth, doesn't have the explosive power that a lot of releases today have, and it really seems to be a stripped down version of what they used to do. Good, but not great. I definitely expected more.

Well the full lock down my end is sorted. Just had a Sequential Pro 3, Prophet 6 & Erica Synths Tech System delivered. Kids got a a trampoline installed in the back yard this morning & a Nintendo Switch. Spent the weekend cooking and freezing lots of quality food, and set up my wife's gone office properly. Actually could not be happier, especially as it was confirmed today that when we had what was a bad cold a two weeks back and self isolated was the virus. Self isolated as in while we have waited for results we have not gone out the front door. The wife, kids and I all have had it & are clear. Fingers crossed we're immune now.

I write this more relative to any music not just trance. It is true that for vinyl some specific issues need care and attention, this includes not having overly wide (stereo) low frequencies below 300Hz, it does not have to be mono though, it just must not have a too wide bass which can end up causing groove tracking issues and skipping. Harshness in the upper mid range can very easily sound like nasty scratchy distortion on vinyl so sibilance and harsh frequencies in the upper mids must not be out of control. There must not be excessive highs above 13kHz. The ideal for a vinyl cut would be 24 bit masters at the sample rate of the artists DAW mix project. Cutting very heavily limited files is likely to have detrimental issues for the fidelity of a vinyl cut. It can be done but speak to the lathe engineer and present any such limited file/s to him or her to in advance and let it be known it is the only version you can get hold of. End results are not easy to predict but at least the lathe engineer knows about this issue and may be able to mitigate against a very poor sounding cut. Mastering for vinyl, as in a mastering engineer producing quality controlled pre masters can be done digitally, there are no technical reasons why it must be analogue. Of course analogue has its own sonic properties which may be desirable for a digital or vinyl release but this has no relationship to a rule that analogue eq/compression must be used for vinyl. Notwithstanding the lathe itself which is of course analogue by nature. As with most professional mastering a combination of both is highly likely but this is because the use of analogue and digital mastering tools tends to produce the most pleasing end result for many styles of music. Contrary to popular belief 16 bit digital has a wider dynamic range than the vinyl format can reproduce. Vinyl is not more dynamic than 16 bit audio. The difference is that the ideal for a good sounding vinyl cut is not using a file with extremely restricted dynamics which is often the case for a digital release. It is easily possible to create a digital release which has or even exceeds the dynamics of a vinyl release. It is just that virtually no one does it, because it would likely be 8dB-14dB (very approximately) lower in volume compared to todays releases. That would leave DJ's scratching their heads and the bigger psy labels would not release such material unless they had a complete reverse of philosophy that greater dynamics is better. So it is just likely that the audio that is committed to vinyl is more dynamic in itself. I would be surprised if an average non brick wall limited psy trance track mix has dynamics exceeding 12dB. (unless of course there is some ambient intro section faded in from zero) But average dynamics from the loudest power sections to ambient break downs, the dynamics are not very wide. Once they have been limited a dynamic range of 8dB would be a surprise. Modern music mixes tend not to have wide dynamic ranges, every channel will often have some compression going on, especially the backbone rhythm sections drums and bass. The exception of course would be acoustic forms of music. The theoretical dynamic range of 16 bit audio is around 96dB, audibly more if dithered correctly from a 24 bit depth source. Vinyl dynamic range is roughly between 65 and 80dB (rare) and is a moving target as the vinyl wears introducing greater noise and of course crackling. The top end can also soften quite quickly with multiple plays as the friction of the needle in the groove erodes the groove. I totally understand why people enjoy the sound of vinyl, much less or non limited mixes, different audio processing, softer top end and upper mids, easier on the ears and the feel of vinyl in your hands. But it is not that vinyl is inherently of greater fidelity as a format.

