ukiro

I think you're both right - Nemo makes some good points, but there are artists and styles that I strongly dislike nonetheless. It's like they are raping the music I love. Now I am well aware that I can just ignore them and don't buy their records or go to their gigs... but look at it this way: I strongly dislike far-right and neo-nazi political parties, so I don't support them or vote for them. But I'm not satisfied with just ignoring them, because they spread ideas and a culture that I percieve as a threat to the things I like and stand for. If only their ideas are heard, the ones I stand for will die out. Now this is a harsh comparison, but I can feel similar things about music - The full-on formulaic soulless crap is to my beloved trance music what Jörg Haider, Jean-Marie Le Pen or Umberto Bossi is to my political ideas - an antithesis, threatening to engulf and overthrow the things I love and stand for. There will always be good music, even in the current reign of full-on there are jewels to be found. But that doesn't satisfy me any more than a resistance movement was satisfying in the 40's. I'm NOT saying that full on is nazism, it's merely an allegory. Another would be that I don't like the idea of meat gaining in popularity among foods, since I'm a vegetarian. While I can naturally eat vegetarian food all I want, an increased demand for meat will mean that the food I favor will lose some of its market share and I will be left with fewer choices. The overall trend in psytrance has been moving in the direct opposite direction of what I want for a long time now. "Psy-pop" with embarassing remixes and infantile musical structures is just the latest step in this direction. I despise this development and wish that music would be allowed to be serious again, that artists would allow themselves to be a little more pretentious and strive for depth and emotion rather than just imitating the latest sound trends and making it "work on the dancefloor". So while hate is a strong word, I have a very strong disliking for the current state of "full-on" and it's inbred bastard child "psy-pop".

You could argue that goa trance is any music played at trance parties in goa, or even make valid arguments that there never was such a thing as "goa trance", but if we accept that what was once known as goa trance has now mutated into something else, these are the disctinctions I'd make: If you want to define a particular sound as goa trance, the phrygian scales are what marks the most prominent difference in my opinion. Goa trance, as I define it, also had a clearer tonality of its sounds while psytrance has noisier sounds, especially for the leads. The tone of a typical psy-trance lead sound is much harder to identify than that of a typical goa trance sound. This allows for easier (DJ) mixing since it lowers the risk of dissonance, but also removes a lot of the emotional impact of the sounds (at least for me). The development of this music has also lead to much more prominent basslines, where the music of 94-96 often relied almost entirely on the kick for the bass and then let some of the sounds for the lead melodies trickle down into the sub-200 Hz range instead of having a dedicated bassline throughout the track. If there was one it was positioned much lower in terms of volume than todays production style. Filter sweeps aren't used nearly as much these days, and if they're at all present they're LFO-controlled instead of hand-tweaked. This and the clearer overall sound where everything is heavily EQ'ed to not interfere with other sounds, is partially a result of the shift to using software for the entire production where goa trance was completely dominated by hardware studios. Naturally, one can make psytrance with hardware and goa trance with software, but generally this disctinction is valid. There are other aspects of the musical structures that separate them as well, apart from the phrygian scales. One is that todays psy-trance has a lot of short breaks, one bar or half a bar, normally. These were very few and far between in the goa era. Another difference is that (good) goa trance often blended layers of different length, ranging from 1/8 or 3/16 to several bars. When all patterns are of the same length, you lose a lot of the hypnotic and trance-inducing qualities of the music. This style of layering using different pattern lengths are the main reason words like "vortex", "hypnotic" and "kaleidoscopic" are often used to describe goa trance, and along with the drug connection explains a lot of the fascination with fractals among its followers, since these musical structures somewhat resemble fractal patterns. The structuring of psy-trance of today is almost exclusively "binary" in that it's based on 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 bar structures. This "orthogonal" style of arrangement wasn't as apparent in the goa era I think.

Yeah their combination of hitting just the right frequencies and getting that thick warmth in the sound really makes a world of differance. I think this digital era of software synths have killed that style of bass - I've been fiddling with all sorts of plugins for adding warmth and analogue-style "life" to bass, but it's very very hard to mimic the sound ze germans had going there in 96-98, at least with software only.

Thats the one with the sliding 8th note rthythm, right? Planet B.E.N. has a few of those too, I love them. I think they're done with a sliding upwards arpeggio, but I'm sure there are more ways of doing it.

Sory to be a nitpick, but he released a track under the name Gumbo in 1993, before the Hallucinogen project got started.

