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And people wonder why this forum going downhill, this is a review thread, keep it that way

Hey-hey. How's it? This is a bit of a large scale topic to tackle but I've been thinking about it every now and then. So the main question is - how's everything changed considering psytrance culture? What do you think? It's obviously a question that's intertwined with our technological/social/human progression. It's difficult to start making an analysis but to get things started... I'm arguing people are in collective terms less focused. This means what we "consume" needs to be easy and fast to digest. Any person needs to make a conscious effort to withhold a long attention span in the age is smart phones and social media. A shorter attention span is not the only thing - if you browse through endless amounts of data (phone/computer...), the creators of this data are in battle to win your attention. Your attention is money, straight and honest. It's views, likes and ad revenue. As you might have noticed, this battle is intense and ugly. It's almost like as if you've suddenly landed in this weird zoo with endless amount of monkeys hitting cymbals together. The loud and obscene run the show. Attention is also a drug like phenomenon, some people crave for it and are willing to take any measure to achieve it. And it certainly has been this way before the invention of internet, but nowadays you can't escape this toxic energy that easily. We're physically less in contact and digitally affected by behavior that we can easily classify sub standard. But isn't it so, that we've actually developed a skill to avoid the negative aspect of internet to some degree? That skill is indifference. People are far more indifferent than before. We just have to ignore a lot of things, because the amount of stimulus has significantly risen in the 10-15 years or so. In global terms the rise of indifference is great for the ones in control. But for the majority, for the planet, for the evolution of mankind... it's toxic. It creates a world of apathy and that's when things get dark when we run out of empathy and hopefulness. Let's see how the aforementioned, in my opinion, affects psytrance culture: 1) Drop of quality / When it's "fast-food" it means you only have to figure out a few things like production standards to achieve the pop-appeal. And sure, there's a place for easily digestible music and it can be fun too. But how about the very opposite? The ruthlessly difficult yet intelligent sound? The reason to do music, the idea behind it, has certainly changed for the worse. The big names are very clinical in their approach and pretty much create the same track over and over again. These days there's more ego & less Soul. 2) Drop of interest / People are less engaged. Less focus means we give each other, not to mention our art, less time and appreciation. We hardly stop to admire a great work even when we hear it. We don't write reviews. Those take time and who cares! Right? That's just the way cookie crumbles these days. 3) No more classics / There's no consensus on what's good and what's not. Just a few single opinions at most. There's no real indicators of quality and popularity these days neither, because views and stardom can be bought. We can all probably agree Hallucinogen's Twisted is a classic yes? But come to talk about anything from the last 10 years I wouldn't know. I couldn't know. 4) Less story-telling albums / ...and more digital singles! Because singles can be released more often therefore staying "active" as an artist/label. Activity is one of the key elements to gaining attention online. A full length album? Yesterday's antics.

sorry to hear that. sometimes i get annoyed with myself also.

i still listen to and adore Amen from 2003. So if this new album is anywhere close to that, I look forward to another 20 years of sonic bliss Ive watched all their clips from youtube shorts, and there are some very interesting tracks here, so its looking good! im kind of excited! even though its really hard to get excited these days, at 42 😅

Hi yeah, we were a bit understaffed and I had my reasons, feel free to check out the Status thread if you're interested. Back now and cleaned it up quite vigorously (at least what seemed reasonable to me, which was most). It should be better from now on that we have a little people more on the team Thanks at everybody for not letting the drama escalate too much, you handled it reasonably, all of you No, we will not make it a rule that a review needs to include links The links always help the people that are interested - and it is nice to play the embedded video and read the text here, I give you that point. But overall, I still put good writing above all and that's well done by the Doctor here, so: no critics. Cheers!

