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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...

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

Basically all of this.

i cannot understand how you keep the momentum of trolling for 10+ years. thats something else entirely. kudos.

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.

Dear Suntrippers! We can announce our next CD-release on Suntrip Records! We will release a new big talent from Russia: Median Project! I would describe him as a mix between Mindsphere and Astral projection! Powerful, epic melodies and a lot of acid303s on top of it! Check the samples! Next week we will put the pre-order on bandcamp! : https://www.suntriprecords.com/release/cat/SUNCD56/

I guess most of you are mistaked. It's about mixing not the mastering. Katedra himself has always had this style of mixing: bassy, muddy, industrial. I know because we collaborated long ago on 'Magic Science & Imba - Ghost Town' where he was part of Magic Science, and you can hear his style in the track. Even if I am not, nor personaly nor professionaly for it/this style of mixing, I support and respect his ideas and presentation of his music. And important thing is freedom which not many labels give you these days but Global Sect does which is amazing. In most cases when I finish and send premasters to label they say 'It's too clean', 'It's more Fullon than Goa', or it's not clean enough or buyers prefer more this or that bla bla bla... here Katedra had complete freedom to express himself musical and production wise. Just relax and enjoy in what he delivers to you as his own Goa Trance without genre/style rules and boundaries

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.

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

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

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.