i agree to everything in your first post in this thread, but have to disagree with most of this post. ime much of modern goa sounds worse on the dancefloor than at home. a few years ago i was looking forward to seeing cosmic dimension, skarma and morphic resonance live, but the livesets i've since heard from of all three of them were very disappointing. at home with good speakers or good headphones you can make out the details of the multilayered music, but at a party that's impossible and the music just turns into a giant mess. the same is often true for dj sets that focus on post-2012 newschool, so it's not just these producers. the problem is not compression or loudness; there is enough music that's limited even harder and still sounds good. it also can't be mixing; i've heard badly mixed oldschool sound good on the same system. neither can it be complexity per se; pleiadians sounded great at the same sound system where i left the dancefloor when cosmic dimension was playing. rather i think it's a peculiar combination of these things, where modern goa producers want to outdo past music by adding "more stuff", making the tracks harder to mix, leading to not quite perfect mixes that aren't optimised for loudness but are mastered to modern levels anyway. the result is ok when listened to on a good system, but in a real life environment where you neither have a perfect sound system nor perfect acoustics, maybe with levels in the red and with you not standing in the ideal listening position it all breaks down. goa can sound good on modern systems with modern, "competitive" mastering, but it has to abandon the idea that more elements always equal better, "more goa" sound. i'd definitely say quality over quantity when melodies are concened. not only for a story-telling but also from a mixing perspective. that brings us back to the definition of goa. would iconic, tracks that are minimalistic compared to modern goa, such as nmda - vitan, morphem - my plan or miranda - gnocchi still be released as goa trance today if we didn't know them already? vitan has kick and bass that are basically identical to early progressive and there are pretty much no leads playing for the first 2/3 of the track. most of it is kick and bass, percussion and a few strings/pads for atmosphere. then there is just a single true lead playing a single pattern at the end. my plan has at most one lead playing at the time, a few "drops" straight to kick and bass, and fx that talk to each other like in fullon. gnocchi again has "drops" to kick and bass, lengthy fx driven sections with no melodies at all, one bubbly lead that almost leaves the impression of fx rather than a melody (although it's playing a melody), one acidline and one "melodic" melody. both tracks rely heavily on atmosphere, as did a lot of early newschool, but most modern newschool doesn't. this atmosphere is possible because there are sections where you only have pads or long sweeps but it seems for modern goa everything has to be filled up with melodies. sometimes to the point where there's no room to the sounds to breathe. when there's no contrast between melodic climaxes and the rest of the track anymore (it doesn't have to be breakdowns. not needing lots of breakdowns is a plus imho), it all starts to sound the same, there is no room for storytelling or memorable moments. if it's that way for an entire set it really gets tiring. i don't think producers now are looking for the perfect kick and bass that much. at least the kicks on the tracks i mentioned (i'm not so sure about vitan) stand out more than the kick and bass in modern newschool. the kick in my plan even sounds much more like what we'd now call a fullon kick. btw: you've produced enough tracks to count as a producer imho

Okay, if it's a tread for requests/wishes to goa producers, then mine would be: - Learn some musical theory, goa is a melodic genre but not any random sequence of notes is actually a melody. - Use less layes, less notes. Quality over quanity. Use less elements, give them more room to breathe, polish them to make them sound really exciting instead of burying them in a super-busy mix. - Think more about the track stucture, breakdowns/buildups/climaxes, tension/release. A track must tell a story to be actually great - Try more new different sounds, there is a world beyond the cutoff and resonance knobs on a 303 emulation. There is FM synthesis, wavetable synthesis, additive synthesis, all of them are capable of making all sorts of unusual futuristic trippy sounds.