Really nice review... ....And a little bit of drama added to keep things interested. You can buy the release here: https://digitalreprints.bandcamp.com/album/human-odyssey And in the meantime check the new 2xCD Elysium's release as well :) https://digitalreprints.bandcamp.com/album/a-journey-through-time-space

Psynews has been a cornerstone for all psytrance related topics: from music, party/festival annoucements, new releases news, discussion about various topics ranging from album/compilation reviews/talks, interesting video sharing (interviews, old video-clips), production tips and tricks exchange, general talk about culture, entertainment, spirituality and so on. That being said, my opinion regarding the improvement: Disclaimer: I'm aware it requires resources, mostly someones time, knowledge and some money, but here me out. Two things are here important and both of them can be seen as a great foundation for eventual re-haul/improvement of the website/board. First one is content and second one is user-database. Forum/board should be just one segment of the website. The front-page of Psynews.org shouldn't be board. It should look like a interactive web-page where you can find couple of things: - A nice clean horizontal menu with few sub-menus such as: News, Videos, Reviews, Events, Playlists, Forum. You can add Contact and/or Newsletter info as well - Big horizontal header, Psynews logo or promoted banner for certain release/event/something else - Top 4-6 articles should be right below, in form of a box or as a list, but pinned - Eventually side-bar with latest topics/threads from the board/forum - Everything else is a matter of details - Footer with standard copyright and privacy policy Now to the point: When you have already great content, such as well-written reviews or proper music annoucements made by members, you can use that to put it (highlight it) on the front-page of your website, with nice image attached it's like pro-looking article. For example if you are using Wordpress page, you can make great SEO (search engine optimisation) of each article and attract more visitors to check your website and engage in other content (including the forum). It also gives nice exposure to artists, event organizers, label owners, DJ's as something representative. It's a win-win situation. Turn on some social-media commenting below the article, or link it with board/forum, you have engagement. I'm not that much into technical side of things, especially regarding the server/hosting that Psynews got, but I believe it supports latest version of Wordpress. You can get nice web theme/template in style of blog/magazine for like 50 bucks. Everything else is a matter of details, how you segment your page, what kind of plugins are you using and how you format certain text within articles, what images are you using and so on. But let's be honest, it would look much more professional and more involving for many content creators, no matter are they posting new release infos or putting up some album reviews or just sharing the event details with public, as well to some random visitors or psytrance enthusiasts. Regarding the forum membership: I'm aware that many registered members are inactive, but let's keep focus on active members, lurkers and eventually newcommers. Form a small team of 5-10 well-spoken users who will be in charge of re-posting forum content on the front page. Start with ongoing year 2024 - put up all reviews up in the frontpage, pick couple of festival annoucements, some upcoming releases and create 20 articles. You can, but you don't need to re-post other reviews, news, but it would be great to get each month at least 20-most commented/viewed reviews in form of article (form past years), just make sure to change the date when creating the article (in case you don't want to see it up in the lastest article sections). Add couple of articles regarding the most important festivals, share some nice DJ mixes. You can always edit articles, format images, credit the authors. Instagram reels, Facebook posts and new YouTube uploads by labels or artists can be great source for a fine article. All you need is a engaging article title, 200-300 words, link within article, nice looking photo and of course some links. The best thing is to directly add/embbed a clip or a videot. Put some hashtags and it's good to go. Feature some playlists by DJ's - make it on weekly or monthly basis. Daily throwback - put a highlight on some forgotten artist or release or even label. I can go on for hours with this idea, but in the end, what matters is the will to re-shape this great website, and I'm not sure is that even an option, but if someone from Administration decides to deal with it, I will be first in line to check it on daily basis and support it by recommending it. Sorry for lenghty post.

I love this place and if you need any help with Mod/Admin'ing, I'd be happy to support. 😃

Just realized but gotta be honest. Not a big fan of you posting free download links on the site. They look dodgy but also take away from an artist a potential sale which would go a long way to them making more music. You do you, but don't think it should be on Psynews. I'm not saying I don't want you Jotinha here. Just the links on the Russian shop remind me of soundpark

If I'm remembering correctly, the test pressings sound great and he's just finishing up the write ups and text for the booklet... Or something.

who is gonna buy this? sounds really bad. call me negative nancy all you want, im just being honest. its god awful. music, mixing, mastering, its all bad. edit: ok im sorry i should say something nice also. i rather like the hitech track at the end, sounds half decent! and the artwork is very cool.

You are accusing others of bringing politics into it when nobody has done such a thing and you are the one and only person bringing politics into it, in the very same post. You seem more concerned about the possibility of being asked to condemn terrorist actions than you are about the victims of those actions. Seriously, don't you have anything better to do than troll message threads where people are sharing sympathies of victims of heinous crimes? Has it occurred to you that members on this forum know some of these people personally? If you don't have anything nice to say then rather don't speak at all.

