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The future of Psytrance (2017 edition) ... "warmed up re-releases"?


RTP

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(read down to the bottom of second post for explanation if you are bewildered ... like me for example)

 

Hey Psynews folks

I just stumbled upon this:

(jeez I hate this huge video pop in ... darn can't change it now)

This seems to be quite fresh, ain't it?

Is this the direction Psytrance is going "in the future"?
These days, everything is oozing of Celldweller in my Youtube suggestions...
But it might be that musically I am cruising a lot in the keel waters of Celldweller, Scandroid and the rest that this guy named Klayton is putting out.

I really like the music he does ... but this ... reminds me of Skazi. Which I loathed back then.
Nowadays ... I even see it fitting. Kinda. Fitting to the state we are in.

Is this our future? Moving closer to the cyberpunk-metal territory? We actually never were that far away were we? Is the world falling apart? Or is it just me?

What is your future of psytrance in 2017?

Edited by RTP
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This track has been released in 2008 as I read up :-D
Fell for it.

On second thought:

Warmed up Re-releases? Is that, in fact, the future?

It seems it is.

Did it fool you too?

(sorry for the editing mess - I hope no one notices :) )

Edited by RTP
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7 hours ago, RTP said:

Did it fool you too?

no. at fist listen i thought: this is so 10 years ago ;)

it's pop-fullon. horribly cheesy, formulaic but energetic. that kind of music doesn't exist anymore.

nowaways that niche of music (and i'm not even choosing an especially horrible example) sounds like this:

it's not quite as cheesy, at least as formulaic as the track above and not energetic at all. there are more breaks and builds than sections with beat.

you could at least dance to that growling machines track if you could manage to not puke from all the cheese, but this kind of music is extremely frustrating.
"oh now finally a good section, maybe i should dance? no, i've not even started and we're in a huge break again.". this is then closely followed by "wtf, triplets again!".
too many producers nowadays take loud's "why psytrance has become shit" as an instruction manual.

 

the question of the week is: tristan is coming to my city but he's accompanied by three (!) israelis making above mentioned bullshit music (including that berg guy). would you rather catch tristan's set and go back home or would you boycott such an event in hope to influence organisers to not invite horrible "artists"?

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7 hours ago, Padmapani said:
  • the question of the week is: tristan is coming to my city but he's accompanied by three (!) israelis making above mentioned bullshit music (including that berg guy). would you rather catch tristan's set and go back home or would you boycott such an event in hope to influence organisers to not invite horrible "artists"?

I avoid but I'm sure it doesnt make any difference as we are waaaay too outnumbered to be making a difference. Large part of the crowd thinks, this is Psytrance. 

 

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This is so called 'Pop Full On' and it's dead for some 4-5 years now. 

Padmapani gave you an example of what is future of 'psytrance'. They call it 'Future Prog' and it's just kick/bass variations, some percussive work, shamanic/hindu vocals, mantras etc. Minimalistic and commercial approach for masses. It's terrible but Brazil/Israel pushed this too much, now if you do this you get payed 5-10k euro per gig or more, first class or charter flights, ************** hotels... People are actually getting so fucking rich pretty fast having 10-15 gigs per month and got payed like this.

 

 

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20 hours ago, Imba said:

This is so called 'Pop Full On' and it's dead for some 4-5 years now. 

Padmapani gave you an example of what is future of 'psytrance'. They call it 'Future Prog' and it's just kick/bass variations, some percussive work, shamanic/hindu vocals, mantras etc. Minimalistic and commercial approach for masses. It's terrible but Brazil/Israel pushed this too much, now if you do this you get payed 5-10k euro per gig or more, first class or charter flights, ************** hotels... People are actually getting so fucking rich pretty fast having 10-15 gigs per month and got payed like this.

yeah, that's exactly what i ment above. the upcoming event has berg, blastoyz and some guy called bubble. listening to the samples all three are indistinguishable, all belonging to "future prog", which seems to be the replacement for the more commercial fullon variants.

 

have you though about doing a futureprog side project? when you tell me 5-10k € per gig i certainly question if i should spend some time in producing that sort of music ;-). making some nicely mixed kick+bass and applying some tried and true blueprints to turn it into a track is a lot less work than composing goa trance. but i guess (as always when talking about commercial music) it matters much more if you're a big name or if you have good connections than the music itself.

isn't it time for the worldwide psytrance scene to recognise that the israeli and brazilian mainstream scene play by different standards and lost all connection to what makes psy psy? why is it that their worst music always finds a prominent place among the underground scenes we have everywhere else?

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Thank you for these two horrible tracks ... I now know that I am not missing out such a lot by not going much to parties anymore.

Safe the artists I already know, the density of "good stuff" that keeps coming has decreased to some quite little.

Never thought I'd say that one day.

But the future is bright - there's still lots of (electronic) music to discover for me! It may not always be on the "psy" side of genre, but psy enough for me that I like to listen to it...

 

Anyway:

On 5.10.2017 at 4:49 AM, Padmapani said:

the question of the week is: tristan is coming to my city but he's accompanied by three (!) israelis making above mentioned bullshit music (including that berg guy). would you rather catch tristan's set and go back home or would you boycott such an event in hope to influence organisers to not invite horrible "artists"?

Linz? :) 

I would go there and do it the way I always do these days: plan it notoriously and show up only for Tristan (which, by the way, is a fair game priced at 20 Euro) ... that is, if there was a timetable.

If there was no timetable and no way I could find out when Tristan plays (sometimes the timetable is posted at the event and you have to wait till the last minute), I'd just stay home.

Welcome to my future by the way. I almost only do it like that anymore when I go to a bigger gig (which already has become seldom enough) ... planning with the timetable. Sometimes I even come by car - and drive home after the act I wanted to see...