Yeah, tell that to party/festival organizers and/or label managers, not producers. Do you really think we enjoy having our work completely brickwalled just to please somebody's PA ? Be unique, and get crucified by the almighty Goa mafia who knows better, because "omG uR NoT gOa". Or try to stay within the genre's boundaries, and get crucified by the almighty Goa mafia who knows better, because "ur NOT uniQue omg". Your choice. See above. At the end of the day, a genre is....a genre for a reason. Uh-oh, what if I like higher-bpm goa and anything lower than 150 bores the shit out of me. Seriously, those "tips" are hysterical and a perfect summary of this scene as a whole.

i remember you, but you not been the worst here all of us here in australia have been cleansed by fire

Lost my attention in modern Goa Trance and im speaking from producers perspective... and it's gonna be long but worth of read imo. Today Goa is one of most limited Trance styles, even more than that Offbeat Prog most of us can't stand. There are so much rules these days which you have to follow just to get released, to play somewhere? Even worse. Sometimes I wonder if we as producers even have a freedom to do what we like or think we do and that people will actually support that. Expectations and personal tastes of few will eventualy kill Goa scene, not 'bad' producers themselves. We are small scene struggling to survive but all we do is bitching around and killing wish of new or producers that already gave a lot on scene. Those that we still praise from 90s, well 99% of them don't give a thing for last 20 years and didn't contribute to scene at all while you have new guys doing and putting everything they can so this scene could go on and so they could really enjoy in life as an artists and all fun it brings. If you are not like Etnica, you sucks, If you are not like Tim Schuldt its too boring, it's not dark enough. If you have modern bassline you are Fullon. It's not 90s Goa ripoff, well it sucks. You see problem now? Every single style in Psychedelic Trance genre have been developing since it's beggining, every couple of years style changed itself and most of them for better. And people there actually accept that because they understand 2005 Full on is 15 years old and it was good for that period, now is different and good for today. Progressive from early 00s was also good, but Ace Ventura is killing it now and killing it big for 2020 and people fucking love that. Remember Twisted System back in 2004? Fucking best Twilight ever. Well Ajja is king now sorry. Goa trance, 95 MWNN and Etnica, 2005 crazy Filipe Santos, 2010 Filteria, today... who knows? Every music was good for its period, some survived for 20-30 years, some not. But everyone moved on, new music, new generations, everyones having fun big time, parties and festivals bigger than ever, more music than ever for each and everyone but not for us Goa people. To us nothing is ever good enough specialy when you don't want to ripoff music from 25 years ago doing over and over same things, we just want same music, same style, same group of artist playing here and there. As an artist you are forced to do what others (label, promoters, scene?) want just to get released and get some attention from people so you can feel welcome on scene. So you make what they want which is maybe musicaly better but technicaly it's crap and everyone knows it but it's ok because it sounds like 90s. Maybe you got lucky to get booked on them few Goa Trance festivals and play for a bit bigger crowd so you get bigger and better promotion. Then you want more and more, why not to play for even more and even more often but oh wait you can't. Nobody want too book you, all promoters booked you already, so you are not interesting to them anymore, lets try others but nobody ever fucking heard of you. You would like to play on Boom or Ozora, all of us want but wait they never heard of you because marketing in Goa scene is one worse ever because they are not daring to invest at least 50euros in their digital promotions of your releases for which you are obviously not payed enough or not payed at all. Second thing, remember that you sounds like 90s, technicaly/production wise it's crap so is your music to 99% people out there because you couldn't use damn boring 'fullon bassline' or 'fullon kick' and now your music sounds ears bleeding on big systems and who da fuck want to put this guy on stage in front of 50000 people? I personaly would never, only if he doesn't brings me tons of money. 