Are you being serious right now? You're the only one bringing this up. Nobody has mentioned a single thing about politics. Nobody except you. You can keep your 2 cents. Why are you even commenting here? 260 of our psytrance brothers and sisters have just been savagely and senselessly murdered. Have some common decency.

There's dashcam footage of these terrorists looting bodies and rooting through bags: thieves as well as mass murderers, they hide their greed and jealousy behind resentment (for which, no doubt, many of them have good reason). Make no mistake this was a planned attack on music, just like at Bataclan in Paris not so many years ago, just like the Taliban burning guitars and drums and pianos as though a bunch of wood and wires is a threat. The self-styled pious, the self-declared righteous, the extremists, the fanatics, they all hate music because it gives joy to people without ideology. We should feel sorry for them in their silent hell. These extremists driven by hate can murder peaceful dancers, but they cannot stop music. THE DRUMS DON'T STOP!

While we are talking about psy vinyl, how about A Blueprint for Survival on 3LP ;)? More news soon!

Nick 'Doof' Barber* – ANCoA Vol.1 "Single run vinyl edition of ANCoA Vol.1, limited to 100 copies worldwide. Pressed on transparent vinyl. Poly-lined inner sleeve. Cover design & artwork by Jake Ewen." https://nickbarber.bandcamp.com/album/nickdoofbarber-presents-ancoa-vol-1

Why would you assume she can't dj? Because he's a fucking idiot, I'm tired of coming into the forum and seeing it flooded with stupid posts and stupid replies from this individual...because of him and those who pay attention to him, this forum is more dead than alive. Fucking trolls... get a life!!!

Artist: Veasna Title: Providence Label: Goa Madness Records Release date: November 15 2023 1.Seed 10:09 2.Void 08:41 3.Marbles 08:09 4.Glade 08:51 5.Loom 07:56 6.Miraculix: Search & Destroy (Remix) 09:37 7.Shriek 07:27 8.Morphic Resonance: Bad Dreamer (Remix) 09:32 9.Karma 07:36 Veasna, aka Patrick Dinklage, already released 2 full albums on Neogoa: Energy and Spectral Flux. Still have to find the time to carefully listen to those two, but this third installment makes Veasna one of the great. I couldn't resist writing a positive review about this release. The music is the kind that you don't hear at the start or end of a party, but right in the middle of the night. Just when everyone is in his/her own zone. Dark, badass and hypnotic. Pure 100% goa. The mighty 10 min opener Seed sets the atmosphere for the rest of the album. Slowly building into a hypnotic monster of a track. Everything is so natural and organic, it's beautiful. Void is a gem. Deep, dark and so psychedelic. This instantly catapults me to 4AM at any goa party. Goosebumps! A showcase of trackbuilding and story telling. The magnificent Marbles continues in this atmosphere with a punchy basskick. Synths and acid are more prominent here than in Void. Glade is again more similar to Void, a perfect balance between spiralling sounds and deep bass. The acid undertone in Loom is spooky at the beginning, but the track majestically unfolds into a goa stomper no one can resist. Deep stuff right here. Search and Destroy adds more haunting synths. Shriek builds upon a chunky and crunching bassline and shoots acid. Bad Dreamer continues to push you deep into the night with almost an industrial feel to it. Glorious. Morphic Resonance's aggression is still palpable here with an overload of screeching synths. Very well done. The journey ends with the slightly less intense Karma, tunnel-vision like stuff. One that slowly builds, a bit of a mind cracker because of the non-standard bassline. But wow, it does build! And gracefully ends. Providence is a dense pack of serious goa music that goes deep into the soul. Veasna has a story to tell here. The dark overall touch, the heavy bass machinery and psychedelic spirals make this a unique experience. A proper tribute to night time goa. My winner for 2023 and maybe for many years to come. Buy on bandcamp: https://goamadnessrecordsofficial.bandcamp.com/album/providence

Most of these changes come with board updates. Admins and moderators don't really have skills or time to start customizing the board, especially with constant security updates. It's unfortunate but not much we can do about. I also miss that user level thing. Reaching "customize your title" was awesome!

