ukiro

What? thats a pretty neat one (or am I thinking of the flip side of the vinyl?), made by Olivier Abitbol who later released as Virtuart and with Jeff Bire as Underhead, the latter being one of my favourite groups of all time. Indian flute isn't really goa or psy though.

I think the title "Lerger Then Life" speaks enough about the quality of this. And don't call it trance, PLEASE. Look up the word in a dictionary and I think you'll understand why I'm saying that.

No he isn't. He's born in 1977, making him 27, or 28 if he's had his birthday this year already.

Sandman? THE Sandman? Izik Levi (or Levy or whatever)? Not that I'd consider him young and new, but any new musical output by him is most welcome =)

er... no. I have melodic trance from way before the term "goa trance" was formed. Trance as a genre description for certain electronic dance music was first used in the late 80's, and I challange you to find any reference to goa trance that is older.

It stopped being psychedelic long ago. The term psychedelic trance is very inappropriate these days. Well there IS good mindfuckery being created still, but it's not easy to find and the best stuff isn't anywhere near this scene =) (I recommend the japanese band Boredoms for proper mindbending craziness) But in the good old days, psychedelic effects were achieved through one or more of the following: - morphing sounds, either through filter sweeps or effects like flangers and phasers - ...or shifting parameters like decay and release of a sound over time - layers of sound with different pattern lengths, making the "loops" match up differently every time - stereo effects and different sizes of reverbs for different sounds to create the illusion of being in several places at once - cut-up sounds to trick the brain into filling in gaps, and delays of varying length to create sub-rhythms in melodies and other sounds - hypnotic repetition - fart noises =) The last point is quite serious actually, since psychedelia is created through some form of illusion, and creating organic structures with mechanical (or at least non-natural) sounds fools the brain - it's as if the subconscious tries to decipher the sounds and fails, creating some form of short.circuit that we interpret as a psychedelic effect. Todays obsession with clean sounds and sterile productions obviously fails to achieve that organic, mutating feeling and is thus devoid of one of the key elements of psychedelia. now I'm off to a meeting so I have to stop =)

That needed to be said, thank you.

Well you said "you don't have a clue what's old skool about" which is just bullshit. There's no way you can come to that conclusion from the fact that he doesn't enjoy Astral Projection enough to listen to a whole album of theirs. And there were no smileys anywhere near that statement. Thus I call bullshit on your post. And you guys telling people to chill when you get all fired up by the fact that someone doesn't worship astral projection... oh please.

Bollocks.

Screw the anti-criticism dorks here, I'm with you man. I grew tired of astral in 1996. Their music lacks the depth that I still find in many other productions from that era. Sure they're not technically bad and the songwriting skills are there, but it just doesn't work for me. Almost every single song they've ever made has some element that annoys me. They may be the inspiration for many and old-timers and blah blah blah, I still don't fancy their music much. Again, it's not necessarily bad, but "ok" music isn't anything to get excited about. I may be wrong, but aren't most astral fans people who got into the scene in 97 or later? now flame on, kids!

I find this album to be totally amazing, all the way through. It's not for every mood and it's not the most hectic album ever, but oh man... there's some SERIOUS psychedelia going on in there! It's a bit of an acquired taste and I won't try to talk any of you into liking it, but there are some of us who really appreciate the whole thing. Too bad he never reached that same depth later on. His latest album ("Full On") sounds like a joke compared to Trippy Future Garden. Oh, and I have it on both CD and vinyl ofcourse =)

I have done some experimentation with Absynth (2) and must say it's insanely advanced - it's capable of such an enormous array of sound, but the complexity makes the learning threshold extremely high. As I loathe working with presets it's very hard for me to get anything done with Absynth. But I guess if I bought it I'd get the manual, so... =)

