Spiritual Carnage

Roughly, Goa is primarily based on melodies and synthlines while psytrance is much less melodic and more based on soundeffects (especially percussive) and more complex rhythms. Goa has it's years between 94-98 while psytrance (somewhat invented by X-dream and followed up by Atmos about 98) goes from 98 to now. These are only guidelines

Excactly - with Astral Projection an MWNN before Orion

Who's to decide what's average and what's beyond? Anyway, there's nothing average about the tracks I listed

When I saw Orion back in 1998 the drums were actually played live. Quite impressive

Rolands TB-303 is from early 82

Best: Einstürzende Neubauten (copenhagen 2005) Best Trance: probably Koxbox (roskilde 1997)

Rajas fluteplay is what makes Sphongle more than "just" good imo

Juno 60 is a very good synth and one of the most used in trance. The Jupiter 8 and (some) moog synths are awesome but they're very very expensive.

I've been working on the reply for that long.. haven't slept much

Exactly! It does sound good (just not analog though) but I don't think it's without competition in the price range and I would personally choose another. It just seems ridiciulous to compare it to Moog, virus, nord and so on.

I've been working on choosing out the most esesential goa tracks for about ten years and the list is still not fine tuned. Here it is so far: Koxbox - "Fuel On" Unconscious Collective - "Flourostani Transcendance" Cosmosis - "Doors Of Perception" Abstrakta Araberr - "Sitt I Soffan" Section X - "Galaxian" Technossomy - "V.T.O.L." Shakatura - "All Hallows Morning" Psychaos - "Dense Dawn" Etnica - "Trip Tonite" Sundog - "Touch The Sun" Psychopod - "Psychopod" I Haven't put too much thought into essential whole albums (other than Pleiadians - IFO and the first two from Koxbox) but the following artists have been very essential and influencing, though I can't point out single tracks: Hallucinogen (perhaps "LSD"), Green Nuns Of The Revolution, Astral Projection ("Enlighted Evolution"?) and many more...

I don't hate Ass-trail Projection either. I actually think several of their tracks sound beautiful and with high energy. It's just that they lack depth and become tiresome the more you listen to them. There are many other names whose tracks (that may not sound as catchy in the beginning) become better and better for each listen.

I'm interested in MFG-Prophecy and Trust in trance 2 ..if it's still there

It's sounds far better than the pricetag suggests and the vocoder is superb. It does however come with small keys and less controls (knobs) than you might want, but if you can live with that, it's great.

Frankly I don't know much about it yet but the new Roland SH-201 may seems interesting for you. It's simple, clear and - if it lives up to the SH name - very wellsounding. You should also check out Novation X-station and - if you're on very low budget - a microkorg.

Such crap - I've used the micron a lot among lots of other synths. It's just a cheap digital synth that doesn't even come close in comparision to the ones you mentioned (besides the microkorg). And it is NOT true analog sounds, not even close. But it's okay for some sounds.

I personally don't like the Ion or micron - there are definately better synths in that price range. And btw - it does NOT sound analog (you would know if you had a real analog synth). Like all other digital and not-so-good analog synths it sounds thin in the higher freqs, though it is capable of making good sounds.

never saw that untill now

hmm.. apparently I haven't heard it for years when wrote that.. It has aged well and is better than how i remembered it 6.5/10

I just bought this album used few days ago for about 3 euros!! This is indeed good ol'school goa. Not outstanding but a no-nonsense really good album from the beginning to the end with no disappointments. Best tracks 1, 3, 8 7.5/10

Only released in Finland? I bought it back in 1997 in Denmark, but it sadly got stolen at a party. Anyway a good comp especially the first 6 tracks. 7.5/10

I fully agree; good review

Fuel on is a superb all-time classic that every trance fan should know. Stratosfear: 9/10 Fuel on: 10/10 Stratosfearless: 8/10

The only bad thing about this baby is the ridiculous cover. The music deserves better and if it wasn't because I knew psychopod already when i bought it, I probably wouldn't have payed attention to it in the first place

Fine stuff here. Koyote records and Encens have always been underrated IMO. 8/10