Dear trippy friends, I've collected and sorted all the votes from the 2018 voting thread and the results are in. I didn't style or pimp the list, sorry. But the results are correct! :-) Congratulations to the winners and all artists!!!!! UPTEMPO 1 48 pts Denshi-Danshi - Brain Chemistry (Suntrip) 2 47 pts Triquetra - Ecstatic Planet (Suntrip Records) 3 41 pts Proxeeus - Non-Euclidean Geometry (Goa Madness Records) 4 40 pts Morphic Resonance - Perplexity (Suntrip) 5 33 pts Median Project - In The Depths Of Space (Global Sect Music) 6 30 pts Unknownium - Unknownium (BMSS) 7 29 pts E-Mantra - Stapanii Timpului (Suntrip) 8 27 pts V/A - Shambhala (Global Sect Music) 9 25 pts Ray Castle & Collaborators - Mystique Of The Metaverse (Suntrip) 10 24 pts Ephedra - What The Future Brings (Goa Madness Records) 11 24 pts Sab Kuch Milegator - Surrounded By Surreality (Self-relea sed) 12 24 pts Veasna - Spectral Flux (Neogoa) 13 21 pts Ufomatka - Off the Beaten track of the universe (Cronomi) 14 19 pts SubConsciousMind - Symphonies Of Life (Self-released) 15 18 pts Etnica - The Juggeling Alchemists Under The Black Light (Dat Records) 16 16 pts V/A - 303 Syndrome (Mamomam Records) 17 15 pts Cos mosis - Retrofuturism (Digital Reprints) 18 15 pts VA - Under the Moss 4 (Forest Freaks) 19 14 pts Lectro Spectral Daz e - Infinitely Intricate Unfolding Kaleidoscope (Neogo a) 20 12 pts Gangguru - Be Your Own Guru (DAT) 21 11 pts VA - The Call of Goa 3: New Horizons (Timewarp) 22 10 pts Igor Swamp - Akrabadabra (Hippie Killer Productions/Nullzone) 23 10 pts Abraxas - Inner Worlds (Future Music) 24 10 pts Archaic - Mountain Powers (Parvati) 25 10 pts Material Music - Love & Magic [The Dust Album] (Kali Earth Records) 26 10 pts nangijala - fermented behaviour (zenon) 27 10 pts Ov erdream - Redux (self-released) 28 10 pts Re-Horakhty - Purgatoria (Forest Freaks) 29 10 pts VA Chronika Chapter V (Liquid Drop Groove) 30 9 pts deviant species - advent of the blue radula (trick music) 31 9 pts Goch & Friends - Woody Vegetation (Vantara Vichitra) 32 9 pts Material Music - Magic Science o f DNA (Ovnimoon Records ) 33 9 pts Starseed - Galactic Incubation Atmospheres EP (Iono) 34 9 pts VA - Purple Brain (A.N.A.L.) 35 8 pts Espoo So und Machine - Discobedience (S ound Kitchen) 36 8 pts juno reactor - the mutant theatre (metropolis) 37 8 pts Somnesia - Infinite Mind (Timewarp) 38 8 pts V/A - Offspring of the Dra gon (Manic Dragon Records) 39 8 pts v/a - The 50th Parallel (Suntrip) 40 7 pts Igor Swamp - Akrabadabra (Hippie Killer Productions/Nullzone) 41 7 pts Omnivo x - Surrender (Goa Madness) 42 7 pts Psykovsky & Friends - P rostra Potustoronn ego Zertsa l a (Not On Label (Psykovsky Se lf-released)) 43 7 pts Roof Raiser - Synthetic Forest (Another Dimension Music) 44 6 pts va - lost diamonds (digital diamonds) 45 6 pts VA - Lotus 46 6 pts VA Colo urs of Goa 3 (Timewarp) 47 6 pts Visions - Goblin Fungus (Geoma gnetic) 48 5 pts Concept Lightwork - Moments of Magic (Timewarp) 49 5 pts Sirius Music - Gaias Tears (Ovnimoon Records) 50 5 pts Urjasa - Happy Landing (Hypnotica) 51 5 pts v a - psychedelic depths (manifol d studio) 52 5 pts v/a - Return To The Source (BMSS) 53 5 pts VA Hear t of Goa 6 (Ovnimoon) 54 4 pts I nfected Mushroom - IM21 (HOMmeg a HD) 55 4 pts Insignia - Time Travel EP (D acru) 56 4 pts Material Music - Love & Magic [Master XXPSY Systems] (Kali Earth Records) 57 4 pts Smuds - For Fuld Musik (Real Vision Music) 58 4 pts U bar Tmar - Early Fusion (Zion 604) 59 4 pts V/A Goa Trance Legacy by Kanc Cover (SpaceDock Re cords) 60 4 pts va - hadra trance festival (hadra) 61 4 pts VA K ensho (Sangoma) 62 3 pts Anarkick - Eat the Mushroom (Anarkick Records) 63 3 pts Jayex - Soul Echoes (Surface Tension) 64 3 pts Solar Fields - Red Green Blue (Sidereal) 65 2 pts Fiery Dawn- Magus (Timewarp) 66 2 pts Oraalidonitsi - Who Cares About Name (Random) 67 2 pts V/A - Elan Vital (Melusine Records) 68 2 pts infected mushroom - head of nasa... (monstercat) 69 1 pts Discolin - Hercule Roilot (Nullzone) 70 1 pts Qiujan - Jahān-e Qiu (Self-re leased) 71 1 pts Rayavana - San ds Of Time (Sita) DOWNTEMPO 1 33 pts Kaya Project - Up from the Dust (Tribal Shift) 2 24 pts Suduaya - Loveology (altar) 3 24 pts Youth & Gaudi - Astronaut Alchemists (Liquid Sound Design) 4 23 pts Globular - Entangled Everything (Self-released) 5 21 pts Solar Fields - Ourdom (Sidereal) 6 19 pts Nibana - Earth From Above (Self-released) 7 18 pts Dr Trippy - Bhang! (Disco Gecko) 8 16 pts Entheogenic - Kykeon (Universal Symbiosis) 9 16 pts Geoglyph - Geolinguistic (Psychedelic Jelly) 10 15 pts Akshan - World of Duality (Altar) 11 11 pts Maiia - Evolution 12 10 pts Advanced Suite - Drifting (self-released) 13 10 pts Airi - After The Rain (Zenon) 14 10 pts Conical Brazers - Crazy (Not On Label (chrncl brwsrs Self-released)) 15 10 pts Kalpataru Tree - Rhythmic Fractals Of Earth's Imagination (Self-released) 16 10 pts the polish ambassador + the diplomatic scandal - land of the lush (self) 17 9 pts Connect.Ohm - 9980 re-issue (Ultimae) 18 9 pts Echo Season - Periphery 19 9 pts Kaya Proje ct - The Dust Remixes (Not On Label (Seb Taylor Self-rel eased)) 20 8 pts Kuba - Animalia (Liqui d Sound Design) 21 8 pts State Azure - Mirror infinite 22 8 pts Zen Baboon Collected 23 7 pts Klaada - Breaking The Cycle (Mindspring Music) 24 7 pts Rukirek – I Will Return In Thousand Years 25 7 pts sephira - the master work (self) 26 6 pts Argus - Field Of Dreams (Altar) 27 6 pts Blue lunar monkey - Essential Oneness 28 6 pts Shogo Buzz - Shogo Buzz (Self-released) 29 5 pts One Arc degree - The glow baneath 30 5 pts Scion - Ascend (Self-released) 31 5 pts v a - blue dubs vol.1 (blue hour sounds) 32 4 pts abraham carmona - ibiza (liquid sound) 33 4 pts Rameses 2 - Spacewalk 2 Zero gravity 34 4 pts VA - Lurve Connection 35 4 pts VA Psychill downbeats 36 3 pts Deep Forest And Gaudi - Epic Circuits 37 3 pts Seamoon - Archaic Mind (Merkaba) 38 3 pts VA - Ethneomystica Vol. 6 (Mystic Sound Records) 39 3 pts va - ethnostep 8 (subbass) 40 3 pts VA Goa meditation 2 41 2 pts Master Margherita - Border 50 (Ultimae Records) 42 2 pts Shamanizm Parallei - Blue Lizard 43 2 pts VA - Vision Quest (Visionary Shamanics) 44 1 pts Indigo Egg - Aten (...txt) 45 1 pts VA - Infusions Vol. 6