50000 people won't hear Goa Trance just that few days, where are tons of other big parties and festivals? If labels and agencies know what people really want today, why they don't force artists corectly and invest in them? You know that 50k on artist pages means a lot to get booking? Make his artist page on facebook get 50k likes! People like fancy produced videos of artists playing, doing interviews or studio sessions? You are fucking manager, so fucking make that happen! Is it really that hard? People on dancefloor love modern sound, so fucking force your artists to have production quality of Astrix instead of forcing them to boycott fucking EQ in their projects. And last thing but most important we forget if we want to survive is because we don't know how to sell product (read music). Literally we are worst there. You release something but 90% of scene don't have a clue that release is out. Are we doing business because this artist-label-parties-scene stuff is business after all, or we just satisfing our personal taste and personal frustrations? Are we as people, giving enough and fucking DECENT support to guys doing this music? Hell no! Even worse is that their damn labels don't give them decent support, just opportunity to get more money or promotion for their own name. I am here with you for 11 full years, 2500 posts, active for so many years. Meet some of you and become good friends in real life. You know my alter ego but some of you know me as a person. We have some history here right? Let me take a personal example so I don't target any other artist... My latest release 'Imba - Liberation EP' was released 2 and half months ago, to be exact 73 days and yet not a single review on it. How and why? Not that it's most important thing to artist but to most of us it has value. We came here because we value some thing here and some words can inspire us to keep doing it. I would really love to read some words from some respected members in scene, good or bad but I would love just to discuss and see. - Is it possible that nobody heard it yet for 73 days? Hard to believe that. - Is it possible that nobody could spare 10-20 mins to write it for 73 days? Hard to believe that. - Is it really that terrible that nobody wan't even to think about it? Even harded to believe that not because is mine but because I saw/heard it on dancefloor. Even in promo post only 2 people left some comment... This example is just one small thing of many, not most essential for survival of Goa music but to some people could mean a lot. How often you sent supportive msg to artist, new or older just to thank him and make him feel right and happy for doing this? How often have you shared artists music or party videos on your social media just as support? I haven't recieved msg here in ages and just simple Thank You would mean a lot to me or someone... Artist is not producing music just for themselves, not this type of music as you can't live from it. If they don't feel connected with people they will stop, one by one. I asked myself many times why? Yeah I am enjoying, I love this music and love the lifestyle, traveling, playing and fun but for who? Morphic Resonance who is very much loved here or in scene generaly, who gets lots of attention... got same questions on our last meeting. Many guys does... And here we are back to beggining, the people for whom we are doing all of this. First of all is: can you say that you as listener/party goer/Goa Trance lover doing enough for Goa Trance so it can survive and be good? Are we artists only guilty because scene is like this and you lost attention? We are too lazy to comment, talk, support someone which takes just couple of minutes but we are always ready to bitch artist who lost months or even years on some release just because he is not Etnica and he is not 90s. This is not 'Mom got me a toy I didn't want', it's far more important than personal expectations and taste. If you want scene to survive ofcourse... I didn't want to offend anyone with this post and I hope nobody found offended. Just pointing some main problems and I hope that you will think about...

