RTP

damn right you are! much prog has gone house style ... money, carnal pleasure and models on cocaine...

I always argument: when I buy a used CD, then another buyer who's seeking for this release won't be able to buy it used and therefore will go and buy it new I know it mostly doesn't work like that though...

psydb statistics are quite interesting when it comes to that and not even they have every release. Psydb lists 5826 releases on CD. There's only the question: how much of it is goa trance?

yep, Noma, S-Range and 12 Moons was precisely what I thought of aswell ... try the single tracks of 12 Moons though, the album won't be anything, it's too lovely for your needs also Prex and the older tracks of Matenda (specifically the 12" and compilation tracks of him ... Saikosounds page: http://www.saikosounds.com/english/show_artist.asp?artist_id=640 ) ... check it out! and Anakoluth's stuff you might like, get it free @ Ektoplazm there was a thread about this here aswell I remember, "dark progressive" or so it was called ... but I won't dig now.

S-Range has got some good ones ... mostly they are either pulled from old Neil Armstrong space flight recordings (but they fit perfectly to the theme of that spacey music) or from films, but they mostly fit right in place... I also like the samples of Silicon Sound a big lot ... they're taken from various computer games (System Shock 2, Unreal 2, Doom 3) and from films such as Final Fantasy (the first one)... I really like when samples are recordings from films, computer games or other real events. This sort of triggers a thought flash like "hey, I know this, this is from (blahblah)" ... either first-hand (when hearing the song) or second-hand (when coming into contact with the original source of the sample when you haven't known it before). And I admit that I love the second-hand samples much more, because then it's like some flash of enlightenment and a grin in my face when I realize that this is actually the sample from this or that song ... and usually this happens at a totally different place in time, which is cool... Custom made samples or samples from sample CDs or anything don't have this effect on me ... I can't re-experience the recording in any way at some other point of time and thus I don't like it that much. Kudos to an artist that does his/her own samples for originality, but I like the other way ... at least when it doesn't get too cheesy ... like the blade Runner samples of old, everybody used them, which was just a pain in the ass. For me a sample should be taken from somewhere, but still maintain its originality! And this is actually difficult to achieve...

Even though the links are broken, the news made me smile. Slinky has hit the bullseye with this one... oh and we won't get rid of the hippie image, never...

yeah, same here but since then there was nothing from him ... hope he didn't do anything stupid, the situation he seemed to be in wasn't a good one. a pity, I kinda liked the guy...

dark? not scary? try Ulf Söderberg aka Sephiroth (he's using both names) ... he's doing pretty good dark ambient ... dark, tribal and mystical... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s75AUsadLLI

Shiva Chandra was the most remarkable of those cases for me... I never understood what to find in this monotonous, melody-lacking sound of his (apart from his first album they're all in this style). Never knew what to make of it, filed it under "utter crap". Until I was running to it one day ... half-heartedly I had recorded one of his tunes on MD (Schaukelstuhl) and, well, once I played it. Boy, I was awestruck! The pace was precisely suitable for my speed ... and suddenly it all made sense. This sound had no meaning, no hidden message, no emotion, no tangible expression, it just was rhythm and strange sounds ... and awesomeness! I can't describe how I mentally got it, but since that experience it's like somebody flipped a switch and I'm a total sucker for this stuff

you know, actually I'm happy to have discovered this music only in 2002 and not earlier ... otherwise I'd probably ramble on about the oldschool times on and on ever and ever again and join many of the others being an "old fart", as abasio put it ... I'm kinda used to the fact that there's a ton of crap released that I don't care about ... it always was like this for me in this scene and it'll never change. I'm picking my gems out of the sand practically since the beginning... As for the reasons why the quality was better in the earlier times, I second the reasons Trolsk stated. Nowadays just about everybody can become a producer ... and while this is actually a cool thing, it's also part of the problem. The market is flooded with thousands of average tracks. And it has become easier to release the stuff aswell.

That's Feathers style indeed. He has way too much time on his hands...

