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Walkabout

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Everything posted by Walkabout

  1. Basically darkpsy in movie form. I have a love-hate relationship with Enter The Void... visually, it was amazing, but I found the story dull and overly dark/gritty. I wanted it to be a little more nuanced in its depiction of underground/drug culture, exploring some of the deeper aspects of the scene rather than trying to shock the audience with copious amounts of sex, violence and swearing (which got boring towards the end, especially the sex). But Gaspar Noe is a visceral director, not a cerebral one and he made his kind of movie in the end. I was also bothered by the homophobic depiction of one character. Still, I give Noe credit: it's very, very trippy looking and sounding. You could probably get many samples out of it if you're so inclined.
  2. Speaking for myself as a dancer, I don't find repetitive rhythms alone to be all that trance inducing. What brings a trance state are those rhythms along with complexity; many shifting layers of sound that evolve through filtering/modulation over time. Music that's just hypnotic, the way that some progressive is, is great to think to but not something I can lose myself to at a party. Maybe I just have an overactive mind and need a certain amount of overload. IDK. I wish DJs would play a wider mix of tempos and styles more often. DJing shouldn't just be about bashing people with one beat. It should be spinning tracks so groovy that you can't resist dancing, about surprising the audience (in a good way) and leading them somewhere they didn't expect, while keeping a logical flow to the music. I started going to parties in 98/99, and I found the music surprisingly monotonous even then. I eventually found the weird, unpredictable vibe that I loved in the music I listened to at home on the dance floor, but it took me a while. And I found it more often in good friends and small names who were willing to have fun and experiment, rather than the big artists who were contractually obligated to deliver a pre-packaged 'psychedelic' experience. I remember talking to IM when I was new to this scene, and their saying to me that you could tell a psychedelic track from the kick drum and bassline. How is that different from disco? I'm sure a hard kick and a bassline alone sound great when you're on the right drugs, but I didn't take any drugs for years and when I did it wasn't for the purpose of making music sound better. One of my favorite mixes is Ray Castle's tribute to 1989: http://soundcloud.com/genkigroove/goa-vibe-89 As far as I can tell the mixing consists solely of well timed drops, but it's psychedelic, it creates a mood, and IMHO it's far more hypnotizing than a constant 140. There is more than one way to DJ. Larry Levan, who used every method of mixing under the sun, used to overlay percussion tracks, mix different lyrics for a call-and-response, and sometimes, yes, play two records of different tempos to create conflict, tension and resolution on the dance floor. At the peak hours of the night, what I want is to have that feeling of 'holy shit, I don't know what this is but it's awesome'. Going back to the original topic: I think the modern style of production, with lots of compression and massive amounts of bass put on the kick drum, crowds the music and prevents it from breathing. A lot of post-1998, new school goa doesn't have the same charm to me because the production is just too hard. Also, most of the appeal of goa specifically (as opposed to regular trance or techno) was in the various 'colors' created by the synths, and with the standardization of studio equipment and production methods a lot of that color was lost. Everyone started using the same synths (and same synth sounds) for their music, and for the most part those sounds were thinner and brighter than the old analog and wavetable synths. There was also a more precise separation of the low and high frequencies in the mix, and a general neglecting of the mid-range tones that gave the music a lot of its depth. At least that's what I was hearing. All this came together on the floor and it hurt the music. It was in 2003 at a Space Tribe party where I first began to notice that I could predict everything that was going to happen in a track. I hadn't heard any of the music before, I just *knew* that there would be a drop here, a build there and so on, all night long and it felt like puppetry rather than an artist making magic on the dance floor. This isn't just a psy/goa problem, techno has lost a lot too. In the last fifteen years it's gone from the R&S/Warp sound to unmelodious thunka-thunk music, with great production but little else. I enjoy banging minimal once in a while, but few people seem to remember that there was such a thing as techno with melodies. That's my issue with tech-trance/psytechno; I love psy and I love techno, but psytechno isn't the kind of techno I grew up with. When was the last time a psytechno record took the 'techno' part of its inspiration from a Ken Ishii, a Dave Angel, a Kenny Larkin or a Model 500? And I dislike darkpsy for constantly using a monotonous bassline. Not everyone is going to be on enough drugs to appreciate eight hours of the same groove and the same one or two bass notes. But I LOVED Nabi's "Run Motherfucker Run", "Psychiatric Hospital Ahead" and "Deep Mental Trauma" compilations, and I thought the Noise Gust and Derango albums kicked ass. Forest/scando music occasionally really shocks me, too. I would put Tamlin's "Spectrogram" up there with the classics of 1994-98 as far as wicked, complex, innovative and emotionally moving psychedelic trance. Also, I've started to get into the kind of proto-trance synth music that was being spun in Goa in the eighties, so there's plenty of 'Goa Trance' left to dig through. tl;dr: what I hear in old records is an innocence. Artists weren't concerned with fitting into a given style or satisfying a very narrow set of expectations, they were doing what they felt like, and that translated to a vibrant scene. The two cents of a Goa dork. ^^
  3. OK, I really like this album by a French-Canadian EBM act called Headscan. It's pretty obviously goa-influenced, yet it keeps an industrial feeling... it's not club trance or futurepop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um-91wNfAcs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQCWxQAcogc Any more recommendations like this? I'd like to try mixing some of this in with some Kris Kylven, Syb Unity Nettwerk/Element Over Nature style industrial goa.
