vancbc

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I'm looking forward to checking out all the info everyone has given me.

Hey everyone - I am an old Goa fan and also enjoy New Goa. I lost interest in trance in general for several years, but now am interested in adding to my album collection again. The last purchase I made before I left the psy scene was Suntrip's Opus Iridium. If I did a lot of research I could catch myself up, but can you guys help an old-timer here and give me a quick update on the psy scene and some of the must-have albums (especially Goa) of the past couple of years? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the well-written review. Referencing your descriptive imagery while listening to the Saikosounds samples sold me! I'm very much looking forward to receiving this album.

I understand exactly where you're coming from. HH - Planetary from Tiesto's Magik 2: Story of the Fall album sounds like being high on Ecstasy. Don't ask me to explain because I can't, but from the first time I ever heard this track it simply was like being high on Ecstasy, and it has nothing to do with buildups, breakdowns or any kind of flashback experience such as euphoria. The closest thing I can say is that there is an driving acid line through the track that simply cannot be described any other way than taking E.

That's actually a great way to do it; then you satisfy both people like me who want the stripped down bare bones idea of what the music is about, but you also give in-depth for people who enjoy that style of review. Thanks for writing reviews; I envy all of you who have the talent to do that.

It's my personal opinion that the whole review system kind of got out of hand here with the requirements to produce a lengthy, nearly perfect track by track review. It's not nearly as helpful anymore and sadly enough I don't look at reviews much anymore. That's kind of put a damper on me buying any new psytrance because I'm not really in a psy community, but ah well.......life goes on, eh? :-) It's kind of disappointing because when I was new to psytrance and this site, I discovered all the great old classics actually by the short two and three line reviews. Part of my decision was based on the volume of reviews an album received as well. A large number of comments either usually indicated a really good or a really bad album. What I want to see is something like, "This is some of the most clever neo-Goa produced in 2007! The melodies in tracks 2, 5 and 10 are incredibly twisted and if you like Hallucinogen's Lone Deranger, this one will drive you insane! 9/10 for me! Then maybe this is followed by a short paragraph describing why the person thinks it's one of the best albums of the year.

Psytrance is so a varied genre that you just have to jump in and try lots of different stuff. As with most electronic music, your tastes will mature over time and you will find that some things you didn't like at first become classic while other stuff you liked at first isn't so special anymore. For a quick exercise, I went to my psytrance collection and decided to pretend I had only a minute to grab twenty albums before I was stranded on a deserted island for the rest of my life. Following is what I ended up that covers quite a bit of territory. Maybe it'll give you some ideas. In alphabetical order: 1. AMD - Big Fish 2. Chakra & Edi Mis - The Promised Land 3. Dimension 5 - Transdimensional 4. V/A - Distance to Goa 4 5. Hallucinogen - The Lone Deranger 6. Hallucinogen - Twisted 7. KoxBox - Dragon Tales 8. LSG - rendezvous in outer space 9. Logic Bomb - Sonic Algebra 10. MEEO - Highlight Me Please 11. Nervasystem and Aether - The Mama Matrix Most Mysterious 12. Nuclear Ramjet - Mission to Sedna 13. Pleiadians - Identified Flying Objects 14. Prana - Cyclone 15. OOOD - Free Range 16. V/A - Opus Iridium 17. Sattel Battle - Sounds Cool 18. V/A - Tantrance 6 19. Tandu - Multimoods 20. X-Dream - We Created Our Own Happiness That's not even touching the downtempo side of things.

Pavel and radi - Don't use the term gay as a pejorative. I dont know whether or not you're homophobic, racist or just uneducated, but it's out of line.

Yea, I'd have to agree that the Americans are the odd ones out on this one. Look in any of our official Canadian dictionaries and you'll find spellings like colour, labour, theatre, centre, cheque, harbour, etc. It's actually interesting to note that Canada is somewhere between America and UK English. We follow many UK spelling rules but not with words like tyre and replacing the z with an s in words like realize. To be fair to Americans, I wouldn't class their English as being dumbed down. It's just another officially recognized spelling form that is just as valid and in some cases is more true to the actual pronunciation (don't you just love it when people say pro-noun-ciation) of the word.