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

It's big, it's beautiful, it's Median Project - Constellation Artist: Median project Album: Constellation Label: Suntrip Records Release: May 20, 2019 Tracklist:- 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 This review is about what is in my opinion one of the most extraordinary release of modern Goa to date. An Album that encapsulates the cosmic tone of the genre in it's own unique and captivating way. Personally I can honestly say that only 3 or 4 other albums have ever granted me this much excitement, and none of those have been been in this style and this style is by far my favourite. This album is not another level, it is the level. If your brain converts sound into colours and shapes then this is going be one vibrant journey of electricity. The album art by ShivaOMArt really says it all as far as the spectrum of colours that you are going to be blasted through goes. You're going to experience warm rust pyramids filled with gold, strokes of amber splashed across azure temples and gas giants of cerulean creating reactions with scarlets. You might even spot some periwinkle In the distance. 'Yea yea, it sounds amazing but it's not a game changer' 'Sorry huh? What did you just? Not a game changer for whom good sir & madam?' It is certainly a game changer for Sergey who has advanced his skill to another level. The layers are as balanced as a spirit level placed by Vladimir Shukhov himself, the leads rip through the other sounds and at times dance around in prisms of energy above your head while at other times zip through your head taking you to star nebula's. Vocal samples nestle themselves neatly into tracks where they are placed, but it's really the other elements that make these tracks stand out. The dial tone in Mission Adept, the boombastic roar in It Is Not Possible & the unforgettable screeches for the first 4 minutes of Sand Of Time, my god even a 4 second sample of that track gives my brain dopamine thrush. The melody of Sunrise & The Constellation Of Aries make me drive exactly 4 kilometres over the speed limit with a huge smile on my face. It's all cosmic Goa, but not like you have heard before. Median Project has placed more emphasis on the moments that really make a track stand out, the introductions and outro's have been given more detail, the tracks have been filled with 'Bigger' sounds and more effort has been placed into introducing periphery sounds that make every listen unique. I have had this album since it's release, so I have had plenty of time to listen to it, the honeymoon period is over and I can with all certainty say that this production of art is up there with the greats of the genre and the broader spectrum of Psytrance. What Median Project has done is find a way to take cosmic goa up to the next stage of its evolution, I can consider this album an advancement towards the style that others (Hopefully) will build on. It does have all the NeoGoa elements that some people (Not Tsotsi) often find tiresome but the arrangements are what keep this exciting. For those of you that think that this genre has nothing new to add, crank this up when the sun goes down and prepare yourself for a visit to solar systems far away. As always I would like to thank Sergey for taking the time to deliver this masterpiece to us and making the world that much more colourful for it. His hard work really does pay off. Thanks to all others involved in the project including Suntrip for an interstellar addition to their catalogue. One Final word. The description of the album calls this Astral Projection meets Mindsphere, but I think we can surely agree that from now on this is pure Median Project an artist unto himself. https://suntriprecords.bandcamp.com/album/median-project-constellation

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

RESULTS ARE HERE

I was going to wait till I listened to it 100 times, but after 20 times I think I'm getting the feel. This is one of the best goa trance I have ever heard. We already had a great share of good music and amazing artists, but Median is right up there. Shining. Where his album on Global Sect was also very good, Constellation has enormous depth, euphoric layers, and fantastic balanced frequencies. I'm very happy to hear that Sergey tuned down the snares and claps, which were very present in his previous work. I'm listening to parts of Constellation every day. In my bed, in the car, ... He manages to transform a whole idea into music. Only given to the most talented. Every track is a space journey. Every track puts a smile on your face. Very good review Tsotsi! Constellation deserves that. We will look back and confirm year after year that Constellation is a milestone in Goa history. I'm sure of that. Grab it while you can!

Well my first album was RA - Earthcall and then Artha - Dream Telepathy, before that I labelled the album Loud - 5 Billion Stars as Goa. I didn't listen to any old school until about 2-3 years into my experience and didn't like it until one special night with me and Hallucinogen. How about that for credentials? There are pretty big differences between the two. But I think we already know what they are. Old school had a sense of play about where you can almost feel the artists on the other side of the track. The good albums certainly feel like they come from artists with a broader musical range who loop A LOT LESS, probably due to hardware. The tracks have quirks and more subtle changes that are a result of live knob twisting and all that. The looping that does go on gets tweaked so it doesn't sound so same same. Also the tracks have room to move, much more space in oldschool. HOWEVER, Kick drums are often weak and even if a good melody is present, having starting from heavily layered music I miss the craziness and extra psychedelia present in Neogoa layers. Some Old school blows my mind and I love how nothing is placed in a track without a purpose, but the real eargasms, increased heart rates and jumping around comes from Neogoa. While I hear the creative genius behind the classic old school albums, I get far more lost within modern classics.