That would be the one, yes. You lucky bastard =)

GOOD LORD, thats vile! F*cking hell thats sheer terror! you nearly made me cry =(

WOW! I didn't know there was a full Odds album... I have the 12" on X-Plore but I thought that was the only release of this label... thanks for this tip, I'll try to dig this up for sure =)

MAN, that second track is awesome... I sure wish I knew where that was released! Radiation - "On The Machine" was originally released here: http://www.discogs.com/release/321629 The one from DJ Thomas 303's set could well be on a label like Time Unlimited - it's a bot on the hardtrance side. Could also be a german hardtrance label from 97-ish. The track you believe is from Spectral could also be something on the label Trans'Pact - I don't think I have this particular one but I'm missing a lot of their releases, like 20 or so. Spectral released a 12" on Trans'Pacts sublabel Subliminal, but I only have one of the tracks on there so I can't verify the other one. The Celtic Cross track is probably frmo the unreleased version of that CD - I think ALL the tracks exist in VERY different mixes, and from what I've heard the unreleased ones are generally better.

Dave, I (Ola) mailed you aeons ago about buying a whole pile of records, but that seems to have been lost in the vast voids of cyberspace. I guess I'll try again now... having all the other schlab compilations, I obviously need this too =)

In terms of albums, Phototropic is the most solid IMHO. The best track has to be the original mix of Rezalker for me personally - I have like 2000 records and yet this is one of the top 5 tracks of all time, of any genre, for me. There are some shoddy tracks on both Hypnorhythm and Helium I think, but the good ones make up for them. I have a very soft spot for Adoration To The Aum as well, for some reason.

My girlfriend has a pair of these, and yes they're very nice! In their price range I'm willing to wager that they're as good as they come. Very recommended if your budget is 60-70 euro. They aren't as discreet as the HD25's but don't make you look like the Terminator version of Mickey Mouse either. But if you have 160 euro to spend... Sennheiser HD25 baby =) I have never had any regrets for this purchase - out of all my "gadgets", and by that I mean cellphone, digital camera, minidisc player etc etc - these headphones are EASILY my best purchase, ever. Now I recommend anyone shopping for headphones to listen to several models and make a judgement based on need rather than hype. But I just want to say that no DJ shopping for headphones should ever omit the HD25's from the list of candidates. Pioneer and Technics have very potent models too, but for me the choice was easy.

I use Sennheiser HD25's for DJing and for portable audio. They block external sound fairly well, sit tight and yet can be worn for hours on end. They're not ugly or huge either - very lightweight. The cable is steel and not copper to make it extra strong. ALL components are replacable - I accidentally stepped on my pair and they weren't harmed at all! They're extremely durable, play VERY loud (really, you'll get a nosebleed before they distort). The downside is that they're not audiophile headphones, but then basically no closed cans are, and you'll want closed ones for DJ'ing, trust me. These are 159 euro from www.decks-records.com if I remember correctly. I really love these - the sound is t-i-g-h-t and they do everything right for a pair of DJ headphones, in my opinion. Since my dad managed to break my open-air Philips headphones a while back (don't ask...) I use the HD25's for making music too. They are marketed as professional monitoring headphones by Sennheiser, and this is a very fitting description. There are perhaps better models for this amount of money if you focus only on the studio aspect, but if you want to DJ, I'd say go with the HD25's. Oh, and DONT buy the HD25SP model, they're not nearly as well built and you'll want to upgrade quite soon if you get those.

Dude, noone here spread any hate. Read again, and feel free to quote the hateful comments you seem to have spotted. We're discussing music - if only the positive comments would be accepted, there wouldn't be much of a discussion, would there? Me and Cinos disagree about The Infinity Project, but I wouldn't dream of wanting him "banned" from the discussion! The whole evolution of our society is based on the exchange of ideas and opinions, it's the force that drives everything forward, and you want to stop it... I just don't understand that kind of mentality. This attitude of yours is strangely common in the psytrance scene. The whole ideology of "only positive words allowed" is making much more damage than you realize. As Cinos says, if noone is ever allowed to critizise, there will never be improvement. How much fun is it to read record reviews if they're all positive? They would be of no use what so ever! When I express an opinion that differs from the scene norm in a debate forum such as this, there's almost always someone who attacks me and tells me to "lay off" and "can't we all get along" and "where's the love, dude". I get accused of attacking people when I have in fact just been DEBATING, and it's the person who acuses me of attacking that is the true attacker. Sure, if I was to lower myself to name-calling and foul language thats a different story, but there has been no such thing here. Noone is at anyones throat. Strangely, the anti-debate people are usually the ones with a signature that says "P.L.U.R.!" but the Understanding and Respect seems to have been forgotten... Sorry for this lengthy and off-topic reply, but this stuff has been bugging me for a long time.

