HolyLight

Slightly Off and yet On-topic a perfect Goa Acid machine released today in a pretty new color scheme:

Interesting thread topic. The Astral Projection Album/Compilation with remixes of classics by other artists springs to mind. https://www.discogs.com/release/6397402-Astral-Projection-Goa-Classics-Remixed And to some degree the Infected Mushroom album Converting Vegetarians II, since it goes back and reinvents/reinterprets the style of the first album. And yeah their newer remixes of The Messenger and Merlin. A contender to the feeling one gets of listening to a new version of an older track is what I got when the Ra album 9th released, it was special since it was their first album since their debut 2000 album To Sirius. Which by todays perspective might seem like a small time-frame(from 2000 to 2008). But at the time it was a huge thing for me atleast, since the Goa Trance genre had been on a pause for some years except for some few new releases, (in the years between 2000 and 2004 in particular there was quite a low frequency of new Goa Releases). It was more common with releases from new/Neogoa artists releasing new tracks in the genre, than it was that the classical artists released new Goa. Since most had changed to Full-On or Psytrance by then. So this album stood out to me because they didn't change their style too drastically, it was the same nice style but in a fresh new color palette.

My guess is the Facebook Messenger app. As for the track itself, not bad.. nice morning vibe, inspired perhaps by the Liquid Sun track and its pads. It sure has some AP similarities, but my guess too would be on someone inspired by AP if I had to bet money on it. Because to my ears the signature AP leads, bass, AP Kick Drum and synthesizers etc aren't there. I would love to be proven wrong tho, since I don't think unreleased AP tracks are particularly common. Except maybe within the inner DAT collecting circles among the artists/labels. And also with AP tracks in general I always think of a "big sound" this of course could be lacking in an early demo track or unmastered one. Because that to me is a bit of their signature, the tracks sound big, full and very well sculpted in the mix.

Agree, and @CosmicEquilibrium just keep on trying and learning, don't let negative comments online put you down. Use it as a motivation to improve with every track. Overall I try to see comments as some kind of Yin and Yang/polarity effect, balancing each other out. Some will be overly kind, others brutally honest. Others neutral, and an infinite scale of in-between shades. I mean people complain even when the veterans make music, and those artists know their trade. So with that in mind, you can never please everybody. Those artists are probably quite used to that by now though, altough I'm sure they're not totally immune to criticism. Some might even have a "slight" hubris and be extra stingy about criticism. The problem in general with Goa as @acid being pointed out, is that it's not a very common genre that many people might listen to that one knows, unless one is a total Goa head and only hangs out with Goa Trance people. So yeah this forum is your best bet for that I think, Facebook might be the totality of negativity in comparison, unless you find a really nice group there. Overall the activity and reactions/feedback to music people there seems quite low. Maybe due to how many of those kind of posts there are there, so people might've become a little numb to the massive amounts of Soundcloud links. And also due to how few people there is that actually make Goa these days (in comparison to other genres atleast), it is probably a more difficult genre to learn, for example there are not many of the current Goa trance artists who make tutorials on youtube or share their production insights online either. In comparison there sure is a lot more Psytrance tutorials, and yeah Techno too. You can of course apply a lot of the techniques from those genres to Goa Trance, however I find that the harmonies and overall aura of the Goa Trance genre is quite distinct. It has a lot of traits that it has developed over the years, with many peculiarities. The Nitzho influences with its particular Kick Drum styles and more victorious modes, the different eastern scales,(Egyptian inspired/Indian/Phrygian(Greek) Anatolian?(Mindsphere) etc the different varieties of Goa from different countries/cities/eras and what not. From all the videos I've seen on youtube the only one that actually has a Kick Drum that sounds as it should is Hallucinogen's in the studio video. Most other masterclass/tutorial oriented videos have a more Psytrance sounding Kick Drum. Which can be a stylistic thing of course if you're into that. I would LOVE if some of the other Goa Trance veterans from the old school era would show some tricks or breakdowns on how they made their old classics. Dimension-5 in particular, and yeah Ra! Goa Trance is like a good cup of tea, there are many nice blends out there. 😁🍵

That is perfectly fine of course! All views/impressions are equally valid. At the end of the day, only time will tell if these new tracks will age with the grace of their precursors. I personally often find that tracks needs a couple of spins, ideally in different environments, (forest parties etc). To truly be able to vibe with it (or not). Since at the end of the day it's usually memories/experiences that makes tracks stronger. Anyways, must be very difficult for the artists to provide something new which reflects who they are now, and the same time keep some red threads to their classics. It's a fine line to balance, not everyone will be happy.

