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astral projection


gallowglass

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I saw Astral Projection live this year. Had the luck that they played a little bit more older stuff than they do usually in their sets nowadays (judging from other AP live reviews on here) as I saw them, which was quite an experience as I've not listened to old school goa trance live before that. But well, of course they played much new stuff as well. And I gotta tell you, I've never felt the difference between the old stuff and the new stuff as much and as significant as in that set, despite that I like the Open Society track. The new stuff has not even half the power than the old stuff...

 

But anyway, if you have not seen them before then go for it! It's a nice experience, they are cool guys and I doubt the music will get much better in the future, so if the ticket price doesn't make you bankrupt I'd strongly suggest to go, you surely won't regret it ... it's Astral Projection, man :)

 

about the websites I'd advise what Rez said, it's my main source for party infos ... although it must be admitted that this website has its main focus on Germany, Austria and Switzerland...

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Aren't these guys supposed to release their next main album soon? Tracks with High Society I think??

 

What's taking so long? What's the status??!!

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well, it turns out they are in london on the 2nd and ill be on a plane that day...but in light of what you guys said and the isratrance thread i probably wouldnt go anyway. and since it sounds like they get ~5000$US+ for an appearence i probably wouldnt want to pay the admission price (almost certainly ridiculously expensive). ill keep my eye on goabase.de; hopefully something else turns up.

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PA

Public Adress

 

meaning a sound amplifying system to adress a large crowd, not just with recordplayers, amplifiers, but with micro's, keyboards, and any other instrument inputs and amplifiers possible, commonly (depending on the area to be adressed) with a huge speaker array and tonz of cable.

Basically you can interpret PA as being 'big soundsystem with alotta technical shit to it' so any dj-performance on almost any soundsystem (no technical definition to Public Adress) would be 'PA DJ-set' or 'PA Live set' ,but the nuance in live playing lies in wether all the keyboards and drum machines etc etc (for a psytrance live act) are really hooked to the main mixer and are manually operated during the set, you could even have all these machines working and program them to do everything for you, so it still wouldn't be live. the gradations of live are so vast and intense that it's impossible to define if something is 100% live or not. the options have become so wide there is no more strict way of how to do something or how it is done, it's rather the artist choosing his ideas and working it out to bring it like he wants, based upon his ideas and desires, he must make choices in the range of what is possible to attain, and what is impossible to do live, (leaving lazyness out of the loop here :P) the most common used technique is to make everything (the whole hour/longer) in one big wav file, and just let it play, while tweaking mixer eq for show so you're certain that you have a class A musical show with no risks of failure. another frequent (more live)technique is to also record everything, but you leave out all the lines you can play with your one synth you're bringing (or ask for) so you still have some certainty and ease during the set, also recording it in full and bringing it on a cd, and starting that cd together with your live prepared wav file to have the cd as backup for when the laptop fails, (xD) is something i've seen :P so the myth of 'live playing' is actually situated in a steaming electronic jungle where the player needs to make choices on how he can get through it safely.

 

Personally, i've seen tom cosm's video and i think by manually sequencing everything you take alot out of the flow of your live set, drop-ins aren't perfect and it all sounds a bit to shabby for me, i'd prefer a perfect live playback set where everything is sure to come in key and with all the trippy impossible-to-do-live-button-bashing-crazyness fx build ups and pan swingz, swooshing and swiishing to the random outcome of button-pushing and aiming to do something because of some weirdo ideal of 'doing it live' which is rather impossible in our beloved 145 bpm mechanotrance subgenre.

 

I mean, the music should be good right? :blink:

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"Live PA" = "I am hitting play on my laptop, monitoring EQ, and looking busy."

Well, if you want a LIVE then you ask for a live, if you want a LIVE PA, then you will get one. People get this confused though and that is the problem. They dont know what to expect. Personally I think PA is a joke, then I might just ask them to DJ and play their own tracks.
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Personally, i've seen tom cosm's video and i think by manually sequencing everything you take alot out of the flow of your live set, drop-ins aren't perfect and it all sounds a bit to shabby for me, i'd prefer a perfect live playback set where everything is sure to come in key and with all the trippy impossible-to-do-live-button-bashing-crazyness fx build ups and pan swingz, swooshing and swiishing to the random outcome of button-pushing and aiming to do something because of some weirdo ideal of 'doing it live' which is rather impossible in our beloved 145 bpm mechanotrance subgenre.

 

I mean, the music should be good right? :blink:

Dude, I have seen Tom Cosm live numerous times. So what are you saying? That he sounds shabby? Live means live for him and he is fucking good when he does it! Sorry to be a bit off-topic, but don't diss Tom Cosm!!!

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Dude, I have seen Tom Cosm live numerous times. So what are you saying? That he sounds shabby? Live means live for him and he is fucking good when he does it! Sorry to be a bit off-topic, but don't diss Tom Cosm!!!

hehe ok man

 

we all feel different ways

 

this tom cosm is selling 'live' instead of good music

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Well, a real 100% live set is what you'll see when you go to an unplugged concert. Even in the metal scene it is common to run some layers like big choruses, instruments like arctic horns or whatever complex synth layer from a recorder in the back despite that the main instruments such as guitars and drums and keyboards are played totally live.