It was more acceptable when the trading was mainly focused on unreleased/unsigned stuff, and when there wasn't an established scene. Also, let's remember how the DAT trading started - people brought music on DATs to Goa and other asian party locations, where vinyl would melt. CD burners were hardly available and not within a reasonable price range. And as a lot of people brought stuff they had done themselves, specifically for the beach parties, they had studios and in those you had DATs, usually. From this persoective, the DAT trading has very little in common with MP3 trading. But the DAT scene spread back into europe ofcourse, and stayed alive even after you got the big labels going and stuff released on CDs. Partially because there were still unreleased stuff and partially because the whole I-give-you-this-and-you-give-me-that mentality is deeply rooten in the human essence. It's a material desire, even if the "material" in this case is music. And yes, the moral in the DAT scene was much higher than in the MP3 scene. I tried getting into DAT trading in 96 when I had access to studio grade DATs through school, but without anything nice to offer, it was impossible to get stuff, at least with my limited contacts living in the somewhat isolated northern Swedish forests. The MP3 scene with the "public" releases and P2P networks is nothing like the DAT scene. While I appreciate the opportunity to listen before I buy, I also despise the MP3 scene with it's "collectors" and DJs who play stuff they've downloaded off the net. I'm not saying the DAT traders were beacons of moral and justice, but it's degraded a whole lot with the transfer to MP3s. CDs, if properly made, should last at least 20 years. My oldest ones are probably around 18 and I haven't noticed anything wrong with those. And I imagine the manufacturing process has only improved since the mid 80's. And regarding waste... yeah I guess you're right. But there are so many more serious threats to the environment that I can't quite bring myself to feel guilt for buying CDs. About credit card companies being evil... well, to some extent maybe. But I am a vegetarian and wholeheartedly despise the meat industry, yet I buy food in a store that also sells meat. And while the banking world may have corrupt morals, I rely on their services too. Any "internet currency" would be subject to the same evolution that you've seen in banks I'm afraid. I wish I felt like you here - not that I don't want to pay artists, but I have this craving for real, physical records. It's my only true addiction...

I think the thing about "sounding old" is that things that were really cool ideas 10 years ago have become cliché now. Almost noone does snare rolls anymore - in 1995 it was cool. When I was a little kid I thought the Police Academy movies were funny, but now I couldn't possibly stand watching them. My tastes have evolved and humour as a whole has evolved too. Star Wars had awesome effects in the 70's, now those effects look kinda shoddy. Same thing with music - the bar raises, standards evolve. Still, I would like to point out that I'm a diehard oldschool lover. Just look at my collection! But some things age with grace while others get mouldy fast. In terms of The Infinity Project, I think Mystical Experiences has aged like wine (or at least it hasn't deteriorated) while Feeling Weird has aged a bit like milk... And Cinos, if you could make music of that quality, you have a customer right here =)

Yep, there was. And then TIP.World re-released it on a double CD with Mystery Of The Yeti as well. But I too have the original, on both CD and vinyl =)

I think Mystical Experiences is an absolute masterpiece. The emotions they had on their sonic palette for that album far surpass that of shpongle in my opinion. Feeling Weird, however, sounds very dated by now. It's also nowhere near as consistent as Mystical Experiences, mainly since it's pretty much just a collection of old singles and compilation tracks. It's still fairly interesting musically, if you can look past the crude production and outdated sounds. But then again, quite a few of the tracks on that album were made in 93, ELEVEN years ago... The emotions they have here are not always very obvious (unlike M.E.), but once found they are, at least to me, more interesting than most stuff released today. They had that mystical vibe, the sense of being in an exotic, foreign place in the dim dusk light and weird things going on in the shadows, sort of. Not always very well executed, but the vibe is in there somewhere. The Infinity Project were pioneers - perhaps not as important as bands like Etnica for the evolution of psychedelic trance music, but T.I.P. had their first release in 1991, and it ain't that bad either. But yeah, much of their dancefloor stuff is interesting from a historical perspective rather than good from a musical perspective. Still though, I think Mystical Experiences is amazing, even after more than 9 years since its release. I hope to record an Infinity Project mixset with most of their stuff sometime... I made a go at it but didn't get the flow right so I need to try again. Put in the proper context, their music can be very interesting. But they're far from being my favourites in the genre.