Nice track I don't get the negativity at all. It harkens back unto classic T.I.P territory for me. Reminds me of Process-Cryogen, Angelic Particles, and overall like a blend of Simons first album with the clarity of the second album, albeit even more crisp of course. And I will not pretend to know if Simon has gone fully digital this time around, I wouldn't know. He has always been using best of both worlds (digital/analog) from his Kurzweil synthesizer back in the day, and plugins and probably used some Virtual Analog synths as well. So why would his modus have changed drastically today? Wouldn't surprise me at all if there is a Korg MS-20 or ARP-2600 in there, but then again I personally wouldn't be able to distinguish between the plugin emulations of said instruments and the real deal in a mix. Enjoy the music! Not every day we get a new Hallucinogen track. Who cares what it was made with, it's just a process/tools to get an idea into reality from the imaginary realm/dream world/spirit world or whatever you wanna call it. It's like complaining about what pencil an artist uses, or if a poem is better if it's on a parchment scroll or in a PDF. The message is the same whatever the medium. Thanks Simon! More tracks/albums asap! *It would have been interesting to hear Simon try some darker stuff in this new style as well, like his track Spawn on this EP: https://www.discogs.com/release/197193-Beast-Spawn-Trouble-EP

Very pretty, love the transluscent effect!

Not sure how accurate all the predictions/observations are in this article. It touches upon some things I feel are relevant with regards to some recent developments/changes in social spaces online, forums/facebook/reddit etc: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/3/23782607/social-web-public-apps-end-reddit-twitter-mastodon I personally think a big issue with facebook is what an un-moderated mess it is. I mean it's not the most inspiring environment to have discussions in. There are some OK groups of course with decent moderation. But as a whole it's a bit messy. So what effect do you people think AI will have on overall participation online? Since a big part of participation is to ask questions/learn things. Which AI obviously excells at, maybe the human touch/humour will still be more enticing overall than the robotic AI? Would be fun as an experiment to have a couple of undercover AI bots as users on the forum and see if anyone noticed.

Sweet! (in the literal sense(incense) of the word. Gonna check it out I love incense. Peaace

Nice artwork. 👍🏼 Reminds me some of The Witcher 3 (which I'm currently playing.)

Cool, is there a revival of the hardtrance style in the 90s style, or are these old school releases? Neorave I've never heard of, makes me think of Ravemeister for some reason. I guess Neogoa wasn't enough!

Yeah still here, for me I don't feel like the facebook algos help in getting a good overview of the current flow of releases. So this is the only place for me to get a broader view of what people are listening to these days. And to see what new releases are in the making. Facebook really only gives me a limited peek into a few select labels I follow. It's better than nothing for sure. Here I think the views and impressions are a bit more varied overall, since obviously if you're following a label on facebook you're probably a die-hard fan. I've always appreciated the people here who are finely attuned into all things Psytrance. Who knows and obsess over all the details, so observing here has lead to many discoveries! I really think I miss out on a lot of the stuff on Soundcloud and Bandcamp. I don't browse/use those sites much, more than when there is a link from this site. Perhaps I should get more invested in those? The soundcloud interface/app is more appealing to me atleast than Bandcamp from a mere visual/interaction GUI perspective. It's kinda snazzy actually yeah.. (clicking around in the app).

Love this album, looking forwards to hear the new mastering, and also curious as to the other albums and hopefully compilations in the 25th-anniversary series. I miss this euphoric clubby take on Psytrance. Waves of Sound, For The People and Sun Scream are some stellar classics for me. ☀️ 😎

Some Spooky Boohgie Psy with key changes/chords, inspired by the video-game Cuphead and some old school Infected and Talpa.

