Jump to content

most talented artist/band in the scene?


Celaripo

Recommended Posts

Interesting discussion this one, and not an easy question to answer, but probably Juno Reactor.

Their skills together with musical ideas, and the fact that they were among the pioneers but constantly evolved with the desire to innovate... overall they are the most impressive and talented to me, if I have to give only 1 name anyway!

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting discussion this one, and not an easy question to answer, but probably Juno Reactor. Their skills together with musical ideas, and the fact that they were among the pioneers but constantly evolved with the desire to innovate... overall they are the most impressive and talented to me, if I have to give only 1 name anyway!

That or.... Elysium. For me his sound defines Goa Trance and he never failed to deliver.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For right now, the one artist who consistently impresses and surprises me is Leigh Griffiths (ECT)

 

For all time, though? Graham Wood. Mystical Experiences, some of Feeling Weird, and some of the Blowfish album still leave me wondering how the hell he did it. I know he had some help from collaborators (Posford, Raja), but still. Totally alien, out of this world sounds.

 

And not just talking about the sound design, I've never found a piece of electronic music that was as ingeniously put together as The Answer or Under The Overtones. To me Wood is up there with Tangerine Dream, Eno, ect. as one of THE central, yet (outside of our little scene) unsung figures in ambient music.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me, "talented" means someone who's very versatile, who can effortlessly create all sorts of music, alone or with others, slow and fast, electronic and not, etc. It's someone who's able to break the rules, fuse different influences and create something new from it. Real musicians who simply chose to express themselves through psychedelic trance (or its derivatives).

 

There's very few people who meet those criteria in our scene: Simon Posford, Erez Aizen (1/2 of IM), Bill Halsey (Cosmosis), Son Kite / Minilogue, oCeLoT, Nikolay Golutvin (Furious / Crazy Astronaut / Delirious Noon), Sergei Nazarenko (Enichkin), etc.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget Seb Taylor!

 

That being said, the derango guys blow pretty much everything out of the water when it comes to sound design, even though they confine themselves to one genre... Or do they?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget Seb Taylor!

 

That being said, the derango guys blow pretty much everything out of the water when it comes to sound design, even though they confine themselves to one genre... Or do they?

i don't like their dakpsy/forest much (it's an innovative take but still has everything i don't like about that genre), but they make great weird psychill.

 

@topic

i'd have to agree with simon, mwnn, but also have to add chi-a.d. and eat static (and let's not forget etnica/pleiadians; whoever is responsible for the melodies in ifo is certainly among the most talented).

especially eat static fits antic's description of making good, innovative music regardless of the genre and the circumstances — in addition to playing a part in shaping the sound of goa/psy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My personnel top (per style):

 

-Melodic/melancholic: California Sunshine, ManWithNoName (Teleport album) & Electric Universe,

-Funky: KoxBox & Green House Effect,

-Acidic: Bassline Baby, Color Box & Hallucinogen,

-Dark: Xenomporh & UX,

-Psytrance (not mistaken with Full On): Pigs In Space, Wizzy Noise (the 90's unrl tracks), MFG (album The message) & Etnica (from '97-'99).

 

What they all have in common (imo)?

a )  Good production - not clean but clear and distinct with always deep/organic kicks and baselines with a solid melody and climaxes/melodies that always have the right sound,

b )  Good mixing skills - the music layers interact always to form a whole,

c )  A unique sound - everyone knows who made the track, there is a big sense of identity, there is no urge to imitate what is popular,

d )  Important: not loud, not noisy, but balanced in sound and volume: not need to make music that (only) 'sounds good on a big system' - lol!

e )  All are deeply trancy in effect on the mind when you listen to the details, there is a trance journey they take you on, the tracks tell a story like a book. They are really composing music from out a very rich musical background (the psy rock from the 70's, the synths and music styles from the 80's where the Goa-blend comes from) ... and not programming notes into a computer or simulating an existing sound from the '90s or so on.

