HolyLight

Cool, did they do live shows like this with the Younger Brother project as well? I’ve never seen Shpongle live. Only Hallucinogen.

Interesting style, very nice colors. Gives me a bit of a retrofuturistic vibe. Quite dreamy/abstract.

Understandable with the Miranda compilation tracks. Too bad with the Ominus tracks, they would’ve been very cool remastered. I wonder how to they worked on their tracks back then, with the distance to Sweden. If they traveled to UK or Sweden and worked together in the studio, or if it was common to send track stems/project files on dat/discs/floppys via postal services? Since this was prior to our fast internet and cloud stuff.

That sounds intriguing to me. What I would love, would be a compilation for the spring/summer vibes in the style of Sundrops and Opus Iridium. Euphoric solar powered goa trance Those to me in hindsight has stood the test of time very well. Perhaps amplified by memories, because they make me remember another era/time in life. I associate those compilations and also the Khetzal-Corolle, Ra-9th albums with paradisiacal summer walks.

Interesting examples. My impression is that a defining trait for a lot of the old school tracks that were considered the best at the time. Had a very full mix, but not in the sense that the mix was overloaded with sounds. They did the best of what gear they had, and really used the mixing desk as an instrument. Gnocchi is a good example, because the kick is layered. And very full, it’s a so called ”spectrum killer”. And the mix sounds full and rich, because each sound has been given lots of labour to sound great. I remember my first time hearing that track at the music store and thinking wow that’s a different sounding kick. The kick itself became like a signature hook of that song. And the 303 line complements it very good. As does the off-beat bassline. It wasn’t until recently that I read on youtube in the comments to said track, where Miranda explained that the kick has a pitched down cowbell layered. Miranda Silvergren quote from youtube: "I was lucky to get this kick as you can hear it.I tryed to re-do it but its impossible without the gear I used to make it back then. How I did the kick: First the bottom, quite deep heavy kick and not so much top or treble. For the metal kling top I took a synt, not sampler. and pitched down a cowbell and just put them together. The baseline I used has a small delay or latency so it appers to sound almost backwards and I think I was qiute early with this dark sound wich nowdays is used in most darkpsy tracks. And I did it all by myself without any help or anything from guys whatever roumors there is about it. And thats the secrets from Gnocchi. " Miranda-Gnocchi The track to me has a lot of characteristic features inherited from the acid/acid trance genre, which was of course instrumental in the beginning as inspiration for the goa trance.

No probs, it’s always open for misinterpretation around here and the internet at large. Anyways this topic is stimulating/interesting. It’s good to take a step back and dissect this genre, to see where it is at the moment and where it might go. And also as we have come to do, look back at where it began. Regarding the issue with how different tracks sound on PA systems, that’s a difficult one indeed. In my experience the sound quality is awful overall but to a varying degree on the outdoors/indoor parties. The sound guys at the parties often seem to brickwall the music at the venue by pushing the volume meters into red leds. So it’s not just at producer level that such things happen, and secondly I think some people who are more used to host goa trance specific parties might have more experience in how to adjust the sound system to play that type of music. If the sound guys are more used to adjust for full-on etc it will show. Overall the volume level at the venues are unpleasantly loud for my taste. Very harmful for the ears!

History certainly seem to repeat itself around here in the pienews universe. Around the time that the albums the OP mentions in his list were released, people here on this very forum presented similar lists. But with the classical albums from the 90’s. And complained about the very same albums you now present in your list. So we can be quite certain about this phenomena beeing repeated in a decade or so. Maybe not on psynews, as I’m not sure that it will be around for another decade, but who knows. The debates will however continue on other platforms. I do believe that there has been a generational shift, and I get the impression that most of the so called goa trance fans of today are veterans. Who we can compare to the older generations who keep listening to rock n roll and other genres they grew up with in the 50’s, 60’s etc. Goa trance (as in the classical style of the 90’s, whose formula has been replicated in the so called Neo Goa style) in this day and age is mostly a very specialized narrow hobby of a few entusiasts/CD/DAT/mp3 and vinyl collectors. Some of whom are also producers. And the term goa trance has become somehat watered out. Much in part because a lot of the big labels who distribute psy/prog/full on/dark psy. Have chosen to call many of their compilations for anything and then insert the phrase goa trance or simply goa on the cover art/compilation name. Just do a search for goa on spotify, and it will be painfully obvious. So for the general listener/party goer, they will have no clue about the stylistic features or differences. They will simply associate goa with whatever is played on outdoors parties with somekind of psychedelic trance music. If people wanna give lectures on what this music should contain according to their own personal preferences. I don’t think that said people will be very successful with their wishful thinking. Certainly not from this very small and abandoned platform. If you wanna make a real change, go produce what you think is the proper goa trance instead. And pray that it might have some impact. Because you will need a lot of prayers indeed. That this genre is even alive today is solely thanks to a dedicated few, who has resurrected the genre and now maintains its life artificially. If these labels quit, this genre will probably become a mere anecdote in time.

