bone577

Good is good. Bad, if hilarious enough is also good. You don't find it incredibly funny? It has everything! For what it's worth the Psychedelic Chronicles one is just plain rubbish. It isn't even funny, it is just pathetic.

1;Distant System;Spiral Empire;Celestial Dragon 2;Easily Embarrassed;Idyllic Life;Cardamar Music 3;VA;Opus Iridium Disk 2;Suntrip Records 4;Hol Baumann;Human;Ultimae 5;Evan Bartholomew;Secret Entries Into Darkness;Somnia Records Can't comment on trance, I haven't listened to enough 2008 releases to make an informed opinion.

So bad it's good I think. Genuinely hilarious. Fist pump and finger points all round!

That is the ultimate irony, you say you don't like it because you dislike the hip-hop stereotypes, but it is infact poking fun at those stereotypes. But I am hopelessly biased anyway, three of the tracks on that five track EP are some of my favorites. I think I must be the only person on earth who considers both psy/goa (especially ambient) and booty-house/miami-bass/ghetto-tech to be his favorite genres. That bear one though, completely serious, which is just so bad its brilliant.

It is the perfect throwback to the aesthete of 2 Live Crew and other miami bass tracks. This cover is quite frankly perfect. The cover is tongue in cheek, not to be taken seriously at all, and they went to particular pains to make this clear by putting large chains around their necks, unusually large women, a classic hand gesture and rendering the title in gold with diamonds. It is using every cliche there is and hence poking fun at everything you think it is, which is rather ironic. Ontop of that it is a brilliant EP. Only problem is it is over too soon. EDIT: Also note the folds in the background image making obvious the artificiality of the EP. It shows just how aware they are of the imagery in the cover and the EP. It is a tribute to 2 Live Crew.

It really doesn't matter. A label is just a tool with which people can group music, so people can create a better idea of what to expect of a musical piece and where to go to find music of a particular type. Usually it is useful, sometimes completely off the mark. Some people take the labeling a bit serious but we would be lost without it. I generally do agree with you, though I personally think that it isn't entirely new, alot of the older stuff in particular is alot like acid (and I don't at all think this is bad since acid is awesome). But I think psy as a whole rewards your type of thinking. The sole purpose of a good part of psy is to give you the best mind-fuck possible. This is a recipe for awesome and it allows producers alot of freedom in what to make, probably why it has expanded so broadly.

Take your time, don't worry about any feedback you are receiving on here or anywhere else, don't let expectation crush your creative ability. Just do what you do best and I will along with countless others, be very eagerly anticipating your next release. In my case moreso than anything else on the horizon.

Thats the thing, it really isn't even ambient. It isn't even downtempo much of the time as alot of it (and this is particularly the case with later Shpongle) features a fast paced beat. But you are missing my point, I was just attempting to show that psy encompasses a very broad spectrum, with a good portion of it being irrelevant to the original paradigm it was born within. This is particularly true with acts like Shpongle and Younger Brother, with whom I fail to see any link at all other than Posford and the idea that they are both psychedelic which is completely subjective.

You make psy sound like the second coming. Eventually alot of it will start sounding quite derivative and formulaic. I would say, that a good part of plain old trance/acid-trance is far more likely to induce a psychedelic experience than alot of psy, same goes with acid-house which is bouncy and hypnotic. I would say enjoy these other musical genres aswell because you may be missing out on some really good stuff. Of course not to hack on psy, it is a very far reaching and broad genre and we should be thankful for that. It is to the point that we consider Shpongle to be psy, even though we have no real way of qualifying that statement other than to say Posford made it and he is a psy producer. Really Shpongle sounds to me to be two guys having a blast making whatever music they enjoy. Not the strict 4/4 pulse drum, screaming synths and multi-layers that typified goa.

I am tempted to say a 303 or ABL, and while I love acid they are both limited and I can only pick two instruments so I would want them to be robust and feature rich. Am I allowed to say Reaktor? While technically one instrument, it contains limitless numbers of synths and whatnot within it.

This is my most listened to album of 2008 so far and will almost certainly hold that title firmly. It puts itself in a category of its own, completely removed from the aesthete of any other album I have heard. I would love to hear more music in this style. I like that it doesn't have an earthly feel, and doesn't concern itself with mysticism or aliens like other ambient works. It is to me, cold and clinical, it lacks sentience or life. This is an exceptionally good thing, space is cold and lifeless, the only emotion it reflects is that of wonderment at the surreal and massive scope of the universe which leaves you with a melancholic realization of your own insignificance. To me this is saddening music. I am not sure if this was the intention of the artist, and surely others will disagree and tell me that it is in fact a very warm piece with strong humanistic emotions permeating throughout. It reminds me of the drawn out space scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and even the "Star Gate" scene if it were played in slow motion. But much like 2001, I think each person will rightfully have their own take on the piece. Also, it avoids being pretentious, which is far too easy with ambient and downtempo music. At the same time it lacks any cheesiness. It does this by being a genuine attempt to create something interesting while, much like Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn, it completely forgoes being self-aware, it has no expectations of itself and is focused solely on the creation of music and the concepts underlying it. I like this disregard for the scene, peoples expectations and as an extension the marketability of the album. It is in a situation like this that art can really be art, and artistic integrity is kept solid. Perhaps I am talking in too many superlatives and in a vague and abstract fashion and read into the work too far. I may have made this sound like the best musical work of all time, which it certainly isn't, but as lover of sci-fi and a ponderer of the nature of the universe it is just fantastic. EDIT: Spelling

Most traditional middle-eastern music is 3/4 or 6/8 almost exclusively I'm pretty sure. I'm sure alot of other cultures make use of such beats but I can't vouch for that personally. In farsi there is a word, "ger" (with a swallowed g) which is used to describe music with these beat patterns but also means to shake your arse, for lack of better description. Just incase your interested.