Impressive selection - The Indoor CD, I take it it's the re-release?

Yeah even I skipped Mantram, and I have 13 steve roach releases... Steve has a very disctinct sound, but he uses it very differently from release to release. Try "Core" or "Blood Machine" mentioned earlier in this thread and you're in for much more of a journey.

This depends on the type of collector - personally I consider myself a completist, meaning that I have this utopian dream of one day owning every goa trance release ever made. In this endless quest I value original releases higher than re-issues. However, I'm also a DJ and as such I would rather have the re-issue than not having a track at all. I can't play what I don't have... and while completist collectionism makes you end up with a fair amount of crap records, I *do* listen to them all. I have this policy of never putting a record in the shelf before I've played it through from start to finish at least once (which makes my girlfriend roll her eyes ;-). There are collectors who don't do this. When I go record hunting, which is pretty much a daily activity, I usually go for a rare but musically mediocre release before I go for one that can easily be found and is enjoyable listening to. This is because the rare one might not show up again in months or even years, so better to take the chance while it's there. I didn't always have this prioritization though, and as a consequence I missed some very nice opportunities. This I regret, so I'm trying to focus on the rarities now. Hence my fairly nice (but by no means huge) collection of super-limited vinyl mentioned in a previous post to this thread, for example. I also have that SFX cd that Kai-Q recently posted about as well as some more records that are almost unheard of. Oh, and what DeathPosture said =) It's almost a bit of sport hunting these original rarities down. It's odd, but record collecting gives me a sort of smooth rush... I guess its my drug.

There are several versions of this. I have one with a pink/red and a yellow/green disc, while my girlfriend has the version you've got, with the two yellow ones. There was also a black vinyl version of the original Dragonfly pressing (I have one of those too), and there's a rumoured mega-rare version with some sort of glittery gold confetti inside semi-transparent, fluorescent vinyl which was apparantly made in 10 (!!!) copies. A guy I know (and he's not one to make shit like this up) saw one of these go for 480 euro on eBay a few years back. I've never heard anything about it myself and I can't swear it really exists. There's a coloured vinyl version of The Lone Deranger too, but I don't know much about it. I think it was purple/pink, and it was refered to as the "evil vinyl" at the label. This may well have been some sort of picture disc, I'm not sure. I think they made 100 copies of that version.

It's not released.

Unmelodic? what the...? Before I go on, I should probably say that I'm friends with Jannis (the guy behind Filteria) and I did the sleeve design, so I'm not entirely unbiased. However, I'm not the marketing department of Suntrip Records either. These are my honest opinions. Calling this unmelodic is like nominating George W Bush for the Nobel Peace Prize. But you do make hints at some valid point perhaps. The thing about this CD, the whole concept in fact, is to be one huge explosion of howling, analog synth melodic trancedance inferno. These melodies aren't trying to be "floating" in some morning-trance sense - judging this record from that perspective is like going to a Woody Allen movie and then complain about the complete lack of actions scenes and explosions. If you don't like it then thats fine and dandy (as is said above, this happens to every record released), but please judge it from what it's trying to be. And blasphemy? I think not. Thats a very strong word. This comes closer to the essence of the most intense Pleiadians tracks than anyone else that I've heard. That doesn't mean he copied them or even made something equally good, but this isn't that far away. Take another listen. I think Etnica / Pleiadians had a little better arrangements sometimes, and, as you hinted towards, made the most of each melody in a way that Filteria doesn't, but I absolutely LOVE "Galactic Rays" on the Filteria CD for example. It wouldn't have been out of place on I.F.O, in my opinion. The thing is, he has such a great sense of melody that he doesn't have to hold back and squeeze the most out of each one - he just throws you into the next one. And yeah, this is very goa-esque, yet not "proper" old goa in every sense. But then again, we're in 2004 and not 1994. There were a bazillion releases back in 94-97 so there's really not much point in making more of the exact same. However, and this is something quite unique; to me, Filteria is the first to successfully lift the good things from goa trance and take it to the 21st century. Others have tried, but none have been very successful. This is not out of place in a goa DJ set, and would do very well as a was to top off a melodic "modern" set as well. One thing happens with almost anyone that tries to make "oldschool" psytrance these days; they place all the focus on the amount and style of melodies, and miss vital elements like song progression, buildup and mood. The Filteria CD isn't perfect in this respect; he too could perhaps benefit from being a bit more patient with the buildups, focus more on the journey-like aspects of the tracks and work harder to fine-tune the mood. But this is supposed to be a hyperblast of a record, and it is. Mood doesn't go very well with this type of maximalistic music. You don't start a DJ set with this stuff, you finish with it (and trust me, this CD will be a common ingredience in my sets from now on). Some of the tracks here are AMAZING. Also, something worth pointing out - this is made with REAL SYNTHESIZERS. No plastic-sounding software mumbo jumbo. You can really tell from listening - the overtones, the filter sweeps, the mutating sounds - here it is, at last! I've been longing for this for so long now, I was almost thinking it was dead forever. If you want I.F.O, listen to I.F.O. If you want music that takes those ideas even further and pushes into even more layers, melodies and howling, shimmering, ripping psychedelic mayhem, then listen to Sky Input. It's not perfect, but it has some of the best melodic psytrance tracks released in the past 5 years in my opinion.