Yeah there is a lot of interesting feelings and how we perceive music/sounds, and yeah lot's of funny lingo for sure within the production environment. One could perhaps think of the sound of Psy steering further and further into the uncanny valley. With ever more slick sounding perfection-striving formulas. It's a highly synthetic approach for sure, adding to its futuristic cyberpunk feel. For good or worse. At the same time there will always be a looking back into the past and a re-examination of the styles of yesteryear. One thing is certain, there will be many stylistic changes in the future. In tandem with the technological progress, I wonder what the surging AI revolution will add to the psy sub-genres/formulas. The ability to just write a little prompt with desired style outputs. Will probably lead to an accelerated evolution in terms of achieving ever more unnatural synthetic soundscapes. ^^ Enabling people to combine unexpected styles, and really learning what makes some artists styles unique. In the same way that "by Artgerm" or "Trending on Artstation" has become a meme/staple in visual AI-arts. I can totally see the same beeing applied to some classical/popular Psy artist styles. And I also believe that AI will make music production more accessible. In ways that will make the effects the cracked FL-studio phenomena had on electronic music production accessibility, pale in comparison.

MFG, What's not to love? Aye. 💫 The best!

In a Trance mood. ^^

@Prana4ever Try this potato cam recording. Euphoric Nitzho-Trance(In progress)

Yeah the recent re-surge in Vinyl popularity has really been quite amazing/surprising. If this trajectory continues, the next Playstation will probably have a built in vinyl player. BTW Is it just me who misses the mini-disc era? Someone should start a Goa label called Mini-Disc Records. (Just kidding, kinda..)

Oops, I will update soon. Became a whole track. Kinda Mindspherish/swirling.

Due to this thread I decided to play around a bit in logic this morning with a Nitzho-Goa track sketch with key changes, Spire arps and choir and synth chord pads. *edit* Gonna work it some more.

Let them in I say. If our beloved aspiring new members know the secret Pleiadian keys, then they most surely be worthy members our radiant Goa family! 😎✨

Really nice format, reminds me of somekind of epic new age or scifi books.

Would be really interesting to hear a sample to get a feel for how this dissonance sounds. And yes I agree it's very difficult to get it to work, at the same time a lot of the Psytrance I like has key changes. It's difficult because of not only the loss of energy in the bassline at certain keys, but also obviously because of the tonal elements of the kick drum. The best advice I found when researching this I think is what Erez Eisen wrote or said in an interview. To put the kick drum tuned to the minor third of the main chord the track would go in. There is a lot of transposing the track and changing the bassnotes, BPM and chord sequence, until somekind of balance is found. A good starting point is to analyze the BPM and keys of tracks on albums which successfully overcame this obstacle. Such as the Infected Mushroom Classical Mushroom album for example. As for the melodies/harmony, my impression is that it is common to either put each melody in its own octave, or if they play counterpoint, to make them play harmoniously first all together in one synth layer within the same octave, (or over several octaves depending on the arpeggiated/melodic style), then split them up into separate layers. This is not the entire solution to complex harmonic compositions, and related issues pertaining to phase, however it's a starting point. If you chose to go the modern Psytrance route, I.E to phase align the kick and bass and working with samples of the bass notes, then I think the whole process will so cumbersome when dealing with key changes. So that I would probably stick to a more monotone non-changing bass key structure. IMO, but that's just me. But yeah all depends on your experience level/listening options/room accoustics and what not.(how the star constellations are aligned, your aura, chakra tuning etc.) Maybe the right type of incense is the most crucial detail? Just kidding. However that should never deter anyone from experimenting I think! Or else no one would ever advance.

Could it perhaps be Greek Nitzho? Either way it goes to show how influential certain artists styles were, when everyone hears a bit of everything. Obviously colored by ones own listening preferences as well. 😎 I think it's really fun with these guessing games, the imagination takes over.