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The major styles of psytrance


Basilisk

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If you had to make the shortest, most accurate list of the major psytrance styles, what would it include? I've got something like this:

 

Full-On, Progressive, Techtrance, Darkpsy, Downtempo, Goa...

 

But of course this doesn't catch everything. I'd include Suomi but so much of that style isn't actually made in Finland; does the term still apply? Could I get away with using "experimental" as a catch-all for stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else?

 

I'll make no secret of it; I'm asking because I'm working on a new feature for Ektoplazm... something originally requested here on Psynews, actually: the ability to browse free releases by style. Of course, nothing is ever completely accurate... but I'm hoping to capture the most music with the least number of bins, and I welcome input from the community to achieve something that will piss off the least amount of people :D

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I think if you wanna keep it as short as possible and dont get into too much detail your list is perfect. Except instead Suomi I would use experimental to include all the australian weird stuff and psybreaks etc...

 

And, if anyrecords cross-over, like Ace Ventura for example, you could give it 2 tags (full-on and prog. in that case).

 

You hearby have the official "GSH seal of approval" :P

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If you had to make the shortest, most accurate list of the major psytrance styles, what would it include? I've got something like this:

 

Full-On, Progressive, Techtrance, Darkpsy, Downtempo, Goa...

 

But of course this doesn't catch everything. I'd include Suomi but so much of that style isn't actually made in Finland; does the term still apply? Could I get away with using "experimental" as a catch-all for stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else?

 

I'll make no secret of it; I'm asking because I'm working on a new feature for Ektoplazm... something originally requested here on Psynews, actually: the ability to browse free releases by style. Of course, nothing is ever completely accurate... but I'm hoping to capture the most music with the least number of bins, and I welcome input from the community to achieve something that will piss off the least amount of people :D

 

yep your list pretty much catches it all... although I think that minimal lovers will argue that minimal and progressive are 2 different things (but I don't care, both styles are just as boring if you ask me lol)

 

I would also recommend somehow making 2 larger subgroups "morning" and "night" to differentiate the feeling of an album (for example some full-on is for the dark hours and some is for the morning)

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Yes, I'd say you list catches the just of it. It's those country-specific styles that are hard. Like you mention suomi and then we have the South African style but I guess you can get away with full-on there. If you replace full-on with psytrance, you will get away with more imo :) But then again, one could argue that all those spawned from psytrance. Ah, what the hell!

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IMO

 

Goa-This includes all styles of Goa (Old School, New School, Nitzho etc.)

Full On-This includes all styles of Full On (Poppy, Israeli, SA, Dark, Hard etc.)

Progressive-This includes Tectrance too since IMO most of them sound Proggy in my ears. Also minimal, trancey, housey psy etc.

Darkpsy-This includes Forest, Russian style, Psycore, Horror etc.

Experimental-Suomi, Australian, genres fusion, weird stuff

Ambient/Downtempo-From beatless ambient to Shpongle

and just plain Psytrance-For everything else, like MEEO for example or the old IM.

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"Ambient/Downtempo-From beatless ambient to Shpongle"

 

That's not really a style of psyTRANCE, one could argue.

IMO eveyone who use the word Psytrance means the whole scene, not just the dance music.

The same with other genres like IDM.

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IMO

 

Goa-This includes all styles of Goa (Old School, New School, Nitzho etc.)

Full On-This includes all styles of Full On (Poppy, Israeli, SA, Dark, Hard etc.)

Progressive-This includes Tectrance too since IMO most of them sound Proggy in my ears. Also minimal, trancey, housey psy etc.

Darkpsy-This includes Forest, Russian style, Psycore, Horror etc.

Experimental-Suomi, Australian, genres fusion, weird stuff

Ambient/Downtempo-From beatless ambient to Shpongle

and just plain Psytrance-For everything else, like MEEO for example or the old IM.

wow...

 

this is exactly how i look at the psytrance scene :clapping:

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Untsiboof For example Cosmosis, Mindfield

Woinglishprooing For example Hallucinogen

Waabldaat For example Astral Projection, Dimension 5, Etnica

Mpfprr For example Ubar Tmar, Necton, Ticon

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Untsiboof For example Cosmosis, Mindfield

Woinglishprooing For example Hallucinogen

Waabldaat For example Astral Projection, Dimension 5, Etnica

Mpfprr For example Ubar Tmar, Necton, Ticon

waabldaat, played that last weekend! great power and nostalgia!
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IMO

 

Goa-This includes all styles of Goa (Old School, New School, Nitzho etc.)