Nop, but I started a new one, I'm trying to develop my style I started a new one, even the bassline has an arp , I will remake the track Goa ufo and comet with my new skills I have to add more details to the tracks.

Yup, that's the case for me personally. Even if I consider the 2014 remixes album a real album, it's been 10 years since that release, the world is moving, people change, taste changes, and right now I couldn't care less of a new Astral Projection album. Great news for the fans though.

Finally !! https://www.facebook.com/share/p/BYPATb662ytnXCYe/

Hello people and all lifeforms on Psynews, I thought imma give you an update on what's going on and arbitrarily share my thoughts about my life and about what is up with me on this forum here: As you might have read somewhat down the line of time, my life recently got a twist - or let me say: a complete turnaround - for the better. Ten years I have basically been sleeping under a rock and all of a sudden it went boom, somewhat - and as I came back to my senses it felt to me like I suddenly was going pretty far on the overtaking side on life's highway, in a fast car and taking turns in the driver's seat with a Soul that makes me really, really happy to be alive. Honestly, I only now realize what I have been missing out and I may ensure you from the deepest of my heart that it has nothing at all to do with any substance ingestion ... that never was my thing anyway. It's just good music and a speed of life that makes me tingle! As good as these news are for me personally, I have to admit it did not have and will not have the best effect on my time here. I will happily stay admin and do stuff when it pops up and when I have time - but I honestly am not much around anymore. If it wasn't for other people who cleaned up here besides me, it would be a true mess! A BIG THANKS to everybody in mod and admin team at this point! The forum has been "kind" to us by decreasing member activity and especially not making my attention so necessary in the past weeks ... but will it stay like that...? This brings me to a question - or rather a decision ... the way I perceive it, we are on a three way crossing and we can pick where we go from here ... the possibilities: 1.: We don't change anything and let all stay the way it is. You will maybe experience delay in requests and reports, in PMs to me, making a few spam posts disappear slower than they should. In fact I will drop by every few weeks, unregularly, clean up some stuff and tidy up a little and together with mods and admins still here we will keep it running as it currently is. 2.: We develop and evolve, get some new members in the admin and moderator panel and rock the place with good content. I'd love that -- but bear in mind that forums are on the declining side of the Internet. They won't get old that soon, but in the medium to long run we would HAVE to evolve into a Metaverse and I'd happily do that with you all, just not as a key driver because my time is a dwindling resource. 3.: Maybe you don't wanna hear it, but the internet has changed, forums are out of date and the activity counter on here shows it. I'm not going to pull out a diagram, but new posts have been steadily declining over the past years and recently some more active members left the community. Makes me wanna think out loud: Psynews could be hibernated and archived, open to browse but not to further post ... a possibility? I am just posing thoughts on my own. Everybody is welcome to voice their opinions. I am NOT saying that we stop this. I am just speaking it out as an admin for the first time and as one option of many - and without having asked anybody else. Bear in mind that this openness is also a form of me saying thanks to everybody for putting up with reduced admin time on here. Let me know your thoughts! If there's a team behind it, I'll happily stay a member, with or without admin rights as you wish, and let you carry the flame on and on cheers RTP

Next up, track 11. This was finished in early April 1999, almost 2 months after the previous one, and this is where things are getting a bit weird. I'd been spending much of the preceding months completely fascinated by The Lone Deranger, and the Twisted Records Dementertainment compilation. Listening to those on an almost daily basis, here is where my sound took a turn towards more gritty and should I say "dark". This is definitely the most complex track I managed to write in Impulse Tracker, both technically and as a composition. I remember a situation where I described the track as "organised chaos", and that's quite an accurate expression here. The only things that bother me a bit about this one is the rather murky and nondescript bassline (I really wish I could have come up with something better), and the track title feels oddly disjointed.

Upload day my good brother.

I hope you realize Filteria didn't invent shit. At least Xenomorph has his own style, the story telling (not this album specifically but in general).