Like usual... Search and you will find I think 2019 was a REALLY good year music wise, much better as many years before... the times of only melodic new goa trance is definately over!

You just expressed my thoughts about this genere as a whole, goa psy call it what ever, very few artists now days makes special music. I Did have fun listening to the the cross from true early goa trance to a more progressive/minimalist/techno sound untill it became too soft and fluffy. and i had a blast when things turned dark with artist like parasense, para halu, and the rise of what people call dark psy, untill it became boring hi tech or way to mossy and boring "forest" psy. I Did doubt new school goa when it came along, did enjoy a few albums down the line, artifakt 303 especially, and Morphic Resonance, untill it became a copy pasta of some sort, and dont even get me talking about what i think about Morphic's last album compared to his first album. Unreleased goa trance was great untill we started getting a bagillion retro proto goa boring releases or old artists who werent active for 20 years releasing stuff that should have stayed buried Yikes, kind of morbid...just hang in there

Hell yeah, how many websites in the world can claim to have 20 years of existence ? For those who are new here and sdon't know how it all started, just have a look here: Psynews (goatrance.free.fr at the time) was meant to replace the defunct Third Eye UK , and it turned out to be much more than that. This community, a lot of real-life friendships and initiatives like Suntrip Records. I talked with the Psynews creator, @Children a few days ago, he's good, his kids are teenagers...maybe you'll hear about him soon

now i'm really intrigued what sort of keyboard play we would have seen in this thread.