 

It's just about the reason why you go to a gig. I don't go because I want to see a totally technically skiled live set. Such things are cool, but since it's very difficult to do things live it's quite seldom. The main reason for me to go when some psy artist comes and plays a gig here is to hear his sound! It's at such gigs where you might hear some unreleased treasures or new versions of tracks right off the HD of the laptop of the composer! And that's what I'm after! If the sound is good and the "live act" does at least a bit to keep it a bit dynamic (like this "only one synth layer live"-technique) and doesn't just press play on the lappy that's all I'm looking for. And so far I had the impression that every live act I saw until now did it like that. I sometimes also walked up and asked them and that's mostly what they said, that they had a prerecorded set and played a synth layer here or rearranged a bit there :)

 

And even if it was all fake from Astal (which I don't believe, the guys were not drunk and they were not just standing around doing nothing), I enjoyed it big time! And that's actually all that counts. And at least I was very happy to enjoy a bit (at least a bit) more of the old stuff than they play on other sets nowadays and not only new and boring remixes (like buzzman said) with maybe People Can Fly thrown in once ... these guys made me finally "understand" oldschool, even if it was just for a few songs :)

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hehe ok man

 

we all feel different ways

 

this tom cosm is selling 'live' instead of good music

strydr, how many of Tom Cosm's completed and mastered tracks do you own or have listened to? Just because Tom Cosm have posted a couple of videos on youtube on how to play electronic music live does not mean that the making good music is out of his boundaries. He makes some really good music (electro-prog crossover) that are DJ and crowd favourites in both New Zealand and Australia. He is fucking amazing live!!!

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Well, if you want a LIVE then you ask for a live, if you want a LIVE PA, then you will get one. People get this confused though and that is the problem. They dont know what to expect. Personally I think PA is a joke, then I might just ask them to DJ and play their own tracks.

I don't feel that promoters or even the artist themselves are very rigorous about ensuring a proper distinction between live and "live PA." Pretty much every A-list progressive act that breezes through my town plays a relatively short set (one hour and change) featuring the tracks from their latest album in a different order with a few unrecognizable (probably unreleased) tunes sprinkled throughout. What I don't understand is this... progressive psytrance sounds as if it would be a really good match for adding a live element to the performance--fresh loops, surprise drops, slight twists on a steady, hypnotic melody--but I pretty much never hear it. Watching Son Kite live on Youtube you can tell they take it seriously. Nuclear Ramjet reinvents their music every time I hear them, Tegma rocks out with some funky box that spits out fun snare rolls and other little nuances, Reefer Decree used to bust out an electronic drum set, and Mino had a full kit at some of his shows. Last time I saw Dark Soho the guitar riffs were rockin', and back in the good old days you could always count on Erez to riff it up on his little keyboard.

 

Most of the other guys I've seen in the last few years simply prearranged a set as near as I can tell. No interactivity, just a robotic music presentation. It's really dull, even when I'm totally into the artist's work. The thing is, all this stuff gets billed as "live." Oftentimes the promoters don't even know what they're getting. You're right, it's a joke.

 

The main reason for me to go when some psy artist comes and plays a gig here is to hear his sound! It's at such gigs where you might hear some unreleased treasures or new versions of tracks right off the HD of the laptop of the composer! And that's what I'm after! If the sound is good and the "live act" does at least a bit to keep it a bit dynamic (like this "only one synth layer live"-technique) and doesn't just press play on the lappy that's all I'm looking for.

That's fine by me. The choice isn't simply live or not live. I think we all recognize the innate difficulty of playing electronic music live. At the same time, there is immense potential to put a live spin on things, to truly manipulate recognizable portions of a song in real-time. The fact that so many big producers don't is a real shame.

 

PS Tom Cosm rocks!

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strydr, how many of Tom Cosm's completed and mastered tracks do you own or have listened to? Just because Tom Cosm have posted a couple of videos on youtube on how to play electronic music live does not mean that the making good music is out of his boundaries. He makes some really good music (electro-prog crossover) that are DJ and crowd favourites in both New Zealand and Australia. He is fucking amazing live!!!

ok man i'll give it another try

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Hi :)

 

Sorry to intrude on thread, but when I start getting hits on my website I like to see whats up.

 

You're most welcome to download, listen, and spread my music. It's all free.. here are direct links to my latest three tunes in 320kpbs mp3 files.

 

http://www.cosm.co.nz/music/Tom%20Cosm%20-...adio%20Edit.mp3

 

http://www.cosm.co.nz/music/Module_-_All_T...sm_Remix%29.mp3

 

http://www.cosm.co.nz/music/Tom_Cosm_-_OMG..._Party_Time.mp3

 

There's more at http://www.cosm.co.nz if you are interested.

 

I hope that can help clear any issues up, and if you're not happy of the quality of my sound, I always encourage anyone to help make my project better, regarless of your technical ability, I listen to everyone.

 

Thanks!

 

-Tom

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I think it's one side of the story. I wouldn't pay too much attention to what he's saying.

"then they wanted to receive the money and the conversation was:

astral proj.: "WHERE IS MY MONEY!"???!!!

party producer: "WHERE IS MY LIVE ACT"???!!!

astral proj.: "I WANT MY MONEY"!!!! IM FROM ISRAEL"???!!!

party producer: "OH YEAH; AND IM FROM PORTUGAL"!!!! and the party producer beat in him twice"

 

I cannot believe that. This is too ridiculous to be true.

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