Jump to content

travbrad1001

Members
  • Posts

    397
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by travbrad1001

  1. I agree with the others. I can barely hear the lead or bassline at all. I recommend istening to your track on at least a couple different sets of speakers/headphones. On one set of speakers the kick/bass/lead may sound perfect, but on another it may be way too loud/quiet, which may be part of the problem. I would also really suggest learning some music theory. A lot of people focus heavily on the technical side and forget the basics of music. Goa has a lot of melodies/harmonies so it's very important to at least understand some basic music theory. You don't always have to follow that theory of course (following scales/modes/etc 100% can be pretty boring), but it's at least a good starting point.
  2. I don't know what counts as "future jazz" but Jaga Jazzist may be what you're looking for: http://www.amazon.com/Stix-Jaga-Jazzist/dp/B00009L542/ref=ntt_mus_dp_dpt_5
  3. I have to say it was very difficult picking these, let alone putting them in the "right" order. If I had to do it tomorrow I'd probably end up with a different order. Also, I only started listening to psy in 2003 (and only the big names then like IM, AP, Hallucinogen), so I probably missed a ton of good stuff from 2000-2004. I've actually heard more pre-2000 stuff than 2000-2004. Anyway here goes: UPTEMPO---- ----------- 1.Texas Faggott - Petoman's Peflett 2.Tamlin - Spectrogram 3.Igor Swamp - Metsä Vastaa, Kuuleeko Suomi 4.EvsY - Virtuosi Di Quosi 5.Kino Oko - Alphabetically Divided Highway 6.Troll Scientists - Sir Eel 7.Texas Faggott - Pilluminati Cunt Roll 8.Talpa - When the Somberness Becomes a Game 9.Fragletrollet - Playground of Spirit 10.Artifakt - Artifakts 2 Hmm...I guess I like suomi a bit? DOWNTEMPO-- ----------- 1.Shpongle - Tales of the Inexpressible 2.Argaman - My Little Forest 3.Satumnaisuus - Kaleidoskopedelia 4.Bluetech - Elementary Particles 5.Easily Embarrassed - Planet Discovery 6.Easily Embarrassed - Idyllic Life 7.Shpongle - Ineffable Mysteries from Shpongleland 8.Kaya Project - And So It Goes 9.Unstable Elements - Technical Illusion 10.Kuba - Bringing It All Back Home I plan to check out a lot of these albums you all have mentioned though. I haven't even heard of some of these artists.
  4. It's always very difficult to get good sound out of tightly packed circuitry. Even on full-sized desktop computers, the onboard sound isn't as good as a dedicated sound card. It's just very hard to get great sound when there is so much other circuitry around it to interfere. ASUS has started making a USB version of the sound card I have (Xonar DG), that you can use in a laptop. It's about $40 which is well worth the price if you like good quality sound, provided you have an open USB slot. It still probably won't sound as good as a desktop sound card or DAC, but it's a lot cheaper than a DAC: http://www.asus.com/Multimedia/Audio_Cards/Xonar_U3/
  5. It's not specific to psytrance, but I remember The Beatles said they tried writing music on LSD/drugs but it just turned out horrible (even if they thought it was great at the time). It clearly did influence their songwriting/production when sober though, as that's when they started doing more experimenting in the studio instead of just basically playing as a live band and recording it. I imagine it's probably similar for trance artists who have used psychedelic drugs. I know some tracks take weeks to complete, so I seriously doubt they are tripping the whole time. "Psychedelic" doesn't have to mean drugs either, even though that's what it is commonly associated with. Psychedelic just means mind manifesting/expanding (weird unique ideas that challenge you)
  6. Thanks for the lists, I hadn't heard some of these, but I too love suomi.
  7. Exactly. If we are going to call stuff "neo" or "new" what is the exact cutoff date? Music is always evolving, and like biological evolution it's a slow and gradual process.
  8. Well I like melodies (which most people would probably call "light"), but I prefer the melodies/harmony to be on the "dark" side of things. Even with classical music there are a lot more compositions I enjoy in the minor scales than the major scales. It's really a matter of perspective though. Depending on my mood/situation/amount of inebriation I may consider the same album to be dark/gloomy or light/fun.
  9. I guess technically goa would be a subgenre of psytrance, along with full-on, darkpsy, suomi, forest etc. I still associate "psytrance" with more full-on type music though. I don't get too hung up on genre names though. If I enjoy the music I'll like it whether you call it Goa, Psy, or BananaHippyDance. For what it's worth, my iPod only has "Trance" which includes anything from Pleiadians to Ocelot to Hallucinogen to Kino Oko to Jaia to Texas Faggot, etc
  10. On the flip side there are a lot of great artists than can now have a voice where perhaps they wouldn't have before. You have to take the bad with the good.
  11. Yeah I really couldn't get into the singing on this. I have nothing against adding vocals, but this singing just sounds too much like pop music you'd hear on the radio (the singing itself, not the lyrics) for my tastes. It just doesn't fit the music in my opinion. It's still better than Infected Mushroom I guess, where they seem to be tone deaf or something
  12. I would also recommend listening to it as an album. It's quite a journey that way. The tracks are very good individually, but the album as a whole is a masterpiece IMO.