Never listened to Ticon before, not much anyway. Never really cared for it a great deal. So I didn't have any expectations of this album at all other than expecting that is at least vaguely connected to psytrance. I was a little bit shocked to hear nothing but run-of-the-mill electro-house. I see people calling it prog with electro elements, or psy with electo influences. Are we hearing the same thing? This is no different to the stuff that is being played constantly at every single nightclub where I live (Sydney), or at least was being played until I eventually got sick of it all and stopped going to nightclubs due to lack of musical veriety. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing fundamentally and intrinsically wrong with electro-house or even this release, in fact I would say it is slightly better than the competition as far as production and thought is concerned, and unfortunately it seems to be more pretentious as well which demeans any piece of music in my eyes. I would also disregard people claiming that this release has psychedelic elements therefore it is psytrance or even psy. This is not the correct way to think, you are shifting the intention of the meaning of the word psytrance, a error in logic. The word psytrance shouldn't be defined as anything psychedelic that also induces a trance, this is not what people understand the term psytrance to mean, especially on a website dedicated to psytrance. I am not saying we shouldn't be able to discuss it, that is for the mods and admins to decide, personally I think it is fine, but don't come here and tell me this is anything buy electro-house. EDIT: The main reason I say this is because it is already hard enough to try and split genres, the whole idea of genres is subjective, but this particular release is very obviously electro-house, so if this is psytrance or even psy then I may as well call all electro-house psy. Why not call anything psy?

Triports are not amazing headphones as far as audiophiles are concerned. They are widely considered to be rather poor, especially if you want flat response. The AKGs, especially the 701s are fantastic headphones, but mainly for studio work. You can't get better studio headphones really. They are open phones and probably aren't durable enough to make good DJing headphones. The Technics RP-DJ1210, don't sound good, but are very practical for DJing. But again, they don't sound very good. Terribly bass heavy. Sennheiser HD-25 is a decent choice, the thing is durable as all heck, but not a DJing set of headphones, they sound pretty good too. I mention them because alot of DJs like them alot, alot of people consider them the best for the job, and such a stance has merit. Go to this link, its a discussion about DJ headphones, the guys there know their stuff... and ditch the triports. http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/dj-headphones-218729/

It is confusing to me too, even though i'm the one trying to make a distinction here. Which is really why people have a problem with the immense fracturing of electronic music in the first place. Really, you could assign each and every track its own genre if you wanted to. When it comes to division, the sky is the limit really. You just have to ask yourself if you are making distinctions for the sake of effective categorization, or if you are doing it for genre snobbery. On that note, its really anti-synthpop-semi-minimal-electro-prog-trancy-house.

No doubt, almost everything is a mixture of genres, and 102 is quite distinct from most synthpop/electroclash/whatever-you-wanna-call-it but the bassline, at least to me sounds completely electro. The track sounds like electro-house but without the synthpop if that makes any sense. On an emotive level it is completely different to most electro-house, which is alot like glam-rock. This is more proggy I suppose. All the above is very subjective and all IMO of course. But the bassline, could be right out of alot of mainstream electro-house tracks.

Vibrasphere - 102 Miles from Here... sounds like an electro bassline to me. In which case, you really shouldn't have a hard time finding similar basslines, though it would seem this is the wrong spot for it. I would suggest any Ministry of Sound compilation from the last 5 years.

Wipeout 2097 soundtrack. Specifically, Landmass by FSOL. I was already familiar with The Prodigy and enjoyed them, but Landmass seemed far more electronic and was the first to really grab me.

I voted Khetzal, but in retrospect I would go Apsara because it has a bit of many artists I enjoy, and overall a less cohesive but more quality packed release I think. It is through Apsara and Scraqp by Ka-Sol that I realised darker psy/goa full of abrasive sounds can be fantastic. The whole thing is fantastic really. Don't get me wrong, I think every release by Suntrip that I have listened to is fantastic, but Apsara, Corolle and Fairytale are my pick of the three in that order. Those three are probably also my favourite releases of the past few years along with Life² by Asura and maybe a few others. That is how highly I rate them. EDIT: I forgot to mention, the Apsara and Twist Dreams cover art, brilliant.