I LOVE that they returned to what we LOVE (their first 3 albums) and updated some of their best songs with contemporary remixes, beautiful sound/melody work, and no singing that distracts and robs the music of its fun, visionary, and imaginative feel, essence and divinity. This is one of the biggest, most positive album surprises from IM since.. I don't know. It's been decades. When you do something that turns people off so many times, people lose interest and can overlook or arrive late to something special. In this case, a re-invigoration of old-stool translated to new-skool Goa-Trance greatness! This REMIX ALBUM has numerous songs and moments of pure magic and beauty, fire, heart, and spirit = GOA TRANCE 😍❤️ As always, some remixes stand out more than others. I'm not placing this above their first three albums and everyone has an opinion. That said... Praying this is a sign for something wonderful to come, such as a brand new PURE Goa album with all new musical masterpieces in follow up to their first three albums. REBORN is a huge step in a positive direction either way.

Juan is a fucking asshole my good brother! Agreed!

You could have expressed your wish for the track to be released in a more civilized way.. That's all.. Calling somebody, anybody, you don't know in personal, an asshole, because you disagree with his decision, yes for me is serious. I met Juan in Spain at Connection Festival 2018, were discussing about the music, the scene in the past and now etc and asked him about this remix (you see, i share the same wish with you..). He was negative BUT POLITE and KIND.. I am wondering if you were taking part in that discussion, would you call him an asshole..? Anyway, enough said..

I personally would prefere it if the forum keeps running. I'm only posting once in a blue moon but I do read it way more. And I've been able to discover some amazing tracks/artists/albums through this forum lately so it is still very helpfull for me. I don't think it's that bad if moderating the forum only happens with a delay. Considering the forum is not very active anyway I don't see any harm with that.

Completely agree Tsotsi. I clicked on the link and was appalled to see the new Xenomorph ep, for just one example, for free download on this Russian site - I ordered the vinyl of this ep from Suntrip records directly and it hasn't even arrived in the post yet. A free flac download is a slap in the face to me, let alone Mark Petrick and Suntrip Records, and suggests disrespect.

Jaaaa Jaaaaa Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ! Fun track.. 2 choices.. Harsh, watery and sibilant.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amun881JSdU Or worn vinyl vibes and mono : (I think this was called New beat as the style, lots of Belgian techno/electro style stuff made it over to Goa as far as I understand) This inspired my track Tanzen in Raum Und Zeit a bit, one of a handful. There is a lot of it here if you like the general sound.. Tanzen Tragic error in the mix and better quality...

Hello everyone, thanks for the positive feedback and we can tell you that indeed the BPC sounds really stellar and much clearer than the original records published in 1993. A dear friend of mine who owns the originals from back then did a side-to-side comparison and it is MUCH clearer, a lot of details are now crystal clear and we are beyond happy with this monumental release. I will take in consideration all the tips and suggestions even if the much thicker gatefold may be a good solution for 3 or 4LP releases. We are also considering doing a deluxe release made in the same vein of Hallucinogen and Shpongle releases, a book with records, that however will cost more, for sure. Would you be inclined to spend a bit more if we make a super special release like that? It's an option that I am caressing for a while.

Nebulosa Records present more Entheogenic vinyl! A Singularity Encoded: Kailash: Preliminary release march 2024. Place your pre-order at www.Nebulosarecords.com

Phobaaa!!!! I log-in here once or twice a year, but this place is half-active so not much happening here. Not that Im super busy with my daily life, but I have neither time nor willingness to spam out this place like I did back in the days, plus, its illegal now anyways plus its super quiet and to some extent boring and sterile looking without cracy oldies, it used to be buzzing here, now its a freaking desert ! Im glad to see some older faces popping up here once in a while tho! Been listening more to proghouse and all kinds of diferent electronic music subgenres on Spotify, I dont listen Goa/Psy in my daily life anymore, I still love it, but Im nost actively listening to it anymore, maybe couple of songs couple of times a year and I have not been researching for a new Goa/Psy/Ambient stuff in years, so its basically everything oldschool and up into 2000s that Im listening once in a while. I was lurking around in 2004 and registered in 2005, the rest is history.

Still around and the music is still a big part of my life but haven't had much time for forums lately, work is crazy these days.