  13. I somehow doubt Twisted is making massive profits. Yes they are "big" for a psytrance label, but that's not really saying much is it? That being said, is does seem very steep, when I've seen very realistic halloween/etc masks for 1/5th the cost.
  14. I agree people's perception of "production" gets mixed up with their music tastes. No amount of "production" is going to make someone like a track/song that doesn't suit their tastes. A lot of those early goa recordings don't have great production values, but they are still considered incredible classic tracks, because the music itself is so good. It's a very subjective thing too, much like the music. What some people consider imperfections, others consider great qualities. This is especially the case with electronic music, where the production and music are so inter-connected. On a broader scale, if you turn on the radio and listen to pop music you will hear rather poor mastering with ridiculous amounts of compression, but apparently a lot of people enjoy that. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
  15. Pedra Branca is some more great music. They use a lot of real instruments sort of similar to Adham Shaikh. They also add some didgeridoo to the eastern flavor, which fits surprisingly well. http://www.saikosounds.com/english/display_release.asp?id=4653 http://www.saikosounds.com/english/display_release.asp?id=5975
  16. You say that like it's a bad thing. As much as I love psy/goa, listening to it non-stop would get old (just as listening to any other genre exclusively would). Variety is the spice of life, as they say. Part of what makes this scene great is that people are usually pretty open to different ideas/music/art/etc Now to actually stay on topic, I think Puoskari is amazing stuff, although I guess no suomi is really that popular. Someone mentioned Xamanist, which I also agree with. Maybe he's not so underrated after all. In a sense, I would also say Sky Technology is underrated, because I think it's possibly the best GOA ever made, which I doubt most people agree with (even if they do enjoy it).
  17. This is an incredible album. I don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it. It has ambient touches, but at the same time is very emotional. The overall mood is sort of melancholy (I guess the right person reviewed it ) but at the same time also hopeful. It really seems timeless too. It could be from the past or the future and neither would surprise me (although the invention of time travel would ). It's now available for digital purchase by the way, and there are also full-length samples. http://facture.bandcamp.com/album/acoustic-tales It's even available in FLAC, under the "audiophiles and nerds" option
  18. I didn't think of it as "over the top" but I did call it "oh tee tee" for the longest time, so you aren't alone there.
  19. Why not both? I'm probably going to see Ott in March then Shpongle in May. Seems like a win-win situation to me.
  20. I'm going to go to either the Madison or Chicago show hopefully. Anything else is way too far away (Chicago is a 8-9 hour drive already)
  21. I'm really digging this album actually. It's sort of like a mix between Enichkin and Fragletrollet. It has the 'atmosphere' of Fragletrollet, with the rapid fire 'speed' (not bpm) of Enichkin if that makes sense. I don't think it's quite as good as "Playground of Spirit" (by Fragletrollet), but still a great and unique album. This is definitely a a very strange take on psy/forest/whateverthehellitis. One moment it sounds like a relatively straight forward track, then 10 seconds later it's something completely different. Lots of breaks that form in to new ideas and atmospheres. As for the melodies, I think they are great. Somewhat subtle and layered, rather than emphasizing one particular melody. There's no obvious "lead" melody most of the time. I agree the tracks with Alienapia are probably the best, but the other tracks are still very good, and extremely psychedelic. It's hard to find psytrance that is actually psychedelic nowadays, but this delivers big time. Nice review by the way. You are on a roll lately and I'm loving the comedy in the reviews.
  22. Good news, hopefully we get a teaser track before it comes out I'm more excited by seeing he is going to be touring just a 5hr drive from me though That's about as close as "psy" ever gets to me (Minneapolis)
  23. I just got an ASUS Xonar DG sound card for about $30, and it made quite a nice difference in the quality. I think I should have gotten it sooner now that I've heard the difference. It's way easier to hear each distinct instrument/track. It's a budget sound card, so it can't amplify really high impedance headphones, but it can do 150, and mine are only 64ohms. It also "only" does 96khz(24bit) too, but that's like 3-4x better than CD quality, so I can't see it being a problem. I do use analog-out though, and I doubt it would make any difference (compared to onboard sound) if you use the digital output. Digital signals should be identical no matter the source.
  24. We don't NEED phones or music at all, but that doesn't mean it's not nice to have. I don't always know what I'm going to be in the mood for, plus it's a hassle (and wastes a lot of time) changing which music you have on your phone all the time. You could just use a large mp3 player (like ipod classic) I guess, but then what was the point of getting a fancy phone? It would be nice if they made a phone with a normal (nonflash) hard drive but I haven't seen anything like that.
  25. I had a job a few years ago where they actually gave us PAGERS. I didn't even know those things still existed...
×
×
  • Create New...