Full On-This includes all styles of Full On (Poppy, Israeli, SA, Dark, Hard etc.)

Progressive-This includes Tectrance too since IMO most of them sound Proggy in my ears. Also minimal, trancey, housey psy etc.

Darkpsy-This includes Forest, Russian style, Psycore, Horror etc.

Experimental-Suomi, Australian, genres fusion, weird stuff

Ambient/Downtempo-From beatless ambient to Shpongle

and just plain Psytrance-For everything else, like MEEO for example or the old IM.

Forest

Tribal

 

(Sub?)styles like Nizhonot and Suomi could help people looking for really specific recommendations.

 

P.S. Someone once said MEEO was glitch.

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Untsiboof For example Cosmosis, Mindfield

Woinglishprooing For example Hallucinogen

Waabldaat For example Astral Projection, Dimension 5, Etnica

Mpfprr For example Ubar Tmar, Necton, Ticon

:lol:

 

Ambient has nothing to do with psytrance :D

+1

 

I guess it's debatable whether "chillout" does it not and to what extent.

 

I don't really like the idea of calling all these substyles of psytrance anyways... even psytrance a subsyle of psytrance? :blink:

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Except instead Suomi I would use experimental to include all the australian weird stuff and psybreaks etc...

 

And, if anyrecords cross-over, like Ace Ventura for example, you could give it 2 tags (full-on and prog. in that case).

Why not give psybreaks a distinct category, since its very easily "classified" and doesn't really fit with the rest in the experimental pot?!

 

and double (tripple even) tagging would be very good, so cross-over stuff will be easy to label, and at the same time give a better idea about the music.

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Psy breaks are seemingly quite fashionable in the uk again there are a fews clubs (mainly in the wider London area) pushing that sound. I think it's strange that the psychedelic trance scene from almost the world go the sound was never quite good enough and people from day 1 started to create sub genres.

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IMO

 

Goa-This includes all styles of Goa (Old School, New School, Nitzho etc.)

Full On-This includes all styles of Full On (Poppy, Israeli, SA, Dark, Hard etc.)

Progressive-This includes Tectrance too since IMO most of them sound Proggy in my ears. Also minimal, trancey, housey psy etc.

Darkpsy-This includes Forest, Russian style, Psycore, Horror etc.

Experimental-Suomi, Australian, genres fusion, weird stuff

Ambient/Downtempo-From beatless ambient to Shpongle

and just plain Psytrance-For everything else, like MEEO for example or the old IM.

Yes, this is how I see it... but I'm having trouble with "just psytrance" since it isn't really a sub-style or type of psytrance per se... I mean, it's all psytrance (or close enough) but how does MEEO or Prometheus or any of those guys fit? It's not full-on in the conventional sense... still have to sort that one out.

 

Here's the working list:

 

Full-On. Progressive, Techtrance, Darkpsy, Goa, Techno, Downtempo, Experimental...

 

Some styles such as night/morning/twilight can be rolled into full-on or progressive or darkpsy. Same with forest music. We know it's not the same... but these are just high-level tags, nothing more.

 

You can see it in action now:

http://www.ektoplazm.com/section/free-music/

 

Click on any of the styles listed just under the title of a release. Still a lot of work to be done here but I think the above categories cover 95% of what's on the site--and that's great for a start.

 

Props to supergroover for prompting me to get this done :posford:

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Yes, this is how I see it... but I'm having trouble with "just psytrance" since it isn't really a sub-style or type of psytrance per se... I mean, it's all psytrance (or close enough) but how does MEEO or Prometheus or any of those guys fit? It's not full-on in the conventional sense... still have to sort that one out.

How about Freestyle? Free of styles?

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You can see it in action now:

http://www.ektoplazm.com/section/free-music/

 

Click on any of the styles listed just under the title of a release.

Very nice, but why not stick direct links to all the genres somewhere? It would be nice to be able to go straight to a genre without having to find a release with that tag first.

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Psytrance describes a lot of music from 99-03 at least, it's neither goa nor fullon nor progressive.

 

It's a term to describe a type of music.

 

It's NOT an overarching term (IMO).

 

Maybe you should call these divisions of Psychedelic Music or something.

 

Ambient has nothing "trance" about it. Some of the chillout has other beats too.

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