Friend just posted this. Thought it was well written and aligns with how I feel... We, the ravers. We, the music lovers. We, the psychedelic trance scene. We stand for peace. We stand for love. We do not stand for hate and senseless violence. We stand for peak experiences of joyous hedonism in harmonic juxtaposition of seeking our truth, finding ourselves in epiphanous states from philosophical inquiry and dance floor ponderings. We are proponents of sharing the joys of life with one another and the psychedelic experience, which allows us to transcend the dreariness of the banality of our everyday rat race existence. We celebrate visionary art, provocative inquiry, dissolving the status quo, and transformational experiences in our lives taking us to our next levels of self-actualization. We resoundingly reject hate; we unanimously refuse your vitriol. The global psytrance community is not homogenous or monolithic in nature, but together we collectively embrace and promote LOVE through our MUSIC across this entire planet, from parties off the map made up of 10 people in a cornfield dancing furiously to darkpsy from dusk to dawn and beyond on some Mackie monitors and a blown out sub, up to our massive festivals where tens of thousands of psychedelic trance pilgrims congregate from hundreds of countries from around our planet, to unite together and stand what we have ALWAYS stood for: peace, love, unity, and spending time together dancing to some of the best f*cking music on the planet. We will NOT be afraid. You will NOT take away LOVE from us. We will continue onwards but we will NEVER forget those that were murdered in cold blood during the most beautiful and loving moments of their lives. We have always been the torch bearers for the ultimate experience of peace, love, and music in this world and will continue to do so. With love, and in memory of those we lost.

Thanks for mentioning and getting my attention This is an importnat thread anyway. I'd like to do a "check in" too: My life has turned very much upside down, in a positive way (new relationship), but it was very challenging for me. I've also moved and am in a different flat now, still living out of boxes. I was quite under pressure during the last months. I'm really happy that there was no urgent matter here, for it could very well have been the drop that is too much for me to take... It has now calmed down a little and the cracking and creaking noises in my universe, which apparently was already suffering a little under the velocity of its expansion, have stopped or at least died down ... and I am now using the "calmer seas" to sit down and send out a little signal, that all is well in my life and that I will never forget this site and always will come back, now more than in the months before - it's a pleasure to be an admin and I thank you for it

I love meat, I love the taste, I love the smell, I love the infinite variety of recipes around the world and I've been eating it since I was a kid. Despite all that I stopped eating it some time ago now for ecological reasons. With less and less deviation, not that easy. I can't do much on my own to fight the disaster but that I can. The ethical argument and the "cognitive dissonance", I dealt with quite well until then, but it's true that I feel more in tune now.

Tom from Indianapolis (in the States). I’m here quite often. Been into goa/psy since 2005. Listening to a ton of New School Goa these days. Hard to know what’s good with no operational psynews reviews section— I’ll check out Bandcamp + Discogs.

Hello. I do the occasional lurking.

Vinyl Pre-order for DAT Records Blue Planet Corporation - A Blueprint For Survival is up: https://datrecords.bandcamp.com/album/blue-planet-corporation-a-blueprint-for-survival

Well this was a wonderful thing to log into and see ! And especially to hear 2K was kicking up dust in the birthplace ! I am in communicado with Draeke at this moment via email. I appreciate the wonderful comments.

Simon Posford - Flux & Contemplation LP on vinyl. Released Friday 25th Aug Rough Trade: https://www.roughtrade.com/us/artist/simon-posford Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Flux-Contemplation-Portrait-Artist-Isolation/dp/B0BXPRVKMZ

In case anyone sitting on fence about hallucinogen reissue, if any of you have first shpongle reissue???? Soundwise better than that, may just be best have ever heard

I don't really listen to goa or psy a lot these days. When I do it will be something old, and in general searching out new music seems draining to me, like most everything else in life. On the electronic side I listen to acid techno and I'm always trying (and failing) to find something dark and evil in the synth world. Google fails me every time. I tried searching "dark synth music" and got the term "darkwave" which is anything but dark. I stopped by Psynews today because I was trying to find something to listen to at work and wondered if there were any non-psy threads. There's a sound in my head that I want to hear but I can't find any music that sounds like it. That's generally a clue to go make it but I can't seem to do shit these days along those lines. I just gave up on new goa after a while. Every once in a while I'd go through the new releases threads here or see what Suntrip had released and it never changed. I guess I did. I started drifting back to metal, occasionally gabber (for a couple songs at a time), acid techno. I want either dark and evil sounding shit, or Enya. 😂

