ukiro

The only CD where Eye Am The I is track 5 is this: Destination Goa 6 ...but it only has 7 tracks so there is no track 9. Track 4 on there, by MFG, is indeed pretty fast though. Then there is a compilation with Eye Am The I where track 9 is by Astral Projection: Destination Goa - Best Of ...but here Eye Am The I is track 1 and track 4 is Sheyba - "Ganesh" which doesn't sound even remotely like anything by Astral.

You should list them on Discogs... or maybe you do already? And Gnome, I was thinking this should be for all genres, not just trance =) And if you've got a list of BM to sell, feel free to pass it my way!

OK time to see who's compensating for something ;-) I'll be a prime suspect I guess... For the sake of keeping the results meaningful, please don't count copied CDs or MP3s, only real CDs and vinyls. I have a lot, but then also listen to music like 10 hours per day. And I'm 26 years old so I've had a few years to build a big collection. Any really young people here with huge collections?Or older people who don't buy records at all? And please keep the "Physical records are unnecessary in this digital age" arguments to some other thread =)

Heh, well... no pic of the CD shelf, but some vinyl:

While I'm aware that it's not necessarily your opinion, calling him "a lucky guy" implies that his music didn't deserve an album on its own merits and that it was largely chance that had him become SunTrips first release. This is not the case, quite the contrary as a matter of fact - to the best of my knowledge, getting to release his album was a large reason as to why SunTrip was started in the first place. Anoebis / Mars can correct me if I'm mistaken...

I have a pretty big collection (if I may say so myself) and I can find just about any record in 3 seconds... but for techno and some club trance I need to reorganize things, they're not structured very well. But luckily I still have so little in these genres that flipping through them takes almost no time at all. But since I sort by genre (and within that by label, and within that by catalogue number) some genre-defying stuff is tricky to decide on... do I put Stress Assassin with my Spiral Trax psy CDs or do I stick it in the chill shelf? I usually let the label decide in those cases - something non-trance on a trance label goes in the trance shelf, while something trance-ish on a non-trance label stays with the other releases on that label. And yeah I was referring to both CD and vinyl with this poll.

Damn thats one I forgot...

I tried to make as many alternatives as I could think of. If you have a mix of sorting styles, try to pick the one that suits you the best. Like if you have 200 well sorted trance records and 10 unsorted rock records, don't pick the chaos alternative. Some explanations: "Sorted per label, albums and singles separated, genres separated" would mean that you have A-Z of psy/goa labels (and within each label singles are sorted separately from albums) and then A-Z of techno labels, etc. This is what I have. Within each label I sort per catalogue number, singles first and then albums. "Sorted per artist name, albums and singles separated, genres separated" would mean that The Infinity Project - "Mystial Experiences" is sorted under ambient while The Infinity Project - "Feeling Weird" is sorted under goa. Some of these could be combined even more, but I would end up with a bazillion alternatives that mean pretty much the same thing.