You know, sometimes when I read these kinds of things I have to say being gay has its advantages. I've been clubbing for 14 years and I've never seen anything close to a fight or even a scuffle in a gay bar. When it gets crowded in a dance space and you need to move through the crowd, all you have to do it put your hand on someone's shoulder or back and they politely move out of the way most times without even turning to look at you, or if they do it's with a smile. Sure, there's attitude and pretention sometimes, but nothing physical or hardly ever verbal. It's pretty much the same whether it's tame with alcohol being the only poison of choice or if there are other chemicals in the mix. I finally gave up on big name trance DJs and parties here in Vancouver because the atmosphere feels so different in a these types of straight venues. Here in Vancouver Asian gang members stand on the sidelines of the dancefloor with dark sunglasses and arms crossed. Among the guys in general there's a lot of macho posturing with drunk, pushy agressive people and it's like someone else said here you're afraid to accidentally brush up against someone for fear they'll punch you in the face. You can't ever just be free to be yourself on the dancefloor because you have to watch that either you don't accidentally touch someone's girlfriend or any guy. Lucky or unlucky for me, I'm 6'2" and weigh 225 so I don't get picked on that much. That's just when they're drunk and then around 1:30am or so not only does everyone get drunk, they also get high and then personal space goes to zero and the shoving and pushing begins. I've had people put their hand in my my back and shove to move past me. It's simply a fact said without prejudice, but there are also typically groups of Asians who all get high and then shove around the club or dance space in packs. They ignore the queue at the bar or washroom and literally shove right to the front, lean in front of your face and order. God only knows how they're connected; so I'd never be stupid enough to say anything to their face. They also have this tradition that in Vancouver rave circles are knows as "swinging circles of death" where they join hands in a ring of people and then literally thrash around like mad all over the dancefloor. I have no idea of the origin or why the reason for this. The only other types of scenes I've found that are the same as gay clubs is the psytrance scene here in Vancouver. It's small but thriving and on our weekly Friday psytrance night Organix the club is usually packed to the gills with people from all nationalities, walks of life, orientations and ages and it's the same. I've never seen a fight or scuffle.

I have many of the gold-standard classics of the Goa era, and have no issue sharing my music if the albums are out of print and the only way to get a copy is to spend insane amounts of money in bidding wars. I used to be fanatical and won't even admit today to how much I paid for several items in my collection, the most insane being Transwave - Helium. To be honest, I don't even care that much about having to trade or whatever else cuz I sort of keep up and purchase everything that interests me or that I want. Are there any items in particular that you are looking for? I have both IFO and We Created Our Own Happiness. I don't mind sharing; the only thing I don't care to do is share music that is in print and/or available at regular prices.

I was 29 when I started listening to psy - 33 now.

It's all about the music; second hand is all good.

I have them all except for the second Filteria - Heliopolis.

I'm looking forward to Jon Cocco's review. Interstate Highway is probably my favourite album from MWNN. I don't listen to it often, but it's one of those albums that always gives me a pleasant surprise every time I pull it out for some play time.

This one is a winner! When I listen to most albums, they are easy to categorize; not so with this album. I can't quite figure this one out, and that's a good thing. It's obviously being marketed to the psychedelic/Goa crowd; but I'm not even sure for me this album is what I'd call uber-psychedelic; it's just damn great trance! What this album does very wonderfully is re-create in a very modern way what I consider the zenith of the mainstream trance movement around 1996 - 1999 when some of Tiesto's first Majik series and Armin's early Tranceparence albums came out and the trance genre as a whole had a lot of integrity and quality. I do not place this music in the same category, but comparatively it has enduring quality that will make it stand the test of time. What makes this album so stand out for me is that it accomplishes what I hoped for in Pleiadians - 7Sisters but was dismally disppointed - a cohesive blend of full-on and Goa elements that work together instead of being in discord. Most of the so-called melodic full-on albums being marketed disappoint because although they contain elements of both, they do not work in combination and when you listen hear two distinctly separate and discordant elements in the same track. Goasia has blended these elements perfectly. A perfect example is the first track following the intro. I still get shivers when I listen to how the melodic elements work so perfectly with the rolling bass line in a way that I always hoped for but have not heard before. If trance continues to evolve in this direction then I'm in for the long haul! I used to take E, and when listening to this album for the first time I realized that this music is made for that type of head space whether chemically induced or not - that incredible care-free space where it's just you, the music and with joyous abandon you dance the night away lost in your own dream space.