Calling his newer work commercial is completely wrong. Melodic trance in the style of Afgin had a peak around the start of the 00ies but nowadays is way less popular than Psytrance. You're applying definitions of the term 'commercial' as used in 2002, not 2020. Secondly, to answer the OP, he doesn't produce as much anymore, but still plays sets quite often. Last year alone I saw him playing live in Beligum, Spain and Israel.

not enough singing and limiting. also nhjo at least made the perfect tracks for the season. may i remind you of this masterpiece:

ah its the new Nhjo

fuck you rasist forum i never log in here again

2 new Astral Projection tracks samples from their 2020 new For All Mankind album!!

What did I just watch? Disgusting and neither Full On or Oldschool lol.. and certainly not both! haha..

Damn, JaraLuca got us all by surprise here! A huge jump forward since his last delicious album. This one is even bigger and better. Lots of unpredictable turns in each track, highly danceable and lots of power. It's a fresh album without copying himself or other artists. Very impressive and candidate for goa album of the year!

I must say straight away that I agree with you guys on this compeletly. I also wrote up some of my thoughts on it, here they are: Even though it’s hard to put into words the pure divine power that this gem is, at least in any earthly language, I still feel obliged to give it a try. Before you ever get taste of the music the art already gives you this vibe of this dissonant world with brain-treees (-> Brainforests) and mirror-ladders warping the space to your perspective. I like it most of any Suntrip art I've seen in a while (Just as the music - not meant as a diss to their other releases obv.) The Great Light shines through the mysterious veil of spiraling melodies and softer beats in the long and calmly pacing buildup, some tension throughout with the constant breaky elements. A few elements keep being added, others subtracted, never overloading the sonic soundscape, accounting for a very old-school feel. As the tension rises the Great Light breaks the spiral veil and rises in climax up and up, for roughly a minute before calming down and padding out the sonic skies with some acid licks and going up into a final climax. Great start to the album, gives you a gentler, softer summary of how the entire thing is going to play out. Coming of the climax of the previous soundscape-shadow-world, we are introduced into the weird world of PsychoTherapy with a gentle melody and warm bassline, before the kickdrum and, subsequently, the first mad acidscreeches enter. The entire soundscape has a few calm ponds and a whole lot of howling acid hurricanes, where there really is no clear climax, no strongest storm and finality, just mad and cyclic acid all over. There could barely be a better name chosen for this piece, representing a sonic equivalent of a paranoiac trying to leave a forest as the light dies around him with the sun set. Directly following, we get a perfect encapsulation of sunrise, beginning with very mystic sounding speech samples and a PHAT kick, then some sweet hihats, and just behind it the sweet melody of the first rays awaits. Tranceologia definitely feels a little more crowded, but by no means overcrowded, it has the huge swath of melodies encoding the first, gentle, toned down sunbeams, the colors returning, the air, cold and moist yet, the stamped out ground, the wriggling mass of humans on and above it, and the ecstatic trance of the perfect Goa Sunrise. The breaks in the final build launch the following climax into Cloud nine (for me atleast, gotta have them breaks for Frühstück) Although I can’t really make any sense of the fourth tracks name, it does not in any way diminish the glory and splendor of “6EQJE5” It’s the first (and only?) one to pull no punches and enters almost immediately with a kickdrum and a bassline a few loops late, transitioning into hihats, a few screeching, tension-building acid screams and then abruptly and unexpectedly early, everything just EXPLODES in your face, as the melody flies off the handle into a nostalgic, bittersweet drama. This first climax is debatably the highest this track will go, but the following little melodic spirals and powerful energetic acid roars are still worth every second and round the track out nicely. Still, my soul is most encompassed by that first and most melodic climax. Concerta is introduced with some gentle acid and a warm bassy melody, with the kickoff then a few mysteries are posed in the language of melody. More unsettling albeit powerful melodies are introduced as the tension is conducted a pace above the previous suite’s each go. The track doesn’t stray much from it’s hypnotic core though and is, together with the following track, the most newschool-ish one on the album. Speaking if which – the live mix of Visiting Earth is a thing of beauty. I definitely see the comparison with Filteria and RA, Filteria contributing the mad acid that hits you as the curtain is drawn, RA the clean, classic cheese straight from the orient and Sykespico themselves the bombastic climax – the way it is gently teased and grows stronger and more solid about you is simply beautiful. Dance Float is introduced with some cheesy dramatic trance, lays then the foundation with a phat sounding kickbass, leers then into direction of some cheesy psy-style bells, before throwing that sideways and picking up full power, with lush leads and twirling acid and it doesn’t let up but once, till the end. Towards the end the synthlines seem to pick up some of the acids twist. Lovely. After all of the Realm-Warping adventures over the last hour, you arrive at Space Station, to chill for a few, and you hear the dissonance creeping up, and hear the breaks, and then weird shit hits the fan in zero gravity and there’s alien excrement allover, staining all of it with inherent, integral weirdness. From the bass and percussion to the weirdly placed breaks and the hectic as hell acid. Very energetic, weird and playful, even picking up some drama for the climax, all you need to carry out your diabolic interdimensional scheme. Rounding all this out into a ball of superheated plasma, the duo give us Perlimor Star – a beauty stricken through and through with a groovy hoovey breakbeat, melancholic melodies that just spiral out and out, and some well-placed piano and female vocal cheese. Have I already told you how much I love breaks? Well I do, so, so much. Especially when paired with melodies the both spiral outwards and look inwards. Beautiful piece of downtempo goa, the perfect age-old secret of ending on a downtempo note. Perspective reminds me, just as most of the ones who’ve said something here, a lot of oldschool – but it is not Pleidians I would associate most with this style – a lot of the tracks are, to me, in their playful insanity, very reminiscent of the old Denshi Danshi stuff, and that’s a good thing. Also, I just have to remark that I absolutely love how Sykespico play with the composition, not just layering everything on top of eachother, but creating lots of dynamics and power. Can’t wait to hear them play at Apsara, missed them last time unfortunately, had not a clue how awesome their stuff is till this came in, totally out of left field. Not as relevant, since I doubt many people nowadays have read it (not in Germany anyways), the album gives me the impression of Corwin walking and warping strange, chaotic shadow worlds (a Character from Zelazny’s classic Chronicles of Amber, where powerful demigods can walk an infinity of universes by adjusting aspects of their surroundings with the help of their imagination) Edit: effed up a word.