I have very sensitive ears (seriously sensitive ... I believe I can even hear bats (I actually do not hear them, but I do percieve the ultrasonic vibrations with the ears in some way, because always when I feel this special vibration stuff and look close around I can see bats flying around ... we've got some on the canals near my house)) and things easily get too loud for me. For example I don't even wanna walk by jackhammers on a construction site... On parties and also open air concerts I practically always have something in the ears. Not real earplugs (they dampen too much), but rather just handkerchieves ... the cheap version for volume-adjustable earplugs (just stuff in more if it's still too loud and stuff in less if the volume's lower ) ... I wonder how people can take the volume with their bare ears; in the past, years ago, I used to have a kind of dull hearing each time after a party because it was too loud for my ears ... and since I began stuffing the ears, I practically never had problems again... At home on the headphones I put up the volume until it suits me, which is mostly actually quite moderate; every time I lent my headphones to people when I let them listen to tunes they used to turn up the volume because it's too low for them ... and every time they lend me theirs I have to beg them to turn the volume down. Even though it happens that I turn it up some levels when I get carried away by the music, I'm still convinced the levels are not too high. It's a different thing when I'm outdoors. Not while running, it's rather calm in the park and I have recorded my minidiscs only in a moderate volume so that I can't even crank it up. But it's something different when I go out with my mp3 player. Near busy streets, railways and other noisy places I turn it up beyond levels I normally listen in, frankly because otherwise the sound gets overpowered by outside noise. But then I say to myself: that outside noise was never too loud for me so the volume level on the headphones can't be so bad for my hearing either... Visines methods are quite good. It's a great method to let the ears get used to a lower volume level first and then even minor increases will make it sound definitively louder.

You dug up some old memories there I remember that site ... and I loved one of the pieces there, but it kinda never got released! And some years ago I was thinking of it again, but the site was all gone ... would be interesting to know what happened to the tunes...

Yep, I agree with that. Although there's some good oldschool out there, I actually much prefer living in the now than living in the past...

Tatsu is back? Hi yes, heard of this one... but it's no substitute for an album ... I miss his old style good fullon with occasional samples from computer games and films at least it shows that the guy's still alive in the scene

I remember I checked that one out and found the music quite dull, nothing outstanding at all. Sort of makes me dislike the cover aswell

so it's September 2009 now? is that definite?

Abasio, try Chilling Matenda ... Mediteran is a very summerish album ... but also his first one, Chilling Matenda. Check 'em

for the german version it was even May 2005... but still, nothing after that. dead?

Matenda - No Return They passed it ... the point of no return. daa-daa-daa...

I say no. Gandalf would be what I call New Age. And apart from this argument the whole thread here is pointless. Some people say Ishq is great, some say it's crap ... nobody shows any signs of wanting to understand the other side or anything. You can as well stop the subject, everything else would be wasted energy. I like Ishq btw ... or what I heard of it. I prefer to discuss what's New Age.

Mittelstandskinder Ohne Strom

Klangstrahler Projekt ... I rather precieved them as hippie style psy music (not "bad" hippie style though), not really dark at all ... but still good, only in a different way... If you like Klangstrahler Projekt, then check out old Feuerhake ... it's very much in that style... Totally different league to Prex though ... I actually recommended Prex because Noma was one of the two members The other member was S-Range ... and his old stuff (pre-2001-album) was pretty dark progressive too ... Serial Overtypes for example... Old Matenda (mostly pre-"Tunnel Vision" stuff ... although the track Pusher on this one is awesomeness!) ... Bonaca/Mission Impossible, Moment/Sophisticated Mind ... definitely awesome. Also check out compilation tracks. Old 12 Moons stuff is dark prog aswell ... track Elak Jävel for example and many more ... and furthermore it's free because 12 Moons decided to put all his own releases online ( http://www.12moons.se/ ... look there!). Also check old Magnetrixx! Tritschall and Phase Shift albums were great ... Tohuwabohu FTW! Mittelstandskinder Ohne Strom were awesome too! And Zerotonine! And Spirallianz! You should check the stuff of the Vibration compilation series from Com.Pact/Medium/Midijum (that series went through three labels!) ... they've got a pretty good style aswell! And actually, Shiva Chandra stuff is pretty much in that vein aswell ... stuff from Auricular album in particular. Also check out the group Auricular. And Prime Time Plastix. Many similarities in the sound ... which is obvious, because Daniel Vernunft is a member of all three... (wow, I never realized I'm such a sucker for dark prog ... but I am ) edit: also check Anakoluth-Dwelling In The Void EP ... available for free from Ektoplazm: http://www.ektoplazm.com/free-music/anakol...in-the-void-ep/ also Etnoscope ... all EPs before their first (and one and only) album ... with tribal elements ... excellent!

Anthony Rother is a genius... Father, Hacker, Nacht der Götter, Little Computer People, Don't Worry, My Name Is Telekraft ... just to name a few songs... Anthony Rother has an air of technology-critisism in his music that I really have begun to like with a passion. And if it's not technology-critical then it's some stuff that makes you think. Or it's just plain good. And it's double good if you understand german. BTW, check out his remix of Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express!

yeah, RIP he made good music... but the news about him in the last years were