After quite some silence, and not much gig activity on my part, I was invited to play in Tampere, Finland last weekend. And I have to tell you, that was a blast. I really haven't had this much fun playing a DJ set in years, so this was really what I needed. I played the closing set*, so I set the intensity proper for a closing. Thanks @Penzoline for the invite, I'll come back whenever *actually we did play a completely improvised back2back set as the actual closing, but as this was decided on location, I treated mine as the closing when picking the tracks. Tracklist: Hallucinogen - Astral Pancakes Triquetra - Escape From The Withered Temple Morphic Resonance - Chronos (Hypnoxock Remix) Total Eclipse - Absolute Zero Veasna - Infrared Slinky Nuns - Caught In The Zipper Rhythmystec - Plutonica Proxeeus - Ephraim Waite UX - Chameleon (Pixelmorph Mix Reloaded) Pleiadians - Taygeta The World Beyond - The Sphere (Ascending Towards Star-Eaters To Become The One) Profetia - Chaos Theory

Let this ugly topic serve as an example of why there aren't so many women participating in making psytrance (or even talking about it here on Psynews). The fact remains that you cannot open a thread about a female producer or DJ without a bunch of boys commenting on the attractiveness of the specimen, posting photos to help assess the matter, or even making lewd comments about what they'd really like to do with her. It's disgraceful, and no wonder there are fewer women participating in online communities such as this one... you would also get tired if your gender was a source of endless fascination/revulsion and always a matter for comment (as it has been in this very thread). The main problem I have with this thread was simply that one conclusion made earlier, that women are naturally less creative than men. I don't think anyone would be right to insist on gender equality; different selective pressures have acted on the different genders throughout our evolutionary history, and the genders possess different common traits. It isn't equality I would insist on but equity (fairness), and generalizing women as incapable in the creative arts is not in any way fair. Perhaps women are not as motivated to compete in the field? There are many explanations for the observed phenomenon such that callous judgements about natural capabilities simply aren't very valid.

Fun question. Here would be my list of tracks for Etnica to remix for a compilation: Psygone - Camaro Kanitou Juno Reactor - 10,000 Miles Total Eclipse - Space Clinic Battle of the Future Buddhas - Tigerhill MWNN - Big Troubles in Outer Space (see if they can do it better than Ofer did) Astral Projection - Zero Something like that.

Reddit, Facebook, Discord, etc. are no great substitute for forums, but forums are often poorly moderated, full of weirdos (see above), and pretty much ghost towns, so...mostly I just enjoy music in isolation, and dedicate myself to mixcraft, exploring new music, and refining my collection (updating metadata, completing discographies, etc.). I've been very busy producing high-quality mixes these years, and will be ending 2022 with another 36 hours of content published. All of that can be found on my homepage and the usual places (Mixcloud for HQ audio, SoundCloud for the more social experience). I also got into edits and production these years so I'm constantly churning out new versions of classic tracks for my own use and enjoyment. Not sure what I'll be doing with any of these dozens of projects except including them in some old school mixes when I get around to them. I have another three or four commissioned mixes to complete before I get to that though. As for reviews, I seldom get the sense that many people read them, and I tend to prefer investing my time in making recommendations on my Facebook page rather than writing reviews these days. I also got out of the habit of listening to new releases since I'm already drowning in music. I'll pick up new releases by artists I like but they end up in the listening backlog after being filed, and it sometimes takes years to get to them. Another issue is that albums are slowly becoming a thing of the past... so much of the new music I grow to love are released as singles, or as hidden gems on otherwise bland compilations, which is partly a consequence of being more dance music-oriented. Even so, a bunch of releases from 2022 already caught my ear one way or another: - Beyond Expectation compiled by my friend DJ Solitare - Club Unity, if you don't mind going further afield than just standard psytrance stuff - Filteria - Live With The Lag, but that's an easy one since I'm such a Filteria fan - Techgnosis Vol. 6, but I'm biased (as label co-founder) - Indoor - Reworks, very close to the originals but brought up to modern standards - Chaim - In Trance We Trust, for obvious reasons (I love classic Goa trance + modern progressive house and nu-disco) - Dark Elf - True Darkness, one of the very best pure darkpsy releases I've heard in quite some time My eclectic tastes are showing, ah? Anyway, it was another good year for music, and I'm looking forward to what 2023 brings us!