The second full-length album by Distant System is now available here

TMedian project: Constellation Suntrip Records / Goa-trance 1. Antidote 2. Mission Adept 3. It Is Not Possible 4. Infinite Space 5. On The Edge 6. Pandora's Box 7. Sand Of Time 8. Sunrise 9. The Constellation Of Aries Median Project is Sergey Petrenko, a fairly new artist in Goa-trance. I enjoyed his previous album, In the Depth of Space (2017). So when I saw MP had a track called Life Line on Suntrip's compilation, The 50th Parallel (2018), my curiosity peeked. I thought the song was one of the best tracks on the compilation. Constellation (2019) is very melodic and psychedelic, coupled with strong synths, kicks, acid, and atmosphere. It's a very dance-friendly Goa album and some have even referred to it as Astral Projection meets Mindsphere. I'd like to add Artifact303 to that comparison chart 1. Antidote is a morning Goa song. The psy-ambient intro is beautiful. We're treated to some AP-esque melodies (without emulating AP thankfully), colourful and uplifting. I liked the adjustments at 3:45 and 5:15, and the melodies at 5:28 and 6:42. The latter incorporated key changes nicely. The song did little to keep my interest or engage me though. To me it sounded too safe and typical, formulaic. That said, it's a nice track. I'm all for positive vibes! I just find it more conventional than memorable. That said, I imagine the intent was to start the album off with an easier piece before moving into the more elaborate, complex, and cosmic story arc / Goa ones. 3.5 / 5 2. Mission Adept is more interesting! The song is zippy, kinetic, intense, and exciting-- like a new Filteria track. The ambient notes are good! Initially I found the occasional ringing effect (like a land-line phone at 2:32 and 2:39) a bit odd, but it grows to be altered as the music progresses, more alien and foreign in nature. Still I would have preferred to not have a telephone association in those few moments, as it distracted from the cosmic (imaginative) feel in my mind. The song has a visceral sense of urgency that I liked, and the atmosphere's great! The third act sounded like a healthy continuance of Act 2, but was solid! This is a fun, fast-paced track! 4.0 / 5 3. It Is Not Possible expands on the more electric approach that began with Mission Adept. The song is sharper, more fluid, intense, and powerful. I loved the synths in the opening act, and the forth minute took the music to new highs. The last act is homogenous-- less inventive when comparing the second to the first. That said. this is a thrilling, intergalactic song with strong synths, atmosphere, and climax! Couldn't the song have been called "It Is Possible" though since anything and everything is possible? This song is going to lift dance-floors, and it's great for working out, or immersing the mind into energetically, for home-listening. Super track! 4.75 / 5 4. Infinite Space maintains the more intergalactic approach. Great intro. The synths from 2:27 to 4:15 were ultra-melodic, juicy, and reminded me of Lemurians in their prime-- exceptional. The music quickly transitioned thankfully to vary things up, and the scenery shifted from 4:42 to 6:00. Here the main lead hugged the spotlight. I honestly thought it went on for a bit longer than necessary. Fortunately the melodic growth at 6:01 was satisfying. But the cool down part went on for a bit longer than needed. I suppose its a friendly approach for DJ's to mix but it grew a little draggy to me. This is a sweet track with one of the best melodies (2:27) I've heard all year! 4.5 / 5 5. On The Edge reminds me of what a new AP album could sound like. The song takes off like a rocket, remaining fully-charged and gripping. Excellent climax in the third minute. The transition at 4:00 maintained the catchy feels. There is a transitional segment where the tempo changes up with supporting elements. This part was so suspenseful, fun, catchy, and unexpected before what happened next! Man I wish there were more transitions this catchy to pulsate us to more magnetic terrain (thinking out loud). The song becomes more varied and delectable (for the most part) as it progresses. 5 / 5 6. Pandora's Box starts off great. The AP-esque synths and voice effects in the first several minutes (the song's first half) is strong. The artist keeps things interesting, moving, creative, and fun! Is it me though or does Act 1 seem to not know when to end? The song runs out of ideas at some point around 4:35 forward and grows repetitive and bland, lazy compared to the first half. The forth minute could have transitioned to healthier, more varied (wonderful) terrain. 