Me too. The melody men in Etnica / Pleiadians were Carlo Paterno and Andrea Rizzo. Both have left the band, and you can tell: 1995-1998: four members (the above plus Max Lanfranconi and Maurizio Begotti) While Carlo isn't credited in the liner notes for Family Of Light (if memory serves me correctly), he was involved in at least some of the tracks. He is credited on the Headspin EP, for example. But this is when he left (sometime during 1998 or possibly even late '97), and this was the first deadly blow to Etnica / Pleiadians. 1999: Family Of Light is released. While considered a very good album by most (including me) and having slightly fatter production than its predecessor, musically it is generally considered lacking, in comparison with I.F.O... It's my belief that this is, at least in part, due to the absence of Carlo Paternos melodic genious in some of the tracks. This is also the year the Etnica album Equator is released. Carlo didn't participate in any of the tracks here as far as I know, and while having a few quite OK tracks, it's nowhere near Alien Protein or other previous Etnica releases. 2000-2004: Somewhere after Equator, Andrea leaves the band. I'm not at home so I can't check my records to see exactly when this is, but with Nitrox Etnica takes another few steps down from the throne of melodic psychedelia. Now Andrea has left too, and there is nothing left in this band for me. I never bought Nitrox. At no point since they became a two-man act have Etnica / Pleiadians been close to revoking the magic vibes and musical genious of the early years. Song structures and arrangements became far less complex, the sounds lost their unique touch, melodies have been mediocre if they could be found at all. Sure, there have been a few tracks worth a listen, but in perspective, it's a sad development. Also, Pleiadians was Carlo Paterno's project initially; He made the first Pleiadians track all by himself, the self-titled "Pleiadians" (or so I'm told) released on Symbiosis in 1995. Apparantly he wasn't too happy to see the others continue under this name after his departure. You don't listen to I.F.O. or any other old Pleiadians stuff for the percussion or stuff like that. You listen because of the mesmerizing, trance-inducing, multi-layered kaleidoscopic explosions of sound and melody, the sense of journey created by those amazing arrangements, melodies and scales. That stuff is, in my humble opinion, unequalled in the history of music. Now whatever may come out of a new Pleiadians album, I have a very very hard time imagining that it can be good in the ways that old Pleiadians music was good. I don't need a clone of I.F.O, I don't demand another Headspin, but the essence of Pleiadians, both musically and in terms of its effect on my mind and others, seems out of reach by Max and Maurizio. It could be that they're not striving for that, but if so I have absolutely no idea what they're trying to do or why. It's my opinion that they would be better off doing something else or sticking with the Etnica name that they have already degraded in the eyes of myself and of many others that were fans from back in 1995. Looking at the track record of the two-man constellation of Etnica, I just don't think they have it in them. Listen to their releases on Spirit Zone for example, or the sad abomination that is "Starship 202" - do you seriously think that the people who made that can produce an album worthy of the Pleiadians name? Either they've lost their magic somewhere along the road, or, more likely, that magic left with the departure of the prodigous Carlo Paterno and Andrea Rizzo. This ended up being much longer than I had planned, but I feel very strongly about this topic - old Etnica and Pleiadians tunes have had an enormous impact on me and my taste in music - It would make me very sad to see the second of those names get dragged in the dirt just like the first.