  4. I have some unpopular opinions. Biftek. Not strictly a goa/psy act, I know, but Sub-Vocal Theme Park was a classic in that small niche of semi-chill, downtempo-midtempo, second room of the party, trippy goa. Brainman. He was like a poor man's Infinity Project, with a very organic, warm and uniquely 'alien' sound. And the way that he arranged his tracks, in that ultra-repetitive style with tons of bizarre samples dropped in, screams Suomi to me. Ahead of his time IMO. Cwithe. Funky and fun. To me "Illegal" is nearly the perfect goa/psy album: futuristic, liquid and science-fictional soundscapes all the way through with irresistible rhythms. I've yet to meet anyone else who appreciates the Amsterdam weirdos, though. Acid Rockers. Pretty much what I said for Cwithe goes for their album; they may have gone a little too far into techstep but the sounds, pads, melodies, production, really everything about Matt Buggins' music was exquisitely crafted and felt like a sound beamed from the very far future. Black Sun. There's not a lot of love out there for Youth's early solo goa productions, but he made some tunes I can't get out of my head (Ligea, Cosmic Courier, The Machine). I even like the industrial guitars. Ree K. Masa's better half who made some blinding goa back in the day. Squaremeat. Their first two albums are just packed with clever musical ideas, innovative in the way that psytrance should be but so seldom is. Nervasystem and Aether. I'm kicking myself for not buying their album when I had the chance. Tamlin. Probably the most psychedelic psychedelic trance artist of the last several years. I really hope he keeps at it (hint hint)!
  5. I like her 95-00 material. It's not the deepest music in the world to be sure, but the melodies and samples always make me smile. REE K, on the other hand. :wub:
  6. Seconding Great Leap Forward. A little more popular, but if you don't already have it: Fifth Flight: Maelstrom has some phenomenal tracks.
  7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtE1HnIU6q8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmNApZRy3wk I miss this show.
  8. Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 < Are You Shpongled < Amber < Lifeforms < Signify < Mystical Experiences < Pungent Effulgent If we're going to have a grudge match might as well go all the way.
  9. *smacks self* I actually have a track by Orbit Constructions (on the Not My Cup Of Tea comp), but they completely slipped my mind. ...That's quite an evil sounding album, actually. Not at all what I would expect from the cover art.
  10. Lull (Mick Harris' dark project) makes some very very eerie music. So does Rapoon. I'm surprised that more psy producers don't try their hand at dark ambient (Juno's 'Luciana' being the only one that comes to mind). It seems like a natural fit with all those alien/insect/space sounds and motifs, especially in the dark psy scene.
  11. It's a wonderful find. Dimension 5's B-sides and rareties are so good, better than most of what made it on to their albums IMHO.
  12. An old school acid/psy/goa mix (with emphasis on the acid) that I threw together last night. The goal was to release some stress by playing headbanging tunes, one after another, with little care for logic or good taste. Is it any good? You be the judge. Tracklist: Pink Floyd - Welcome To The Machine Oforia - Maximizer Total Eclipse - Le Lotus Bleu Koxbox - Stay Psychedelic Punk Floyd - Analogue Fest Alienated - Injection (2001 edit) Chakra and Nada - Intensive Psychedelic Care Omputer - Space Midi Audio Pancake - Fuck Goa Weirdo Beardo - Vs. Skippy Menis - The Drugs Do Work (live mix) Hiscore - True Freedom Find it here: http://soundcloud.com/earwall There's also another mix I did for a party last year, which is more sparkly melodic goa... Ra, Miranda, Har-El, and the like... with some psy thrown in. Mixing is... mixed, but I can recommend it to melodic lovers. Criticism is welcome on each, naturally!
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