Seeing that you’ve released Mirandas Athena tracks, is there any possibility of releasing her Miranda tracks from compilations? For example: Real Rush, Riding Alien, Space Baby, Sparkling State of Mind, Triplexus and Electrobot. Or are they perhaps in the pipeline for her releases at Spiral Trax? The Ominus tracks would obviously be cool as well

Aha cool thanks, didn't know those two tracks were re-released already Gonna check em out. btw the TB-303 action in this track of the Future Memories album is crazy: Mutate And Survive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Zs6Oyn05g&list=PLTaVLGRg9lEVJfrzYEnT0svviV63wFqEE&index=3

Any possibility to have this album by Seb Taylor re-released? https://www.discogs.com/Somaton-Future-Memories/master/87256 And the Shakta tracks on this VA: https://www.discogs.com/Various-Arsim-On-Acid/release/285226

It’s an unrlsd kiler track, only on dat tape baba ganesha. Bom

Enjoy the tracks and trip safely.

Slinky Wizard-People Like Us(Polenski Mix) From: https://www.discogs.com/Various-Pulse-6-The-Next-Generation/release/52060

Slinky Wizard-Shivari Thing From: https://www.discogs.com/Various-Sun-Trip-Goes-Fourth/release/129404

Hallucinogen-LSD (Doof Remix) From: https://www.discogs.com/Various-Sun-Trip-First-Phase/release/165473

The synsun one also really cool, reminds me of the vibe on the legend of the black shawarma cover and people walk funny.

Ozric and Bluetech win. Beautiful artwork! Fantastic imagination from the creators of those.

The shamanisma looks amazing, the dragon tales as well. The letters fits really well with the handdrawn background art. The infected one is sublime, like some kind of resident evil infection with shrooms. Love the muted color scheme. The sandman Witchcraft cover is pure psychedelia. Who made that one? Looks like the quality found on blotter art. The Crossing Mind one looks very artsy and abstract. Kinda neat, I can clearly see that the inspiration must have been Pleiadians-I.F.O. But the Pleiadians one is way cooler, since it has some weird bird-like alien creatures

Love the skizologic cover, never seen it before. Looks almost like it's inspired by maya artwork.

So not to be the total opposite to the other thread, since I think it will be quite limiting to find stuff with great cover art and bad music. Let's focus here on great cover art, irrespective of how the quality of the music is. Although we can of course discuss the music as well. My first example is this one, and depending on who you ask the music might be great or bad or something in-between. https://www.discogs.com/SFX-The-Unreleased-Tracks-89-94/release/68966 I never liked any of the tracks on it, as they did sound dated even when it was released. Perhaps it's interesting to hear how their sound developed since then. The artwork on it is an entirely different thing. It looks amazing even to this day with its handdrawn very psychedelic artwork. Funny thing is I didn't even notice that it has the letters SFX camouflaged into the organic looking mess, until just recently. Which basically makes it organic acid graffiti. A friend of a friend had this one as an original poster framed on the wall. Really nice This one is OK, not mindblowing but also benefitting from the organic handmade quality. Perhaps the slightly anime-influenced style makes it a tad bit on the cheesy side of things. Since I think there has been a lot of anime inspired stuff in full-on etc. So that is definitely overplayed. https://www.discogs.com/Various-Lunar-Civilization/release/83307 This CD though, has a real banger: Wizzy Noise-Shores Of Freedom Epic track still!

Interesting find and reflections. Indeed sometimes I wonder how the process went for some artists, if they were actively searching through movies for a fitting sample, or just watched a movie an though: oh that sounds dope! Sampler on. Since sampling something from scratch yourself, is a more active decision/action than relying on a sample library, which was also extremely popular of course. For example with Infected Mushroom, since they used to work for a very long time on each album, one would assume that every sample was carefully selected to fit the themes. But I’m sure a lot of playful joking around as well sometimes resulted in great results.

Yes indeed, and it really mirrors the widespread interest in science fiction among electronic music/psy trance producers. That was what really got my attention with a lot of goa trance albums in the 90s. The very interesting scifi themes, in the music/samples/style as well as the album cover artwork. Two very good examples for me are Miranda-Northern Lights and Miranda-Asynja. Northerns Lights is more grounded in real science. With the text in the inlay, and with the female voice speaking in the intro track, explaining the aurora borealis phenomena. And Asynjas album inlay with photos from area 51 and some info reflecting samples in the tracks as well. A very cohesive theme.

There would be a lot of nodes connecting to The Matrix movie around 2000 MFG had some really interesting samples. For example the sample in ”Intelligent Machine” that quotes some of Shylock’s dialogue from William Shakespeare’s book The Merchant of Venice. Not sure where they sampled it from. But it really fits the enigmatic mood of the track/album. And perhaps mirror the cultural upbringing/schooling of the artist. Since it’s a jewish character in the book. The samples text for context: 'If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? One would assume they might have read the book, but who knows. It’s stuff like that, which added to the mystery surrounding the goa artists of the 90’s. Often no photos on the albums of the artists, just some names and greetings in the album sleeves. Miranda beeing one of the few I think which put her photo on Northern Lights album. Which I think reflected the ambition of the label and artist, to reach a wider audience. Also evident with the Antiloop remix on the album.

SMS FROM GOD

Rofl