The mastering? With RHCP you don't need to look (listen) far, the second you start any of their CDs you will hear substantial noise when things are quiet. Infected Mushroom releases always struck me as well mastered, I remember the whole way I got into Psy was listening to IM as a way of judging audio gear, because I enjoyed the quality of the sounds so much. Actually it was referred to me by another audiophile as a good recording to benchmark audio equipment with. The bass on their recordings are tight and punchy, the mids and highs are clear and defined, but I think what I really enjoy is the amount of separation between the different sounds, every instrument can be heard individually and all placed on a good sound-stage. Exact opposite of RHCP, all mashed together. Yeah I love RHCP musically as well, which makes it all the worse really that the mastering is shoddy. Also as Pavel mentioned, there is a known problem that mainstream records master things too loud, destroying alot of the quality, I wont go into it.

1. Do you download music from the web? Any kind of music. How much? How often? Yes, plenty. As often as people recommend a release. 2. Do you download specifically Psytrance releases? Yes. I only ever really download Psy and other forms of EDM. 3. Do you think that downloading (and any other forms of piracy) really hurt the music industry? Yes. 4. Do you think that downloading (and any other forms of piracy) really hurt the Psytrance industry? Not in particular, lesser known musical genres are gaining alot of attention because they are freely available these days. It lets people explore musical genres that they never had much access to before. If it weren't for illegal downloads of Psy, then I wouldn't have purchased the large collection of Psy I have right now, there would also be alot of guesswork on my part deciding which Psy to buy. I have no problem dishing out money for Psy releases I enjoy, I feel that it is justified. Forking out money to mainstream artists though, seems a bit silly to me, though it doesn't really effect me since I don't enjoy and am not interested in most mainstream artists, and as a result don't have any illegal copies of their work. I have Psy and EDM I enjoy, and have downloaded, and where possible purchased legitimately (this can be hard in Australia) and then I have EDM that I never listen to but because I'm a pack rat never delete either. At least in my case, the Psy industry has benefited from illegal downloads. 5. Would you like a world that every new album/comp would be released only in the web? Not if they continue using 128kb as a benchmark. That is pathetically low quality, 320kb minimum please. Preferably lossless, even though I can't tell the difference between FLAC and 320kb mp3, bandwidth is cheap. Also, I like having the case and such. In fact I would like to have the industry switch to SACD or DVD-A. We haven't seen any real progress in audio quality in ages, in fact, with iTunes and such we are seeing a regression. PS: Someone mentioned that mastering on pop releases isn't exactly good. Well, go check out any Red Hot Chilli Peppers release ever made, atrocious mastering, really really horrible. Then compare to something like Ultimae releases or Infected Mushroom, which as far as I can tell sounds fantastic.

If you don't like this "intelligent" music then "you need your hearing checked", or your simply an "idiot". Sounds pretty pretentious to me. We are all allowed our own tastes in music, but apparently, only some peoples tastes are "intelligent". I can validate and argue the artistic merits of any piece of music really, it is a non-issue, so arguing that his music is intelligent is really not very intelligent at all. You can argue it is well thought out, or well composed, but don't try and tell people who (rightly) don't like it that it is not the musics fault, but theres because they are, apparently, not good enough and simply "don't understand" it. As for the music: I really like the use of samples, fantastic, perfect. As for the tired matter of the basslines, I don't care if it is new or not (it isn't new), hardly a grounds to critisise this music, this is trance after all. Can't expect too much originality in the area of basslines. The sound effects are the worst and best part of this album. The best because they provides the driving force behind the album. The worst because there is nothing else driving this album, its all in the glitchy noises. Hallucinogen did glitchy noises too, alot more sparingly of course, I think the result is better with Hallucinogen (unfair to compare Derango to Hallucinogen, I know), but it happens all the time with music, people take a particular aspect of a piece music and punctuate it to create a more focused sound (i'm not saying Derango is copying Hallucinogen so spare me your flames). Yeah and it does need a bit of time to grow on you, but every psy/goa release is like that for me, with the exception of Etnica and Asura. The music needs to develope character in your mind unless it is dripping with character already. Great music in certain situations, like late at night, when you want something a bit more hypnotic than melodic. But best use of all is to subject your friends to this stuff, putting Tamult on in the car with my friends stuck inside on a long trip is hilarious, I could swear their ears near the point of combustion, especially if your friends aren't used to electronic music. Metalheads may like it though. I think it is overrated but good, I think I get it, but the idea behind it doesn't entirely appeal to me so often, sometimes it really does and I digg it alot, but that isn't very often and it hasn't rocked my world. I would give a 7 based on musicality alone, but I will give an 8.5 because I think this music is very interesting.

I can't say anything much that hasn't already been said. Chakra Active 8 is the weakest track, which is actually quite an impressive achievement. I listened to I.F.O. before I ever heard AP. I had high expectations but was prepared for the worst. I was not let down, i picked it up and got into it instantly, this grew on me quicker than any other music and is still highly enjoyable. Starship 101 and Screaming Butterfly will have you stomping like a madman, while Z-Plane Sunrise is a psychadelic mind f***. Despite the simplicity of some of the sounds, there are some very clever and affective pieces of music here, they are masters of rhythm, mutating the tempo at will it seems, especially in Starship 101. All quality, Z-Plane Sunrise would be my favourite, 10/10.