Ah, as I suspected then - the track is simply not for me. I have never ever "understood" music that isn't serious. Not that it always has to be gloomy or depressing, but when it comes to happy music I can only swallow the introvert kind. "Party music" is something that I've never come to terms with. And to an extent I can really appreciate pretentious music as well. I have lengthy theories as to how this is tied to my personality and neurotransmitter configuration, but I'll leave that aside for now. How about leaving it as-is and then go back to it with a fresh head in a week or three? Thats how I try to approach this problem, although when it comes to music production I'm a dabbling amateur at best. Middy bass works much better in a PA than a rumbling 70Hz thing and doesn't eat as much dynamics in the mix, but I have a very soft spot for ultra-deep bass. With a very powerful system and in an outdoor setting (devoid of problems with room resonance) it can be awesome, but if these criteria aren't filled, it will very easily sound like crap. Because of this I have recently tried to go for more of a mid bass with a deep kick that goes underneath it - Getting a messy bass sludge is less probable when the really deep frequencies are on a slower pulse (1/4) as opposed to having a 1/16 bassline hitting the lowest frequencies. Since I listen to very little new stuff I'm probably missing out in the evolution of bass production, because some of the kids today do amazing things. My mixing skills are quite unspectacular and this may be old news to you, but I find that different reverbs and/or delays on different sounds can help the listener to tell them apart, as well as using different basic waveforms, panning, octaves etc. Also, I think many people today are a bit too afraid of layers because they want everything to be 100% discernable - I think this isn't necessary, and in fact some of the charm of older stuff is that sounds appear to come and go even though they are never truly gone - they might have the filter tweaked so that there's only a low mumble or a thin sliver of sound left. This also adds to the effect of the music being organic, a pulsating beats that wrestles with your mind. Overly sterile and clear production cannot hide any secrets. There is a balance to be found ofcourse, but I think you see my point. And why would this be bad? For a DJ, it's merely a matter of tweaking the gain on the mixer, and a home listener can surely alter the volume to suit his/her ears. I think there is an unhealthy obsession with loudness these days, with producers sacrificing musical ideas on the altar of decibel. One of my favourite tracks ever, Transwave - "Rezwalker" (the original mix, I should point out) has the first two thirds of the track peaking at -3db or somesuch... Certainly more challenging to mix from a DJ perspective, but it gives the finale an effect that would be lost with todays mixing aesthetics. Now don't get me wrong, the wall of sound approach can be very interesting - I listen to a bit of black metal from time to time, where dynamics is something totally unheard of. This is a genre with plenty of mind-altering and hypnotic music, and icreased dynamics would only distract. But in order to achieve psychedelia, I think a more liberal view of dynamics is in order. Very true. bass tends to trail in a PA, so a 1/16 kick can sound like it's 2/16 or even 3/16.

Haha! I was going to mention them actually =) I was nagging Dennis Tapper and Henric Fietz of Hux Flux to check autechre out for a while, don't know if they ever did... Pretty much anything from autechre is waaaaay more mindfuckery and pseudo-chaos than anything in the psy-trance scene.

The Visitors - "Tiny Little Engines" is one of my all-time favourites when it comes to chaotic psycho mayhem. Those aussies sure know their shit.

Now, to properly review the tracks (writing as I go along). Beware though that I'm a whiny bastard! I'm not trying to put you down, so don't kill yourself over this: Jack To The Sound The sound pressure here is immense - My ears tire easily from this type of mastering, but you appear to have been able to keep it clean and airy despite the loudness. Well done! The "underground" vocal sample feels painfully cheesy, while the monty python one is a little better. Your bassline here has a nice chunky quality to it, while I'm not as turned on by the kick drum. While it might not be a good match for this bassline, I would have preferred a deeper one with less mid (faster transition from attack to bass tail). I'm not hearing much emotion in this track, it feels a bit absent-minded somehow. Perhaps it relies too much on the bassline? The lead sounds present are a little too noisy to achieve good "tonal" effects on my senses, and might be a tad low in the mix - but if you were to raise them, cutting some high frequencies might be in order. I'm starting to realize that I perhaps shouldn't review this type of track - the entire mood that it's trying to capture is one I seldom or never seek in music. A little too happy in that non-euphoric, cheerful way. I think I would have liked this track much better if it was in a different key, and sans that voice sample. Although I understand that some people, perhaps you included, have grown tired of phrygian scales I think it would fit nicely here. The bassline would have become a lot more ominus and sinister and there would, at least to me, have been a bigger emotional reward to be found in it. At this first listen, I didn't get the feeling that it goes anywhere. It didn't induce a change in my mood or state of mind, which is something I pretty much crave from music. I'm not sure I want to blame the arrangement or something else, but I felt quite indifferent when it ended. So even though I'm now trying to judge this by something it's not trying to be, I hope some of this has been of use. Invisible World Again the bassline feels much deeper than the kick drum - I like it when the kick digs its way in underneath the bass, but here it lies on top. A matter of taste perhaps, and having it beneath might demand clipping some bottom end of the bass sound. The first little break does absolutely nothing for me. It's a break just for the sake of having a break - letting the melody in without that stop of flow would be nicer I think. The voice sample feels pretty daft as well - all your other sounds are very nicely done, but that voice sounds amateurish and out of place. The mix is tight, you know your shit when it comes to that. Respect. (although dynamics is always nice when letting a big lead onto the soundstage...) I find myself waiting for filter sweeps, but in vain it seems. This track would be much better if the filters weren't static. I like the mood here much better than in the other one, but it still feels a bit restrained, as if you're afraid to let go properly. I could be wrong, but I expected more craziness and unrestrained emotions. Perhaps weirder sounds, more unorthodox structural shifts, etc. In the last half of the track there are no breaks and it just chugs along all the time - I love this in a track! psychedelia and trance induction (i.e. psy-trance) needs much more of that. Stop the flow ever 8 bars and you're not taking anything into trance. It sounds like you left some room in the low mid frequencies in order to make the bassline stand out in the mix - I think some of the lead sounds would benefit a lot from getting some space here. This would clog the mix up quite a bit though. I'd advice you to record some filter sweeps and tweaks for this track. That might have it sound more "goa" than you'd be comfortable with, but I think it would make this already nice track much, much better. Mixing will be made more difficult, but if you just sacrifice a dB of overall sound pressure you'll be fine - this is loud enough anyway. ok thats enough besserwisser whining out of me, I hope some of it was helpful and not too negative =)