 

-Newer goa (not a diffrent style, just another period & in no particular order and to my personnel taste):

Artha, M-Run, Ufomatka, Ra, Lapsus, Morphic Resonance & Kethzal.

I feel these really contributed some unique energy and their own interpretation to the scene that I think these guys  music will last the coming generations and beyond.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

astral projection. Simply because from start to finish, they have produced three genious album Masterpieces.

Dancing Galaxy, Another World, Amen.

 

:)

Although Artifact303 or Nova Fractal is close and I generally enjoy that style more these days. Astral get maybe 1 play or so, per year. Once youve listened to them 1000 times you can just go to memory whenever you wanna "listen" to a track.

For example I can turn on Nilaya or Infinite Justice in my brain right now. Mmm good stuff.

 

I cant think of another artist deserving the Nr 1 spot other than Astral.

Not even Simon, Etnica/Pleiadians or any other artist. Sorry, Astral takes the cake!

Top 3 would be Vibrasphere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll just add a few others that I think are super talented:

 

Jaia - TOP goa, psy prog (Fiction), chill and Giannis also makes cinematic music either alone or with collaborations

X-dream + their sideprojects

 

Subjectively, I'd say Ben Watkins, Sinom Posford and Merv Pepler are the most talented since they've made so much great music of different flavors (Coincidenty the are all British).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting question. How can talent be defined?

 

I would say Simon Posford, but for the last 15 years or so it seems he's stuck in his career, doing the same things over and over again, even though great talent and the ability to do more is quite evident in his productions IMO. But I guess it's tempting, if you anyway like what you do, and earn a lot of money and get all the nice things that come along with fame. Every track of AP and MWNN sounds like the same basically, using the same sounds over and over. But I don't think anybody here would claim that they are not talented musicians. 

 

Somebody might have good attention to detail, somebody might be good in having a firm grip about what makes people dance, somebody might be a talented sound designer... And so on.

 

So eventually this goes back to people considering talent to be somebody's ability to provide them with whatever they like personally :D

 

Personally I value the most:

A meticulous artisan approach to details and sound design

A good musical sense on melody and counterpoint (writing several simultaneous melody lines, I'm not counting arpeggios etc to this) too if possible. 

The ability to move freely between genres and meld different and contrasting ideas in one song, and showing the ability to write music in different styles, instead of just repeating a genre formula.

And since we are talking about dance music: The ability to make the music approachable and fun to dance... Showing off your skills just for the sake of it is not a sign of a great artist :)

Staying true to a strong original vision, being able to reach out to people with the music.

 

So maybe... Simon Posford, Erez Eisen... Kox Box, Texas Faggott, Juno Reactor, Ubar Tmar. I appreciate Terrafractyl's work a lot from more recent music, but since I didn't follow new releases for the last 15 years there's probably more out :) I'm not sure of any of these people got every point on my list down, though... I think on the chillout releases I hear more talent, since I guess the more broadly defined genre allows for more flowering of the imagination. Like I was pretty impressed with Kaminanda when I heard his music for the first time, it was completely unheard to me at that time to hear so much talent lately in trance-influenced music :)

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Taika-Kim, that's an excellent breakdown! It does indeed sound like you are describing Simon Posford's productions, particularly early Shpongle. Yet I would go further...

 

The music goes so far beyond satisfying just that criteria, that it becomes amazingly FUN. It is a joyous journey that is PLAYING or TOYING with your subconscious. And Posford makes it seem so effortless. That's true talent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its Simon.

No one else has come close to that kind of effortlessness in production and of creating a journey quite like him.

Felix/Terrafractyl is musically there as well obviously but its a matter of taste if you like the music or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its Simon.

No one else has come close to that kind of effortlessness in production and of creating a journey quite like him.

Felix/Terrafractyl is musically there as well obviously but its a matter of taste if you like the music or not.

 

 

Your moniker leads me to believe you have some bias in this topic... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...