3.5 / 5 7. Sand Of Time begins like a new AP track that's strong, gripping, and dark. The artist balances intense with harmonious synths (add atmosphere) beautifully. Act 1 [0:00 to 3:30] is excellent! Oddly, the segment from 3:31 to 4:23 was a bit empty and bland, like a typical way to transition via remove layers until something else arrives. I get that its purpose is to allow us to breathe, but give us something interesting to sink our minds into! The Ambient/Goa-influenced interlude that follows [4:24 to 5:15] is wonderful, coupled with warm atmosphere, voice effects, and more. It's an eventful, stand-out moment on the album. Now I have TWO THOUGHTS on what comes next. ONE: The hymns (stepping up and down in arrangement) sound typical and take away from the fantasy vibe, and climax via 5:17 forward is too formulaic and bland, as if the artist was trying to cater to the more general crowd. I've heard mainstream Trance climaxes like these hundreds of times (It's not why I listen to Goa music). TWO: Act 2 set the uplifting climax up nicely despite it sounding a bit similar (bland?) and safe, but it works for the general crowd. The hymn key changes aren't bad. They add an ethereal touch to the dance-friendly finale despite the more mainstream friendly (conventional) approach sounding less impressive, ambitious, and imaginative than I would have liked. This is a tough one to score. I loved everything up until the segment starting at 5:17 where the song's structure and direction took the easy way out. Nice atmosphere! 4 / 5 8. Sunrise is a beautiful morning sunrise track. Not only that-- it's full of life, hope, electricity (passion/drive), and inspiration. I love the sound/melody work in the first act, combining beauty with momentum, determination. The band of melodies at 2:00 is strong, accentuated with atmosphere, ambient, etc., and a bouncy, delectable Goa tune. There's a cool effect at 3:17. The band of melodies exit for new growth and the music climbs. Nicely balancing high with low sounds, the vehicle reaches an island (interlude) around the fifth minute, allowing us to catch our breath before a quick climb to-- an amazing, kinetic, adrenaline-searing climax across the fifth and sixth minute. Wow! To top it off, the song is accentuated with complimentary leads across the last act. The song puts a smile on my face. I love it!!! Thank you (to artist) for pushing the energy envelope, feels, and creativity, and for not settling for something conventional and formulaic sounding! This is an outstanding morning/Goa sunrise track! 5 / 5 9. The Constellation Of Aries a strong, gripping and electric first few minutes that pad this thing as the [level design] crescendo of sounds begins to form, doubling and tripling like a tidal wave collecting energy until exploding into a monster climax! The ocean calms down for act 2, keeping the moving atmosphere in tact as new synths take shape. This is a great part, alleviating (swishing up) the big arc and allowing us to return to the groovy, acid, sexy even melodies that kicked things off. We arrive at a brief transition in the fifth minute before this fiery ball of ethereal energy begins to rebuild-- this time acquiring angelic energy packets, melodies along the way until this enormous rainbow climaxes again-- this climax is complimented with sustained leads. It's beautiful!!! This is going to be another huge track on dance floors. It's loaded with energy, positive vibes, heart, and spirit. 4.75 / 5 CONCLUSON Constellation is a high energy, high quality cosmic [neo] Goa album that is clearly inspired by [but does not emulate] AP's Dancing Galaxy and Another World-- but different and for our time now. It's very dance friendly, climactic, and ascensional sounding at times. Suntrip is expanding their types of Goa Trance which is nice to see! The album showcases attractive sound/melody work, atmosphere, and some of the best climaxes I've heard in quite some time, e.g., On the Edge, Sunrise, The Constellation of Aries. The opening track doesn't do justice to how good the album is, but I suppose the intent was to start off the album with a friendlier (for wider, more general audiences) track before the more cosmic journey that awaits. That said, there were a few times where I felt more variety, development, and evolution would have been amazing. Pandora's Box for instance runs out of steam halfway through and never recovers. Furthermore, Sands of Time, though infectiously AP-inspired, settles for a conventional climax approach in the last act that arguably took away from an otherwise great (less conventional) chapter. Lastly, sometimes the key changes enrich the music while a few other times, I felt that they made the music feel a little more conventional. These issues might not be everyone's and the pros outweigh the cons for me. Constellation is Suntrip's most accessible, mainstream-friendly Goa album to date IMO. I get that not every album has to sound so daringly out-of-the-box-- Hallucinogen, Pleiadians, Cosmosis, etc., to be satisfying. That said, the few bland/formulaic segments (at times) took away from an otherwise super [neo] Full On (non-stop like AP dance friendly) Goa album. The artist proves that In the Depth of Space was no fluke, just as he did with Life Line on Suntrip's The 50th Parallel. The album is a treat for fans of melodic Goa-trance. This is a visionary, cosmic ride full of great work, and is one of Suntrip's best releases. The cover and overall art is very pretty too! HIGHLIGHTS MISSION ADEPT (!), IT IS NOT POSSIBLE (!!!), INFINITE SPACE (!!), ON THE EDGE (!!!), SANDS OF TIME (!!), SUNRISE (!!!), THE CONSTELLATION OF ARIES (!!) 4.5 / 5 Samples / Buy https://www.suntriprecords.com/release/cat/SUNCD56/ https://suntriprecords.bandcamp.com/album/median-project-constellation