Exotonic

Back in the nineties I made 100+ fonts using Macromedia Fontographer. It costs money though, and it was last updated in like 1995 (I'm not kidding). You may have better luck using FontLab but I haven't tried that. And this should have been posted in offtopic.

With you constantly making statements of this nature, I fail to see how any label would want to release your music. Your lack of respect is indeed astonishing.

I'm sure you're right, but none of the names mentioned above has interested me enough to warrant a CD purchase (well I do have one BLT album, from 1999). And I buy on average one record every day, so go figure. But I'm not saying they're as hellishly unbearable as the CD on discussion in this thread, though. It's just that... In what's releases these days, I can no longer find the elements that got me into it in the first place. I've said this for years now but it gets increasingly true for each new release, it seems.

Ok stop this ride, I want to get off. I really feel like I have no connection to todays psytrance scene any more. My desire to distance myself from this crap is stronger than ever, and while there will always be the odd interesting release I'm starting to feel like I've completely had it now. I listened to some late 90's Israeli compilations the other day (the first IsraAliens, Full On 2, Psychedelic Krembo 3) and I just can't understand how the Israeli scene, which wasdoing very well as recently as 1999, could mutate into the utter fucking SHIT that is spewn forth today. How can it be that those of us who enjoyed the vibes, subtleties, mindfuckery and experimentation of the 1990's are suddenly in such a minority? Because logically we should be, judging from what is released. There is a demand for this stuff, which to me is utterly incomprehencible, especially when one considers that the demand must be much higher than that for "serious" psy-trance music. I think I need to lie down, so consider this rant over.

wait wait wait... BPC as in Blue Planet Corporation? I think my heart just skipped a beat.

I would recommend trying to copy/mimic a track you like. In doing so, you will learn a lot about scales, rhythms, arrangement, mixing and so on. If that feels like an overwhelming task, try to just mimic a certain part or sound in a track and work from there. As for goa trance, a LOT of the mood comes from the scales used. I personally love phrygian, which was very common back in the days. Here's phrygian C: C, C#, D#, F, G, G#, A# - then you can move that up to whatever base note you want. A lot of my favourite oldschool tracks had very intricate percussion, but not in an obvious way. I've only started noticing this in the past few years... but just about everyone who tries to do "oldschool" psy-trance these days use very simple and basic percussion patterns.

You ARE joking, right? right? RIGHT?!

A few spring to mind right away... Number one: Underhead - Orojuna Shared second place: Etnica - Mystical Appearance In Goa Etnica - Intense Visitation Creative Alienation - The Quest Of Psyborg Ree-K - H.U. X-Dream - Psychomachine

This is indeed one of the best compilations ever released. Another awesome 1996 compilation, while different in style, is "Strange Vibrations", the debut full-length release from Koyote Records. That one hade a huge impact on me back when it came out.

I think you're looking for Sephalopod - "Option paralysis" kickass track, with weird production =) It's a Tim Healey (Quirk) side project.

Like Basilisk said - JAÏA! To be released on Digital Structures, so it's probably pretty progressive. Interesting nonetheless! I'd also be more excited if there was a new Blue Planet Corporation album. Pleiadians will not make another 90's style album, trust me. In fact, I seriously doubt there will be another Pleiadians album, ever.

The artist album that has meant the most to me in this genre is Etnica - Alien protein. There are numerous compilations that have been very influential as well, and with my record collection I could go on and on about nice albums =) ...But Alien Protein is my #1.