Meh. Old school and new school is a thing and we certainly didn't invent it in this thread. We are simply trying to figure out what exactly new and old school means

Yeah that is the standart evolution formula for almost all electronic music...tracks are geting louder and more overloaded nowadays. There is a clear process of switching quality against quantity/thickness :/ Pleiadians were well known for their successful "multy layered" Trance, so the people are trying to recreate it. And they hope for glory and success if they copy an all time classic Band like Pleiadians/Etnica(wich i am not a fan of...i mean Pleiadians!) Today every child can rip FL studio and make music on the PC...in the 90s it was more difficult to get the hardware for producing. So talented Kids with rich parents could afford it...and do electronic music. And parents would not buy this stuff if their kiddo isnt playing an instrument for years already. So what i mean is that maybe 80% of 90s goa producers could play instruments/make quality music before they made Trance! This cheesy fullon wave in the 2000s was a group of untalented kiddos with PCs trying to make classic goa... thats btw the reason why all the good guys from russia and eastern europe came after 2000. You simply could not buy the equipment/PC in the 90s russia...even if the talent was there. Once i tryed to make Goa by myselfe too and i got a medium fullon/Goa hybrid track...a simple chord progression is not enough to get this blissfull alien like music. A trance track needs an unique and strong Character to sound like "Goa". And yeah...i hate this people too who think Goa trance MUST have something to do with India/Oriental culture xDD sorry for mei Englisch.

Dear beloved supporters and fan of the work of DAT Records, it is with enormous pleasure that I can say that the production of the crop circles release on vinyl is going ahead and we are very close. We should have copies in store in early July and we are so happy about it. I also want to tell you that in all these months we have worked relentlessly to make some big announcements about our future at DAT. More Exciting news, coming soon

just got back to Australia now words cannot describe what we just experienced i have been to thousands of live shows in my life........ but have never witnessed anything quite like this..... WOW

OK, the truth is that DJSunborn put it in an arrogant and patronizing way, but I would like to focus more on my points, which I think are worth reflecting on. If that's your style, end of story. Of course you don't need to make your music slower! The point is: the scarcity of lower bpm tracks indicates too much homogeneity and the lack of variation in the genre, which cannot be a good thing. Goa trance, unlike other styles, is NOT bpm-dependent. Label owners should be blamed more than artists for brickwall mastering, for sure. But the artists, if they do care, can also do sth about it. It's THEIR music after all. As far as I know, (almost?) nobody's financial survival depends on producing goa trance. It is a hobby/creative activity that fulfils you (the artist) and that may allow you to have an extra income occasionally. That's how it is. If artists were primarily interested in making money, they wouldn't devote so much of their time in making this type of music. So, if you REALLY care (and you think your music is good enough), you should not allow others to dictate how to master your music. If I remember correctly, Dragon Twins had demanded dynamic mastering in the past. And also, some labels do care about it (e.g. Cronomi).

^ the Sandman coverart is an original painting by visionary artist Alex Grey Ps. I love this VA's artwork, and tracks. To own the physical is to understand its niceness: https://www.discogs.com/Domino-Moon/release/385478 Actually, the Goagilde VA on KER is kind of inspired by it. Here is the audio:

Cheers and Happy 20th Birthday to all and everybody on here #HappyBirthdayPsynews.org I did not plan to show up empty-handed, but it turned out that way for now - however, as it's 2020 and we are 20, I think it's good to say that we have the whole YEAR to celebrate -- and that's exactly how I would do it! If the things I had in mind turn out well, I will let you know and will post it under the hashtag above. It's most certainly not over for me before the year is over. First I'm gonna bake a cake for the occasion EDIT: Cake is done! Happy Birthday Psynews.ORG:

Superbeast, I can't understand shit of what you are trying to say.

I'm glad at least 3 of us here feel this way, i'm sure many more do to. I really do think this albums deserves huge amounts of recognition in the electronic music scene. Definitely in the Psytrance and certainly in the Goa Scene.

Haven't had the time to properly check it yet, but if the Soundcloud wavefom is anything to go by, I'm pretty sure Trump could keep a few people out of his country with such a brick-walled thing. edit: holy shit it has vocals.

Paradise Trips. Paraisos Artificiais. And one of the classics, Man on Fire. =) Texhnolyze intro with Juno Reactor.