Hey guys - I'm mostly a headphones / home stereo psy listener - both high energy and down tempo. Psy isn't that big here, so I rely on most of my recommendations from browsing here and picking up on what people have to say about albums. This site is great for me because many of the musical tastes here are much in line with my own. That's why I'm asking for some recommendations. I used to go for uber-melodic psy but lately am enjoying exploring more percussive and sonic-landscape type music. For an idea of what I like and have recently purchased and as you can see my tastes are fairly varied. Shulman - Endless Rhythms of the Beatless Heart Xenomorph - Demagoguery of the Obscurants Trold - Time of Illusions Goasia - From Other Spaces V/A - Totemism The only thing I tend to shy away from is really proggy psy; it just doesn't suit me - it's too slow and clunky. I've been thinking about getting Logic Bomb - Sonic Algebra. Any particular albums that are rocking your world right now?

Hey bud - I'm glad you were able to get your hands on this one - it's golden! Funny enough - several years ago I heard about this music genre called psytrance and found this forum and asked what would be a good album. The two recommendations were Dimension 5 - Transdimensional and Pleiadians - IFO. I was able to find IFO at Saikosounds and purchased it. I was heavy into Euro trance at that time and listened to the first minute of Maia before going, "WTF is this shit?!?!" and put it on the shelf where it lay untouched for a couple of years. Later when I came to my senses and began to really understand and appreciate trance for what it really can be and ultimately ended up firmly in the Goa/psytrance arena, I pulled this album out, listened to it in amazement, and nearly bashed my head against the wall for not realizing what had been sitting in a corner of the CD shelf collecting dust for the past several years. To think it almost went into the dust bin.

Every so often I pull out this album and every single time am absolutely blown away by the quality of this Goa trance!!! It has an enduring quality that is making it one of those albums that is becoming one of my all-time favourites of the first Goa wave before the reappearance of Neo Goa. I'm listening to this now at work, and it still has the WOW kick that pulls me into a party headspace and amazement at the emotions and feelings the music invokes. While listening I keep having that 'larger than life' high feeling. If you are a melodic Goa trance enthusiast and don't have a copy of this gem, be sure to keep your eye out for it! It's really worth it!

I would absolutely buy a CD version of a free/independent release I liked. I'm a CD collector and usually don't even bother going to the trouble to download or listen ot the free releases anyway, no matter how much positive hype they get. I'm kind of impatient and just can't be bothered to get the software or fiddle around to get the various download formats to play. Plus, if I like something I like to have the CD case in my collection. It's part of the whole experience to listen to the music while examining the artwork, reading through track listings, etc.

Here's a 33-year old psytrancer sending good vibes your way on your b-day. :-) Gather on a forest dancefloor with other voyagers who have taken a look into the infinite and young or old, it's all the same. It's great to be a part of the psy community.

This is precise, calculated, industrial, highly technical music that reaches into some dark, primal corner of the mind and articulates something I can't put my finger on.

From the West Coast of Canada - Saikosounds wins for me hands down. They have great customer service and I've generally had very fast delivery of music I order. They have a bigger selection, and the four minute music samples are great when I'm shopping. I ordered from Psyshop only one time. Delivery took a very long time, and the CD was defective when it arrived. It wasn't Psyshop's fault, but the customer service was lacking and it became so frustrating to return the CD that I ended up eating the price and ordering a replacement from Saikosounds.

For the past two days I have been listening to this album on headphones and on my home stereo system. This album is really growing on me. The Afgin, Chi-A.D. and Omegahertz tracks work very well on headphones, while Filteria is better suited to a big speaker sound. I enjoy Afgin's interpretation of Goa trance - there's a nice squelchy raw old-skool sound laid over the smoother elements of the tracks - a great blend of both old-skool and nu-skool sounds. He has a great ability to build tracks into layer upon layer of crazy melodies while maintaining great structure and progression. The tracks never get lost in themselves. Chi-A.D.'s tracks demand attention. I listen to a lot of Goa trance as background music, but these two tracks grab my attention. I like the heavier, darker sound intermingled with some moments of melodic Goa bliss. I love layers of melodic craziness, but I have often struggled to establish a groove in the craziness of Filteria's productions. I have a feeling this is because I'm a home listener and these tracks need wide open spaces for dancefloor mayhem. The remix of Operation Pulse on this album is the first time I've listened to a Filteria track and been filled with a sense of wonder at just how hugely insane and wonderful this could be on a dancefloor. This is a nice exploration of Goa trance that would be great for anyone's collection.

Hooooly smokes! This is the one album on my collector list that I had all but given up hope of ever finding or ever having the money to own! This is crazy exciting!!!! Suntrip is blowing my mind. I'm kind of an organizational freak and in my collection I have a special shelf reserved for Suntrip releases.