Hadn't heard him before so I dug up "Da Korah" which was very nice with the eastern vibes and all. Very trancey! To me, the very straight 4/4 beat with no shuffle at all (i.e. classic goa trance style) is ideal for trance music, and this has put me off a lot of todays progressive stuff since they all use some degree of shuffle. But oh my, this track might change my stance on this issue entirely! "Radiance" (original mix) sounds very scando-trancey in a 12 Moons / Human Blue / Atmos kind of way, but with a more club trance styled production. In fact, I think the production is the weak point here, with too much compressor and strange balance between the frequency ranges. It's a nice track and all, but too simple for me. His remix of LSG - "Netherworld" provides additional doses of club-trancey key-shifting clichés, but he's talanted for sure. (This is on a 12" on JOOF, don't know if it's out on CD yet) For a fan of hypnotic music such as myself, this is musically more rewarding than pretty much anything in the psy scene of today. The similarities to California Sunshine are certainly there, very well spotted! But I think there's better stuff out there, only that I can't be arsed to go through the bazillions of releases to find a few pearls. But for one of the most amazing morning trancers of all time, see Moon Project - "Moments Are Forever". Now THAT is quality!

There's no year mentioned on the sleeve but seeing as all tracks are recorded in the first half of 1996, I think a fall/winter 1996 release date is pretty likely.

Fair enough, I didn't want to attack you for offering criticism, I just wanted to know *what* you were criticizing. The design was made from photos of flowers and nature. It was a conscious choice since he uses real analogue synthesizers, and using software-generated graphics would be more fitting with software-created music. So I went for an organic look, with lots and lots of layers just like the music. We both agreed on the colour, too - I made several different versions and this is the one me and Filteria both liked best. I'm not saying it's perfect, but to me it turned out quite OK (apart from the off-center printing, but thats another story).

Whats bad about it? That it's off-center? (printing plants fault...) or the design? (which I did.)

Check out ANYTHING by Section X =) (especially their releases on their own label X-Dr)

Psychedelic Voodoo was a pleasant surprise to me, some very intelligent track combinations on there: http://www.discogs.com/release/147339

You should be able to rip the CD as a single WAV and then convert to MP3. Due to the lossy compression of MP3s, as separate files for the tracks in the mix they will not fit perfectly and thus create clicks and/or slight gaps. There are plugins to most popular MP3 player software that will crossfade the tracks slightly, eliminating the gap. But in a beatmixed DJ set this will just make the transitions sound ugly and messed up, so ripping as a single WAV and then compressing to a single MP3 would be the way to go. You can always put the tracklisting in the ID3 tag, thats what I usually do.

Patience, deep pockets and ebay (.com as well as .de) will sort you out. No stores carry that record any more.

Bug your local organizers about it =) Get me a booking and I'll come for sure!

Oh, just one more thing - Second to Son Kite, they're the best live act I've seen. Or heard, rather - the buildup and progression of the (2 hour) set was AMAZING. This was about a month before the release of cyclotron. Everything was perfect that night, not once did I lose momentum or attention to the music, and that's EXTREMELY rare for me.

Basilisk wins this topic, you can all go home now. ...but I must add that there are some older unreleased Wizzy Noise tracks that sound exactly like old pleiadians, only with better production and even better track progression. Those are fucking AMAZING, and I think Cyclotron is their masterpiece. It's the only of their albums I felt I had to buy. They're extremely talanted, and as basilisk said, they should try working outside their formula a bit more.... but perhaps they already do, but they chose to keep a strict style for the releases? They can do VERY hypnotic/trancey stuff, I would like to see them explore that a bit more, ignoring "dancefloor appeal" and the all too popular lowest-common-denominator style of producing. But then again they make a living from their music I believe, and you cant afford to alienate buyers in this scene, the margins are much too slim.

Ka-Sol - "Earth"?

I actually think it's a reasonably good selection, appealing not only to fans of howling goa mayhem ("Pile" is a huge favourite of mine) but also to the more progressive side of the old sound.... obviously with the huge german customer base in mind =) I also guess they're hoping to make this a series and don't want to blow everything on a single compilation. They also have to consider what people already have - They can't be too similar to old tantrance/pulse/goa head/etc, because you can still find those... so putting together a compilation of old goodies is not as easy as it might seem when you consider that you will have to be able to sell it... I've been playing around with this idea for quite some time, wondering what I would put on such a compilation... and I could probably do better than this in theory, but licensing is a tricky matter to be considered as well. I find the sleeve to be horrible, they could have done much better than that. If the promo text is correct that there is a demand for oldies among the party crowds these days, its good news for me as a DJ though =)