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1 hour ago, RTP said:

Linz? :) 

I would go there and do it the way I always do these days: plan it notoriously and show up only for Tristan (which, by the way, is a fair game priced at 20 Euro) ... that is, if there was a timetable.

If there was no timetable and no way I could find out when Tristan plays (sometimes the timetable is posted at the event and you have to wait till the last minute), I'd just stay home.

Welcome to my future by the way. I almost only do it like that anymore when I go to a bigger gig (which already has become seldom enough) ... planning with the timetable. Sometimes I even come by car - and drive home after the act I wanted to see...

genau.

yeah, 20 for such an unusual location is quite ok. in vienna you'd pay that for a smaller venue with a shitty sound system and only one international headliner. that's why i'm considering going. normally i'd simply stay home, but i even missed out going to a festival this year and i've been at a total of 2 parties this year. so i've become less picky than usual ;)
sounds like a good plan. 

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On 06.10.2017 at 5:35 PM, Padmapani said:

"future prog"

I noted that whenever there is a subgenre having "future" in its name, it always turns out to be utter crap. Futurebass, future house, future gar(b)age, now futureprog.

What bothers me the most is that this "futureprog" seems to have totally replaced proper progressive psy.  Tracks like this are nowhere to be found in last two years of so.

 Even when there are tracks with nice sounds/melodies/atmospheres they are mostly ruined by overcompressed basslines and endless buildups, breaks, risers, swooshes and other EDMish nonsence, which is by nature totally incompatible with progressive sound.

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23 hours ago, recursion loop said:

I noted that whenever there is a subgenre having "future" in its name, it always turns out to be utter crap. Futurebass, future house, future gar(b)age, now futureprog.

What bothers me the most is that this "futureprog" seems to have totally replaced proper progressive psy.  Tracks like this are nowhere to be found in last two years of so.

 Even when there are tracks with nice sounds/melodies/atmospheres they are mostly ruined by overcompressed basslines and endless buildups, breaks, risers, swooshes and other EDMish nonsence, which is by nature totally incompatible with progressive sound.

 

Well, these builds/breaks/swooshes etc are just methods to break the monotony and stretch the length of the tune.

Such transitions are very good for creating comprehensible structure.

If your track is monotonous and loopy (90 % of the electronic music) or nonstop changing (serialism, electro-acoustic music by 20-21st century composer), it will most likely suck, because of the lack of comprehensible structure.

I like more these Berg style tracks than "let's reapeat 1 bar bassline over 8 minutes with some sound fx on top of it".

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2 hours ago, mundo said:

 

Well, these builds/breaks/swooshes etc are just methods to break the monotony and stretch the length of the tune.

Such transitions are very good for creating comprehensible structure.

If your track is monotonous and loopy (90 % of the electronic music) or nonstop changing (serialism, electro-acoustic music by 20-21st century composer), it will most likely suck, because of the lack of comprehensible structure.

I like more these Berg style tracks than "let's reapeat 1 bar bassline over 8 minutes with some sound fx on top of it".

Swooshes, breaks etc are good when used with taste and fit the musical context but not when the whole track consists of them.

That E-Clip track I've posted has a lot going on, various textures, melodies, layers, but the most improtant thing is the track sructure - it slowly evolves, embraces you and sucks you in. There are lot of changes along the way but they all are interconnected somehow, the track as a whole tells a story. This is what I call progressive. That Berg track is just a bunch of unrelated melodies, samples, risers and snare rolls thrown over the beat. Tracks like that may be nice for jumping along and pumping fists in the air but they don't contain anything of what I'm looking for in psytrance and especially in the progressive subgenre. Is thiks that's a form of EDM rather than psytrance. 

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12 hours ago, mundo said:

If your track is monotonous and loopy (90 % of the electronic music)... it will most likely suck

Are you serious? Must not be a techno fan. 

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16 hours ago, recursion loop said:

Swooshes, breaks etc are good when used with taste and fit the musical context but not when the whole track consists of them.

That E-Clip track I've posted has a lot going on, various textures, melodies, layers, but the most improtant thing is the track sructure - it slowly evolves, embraces you and sucks you in. There are lot of changes along the way but they all are interconnected somehow, the track as a whole tells a story. This is what I call progressive. That Berg track is just a bunch of unrelated melodies, samples, risers and snare rolls thrown over the beat. Tracks like that may be nice for jumping along and pumping fists in the air but they don't contain anything of what I'm looking for in psytrance and especially in the progressive subgenre. Is thiks that's a form of EDM rather than psytrance. 

EDM = electronic dance music, so psy is also EDM. You probably mean the anthem house/trance subgenre that just got renamed in the last years. We have seen other similar rebrandings of old formulas from the 90s with a new name - like all the "bass" subgenres.

Some of the biggest psy classics are melody driven and have many of the anthem/commercial whatever is the name characteristics. Are they bad? I prefer them over all the progressive, neo-, future stuff.

When the music devolves into an endless crescendo or various cut-up sections, we probably are dealing with uninspired artists, but I personally prefer the less predictable patterns than slow unfolding that goes from nowhere to nowhere. The whole psychedelic appeal of the electronic sounds was that they were exotic. Unfortunately, they don't belong in the exotic category anymore with all the electronic music saturation. What about all the Middle Eastern and Indian scales - are they psychedelic? Not really, they were exotic to the Western part of the world and completely trivial to the locals. For some 5 years old modulating the timbre of a loop with a filter may sound weird; I have heard this technique too many times to become impressed.

6 hours ago, Grayling said:

Are you serious? Must not be a techno fan. 

Man, I can go to the local gypsy musicians, if I want to hear quality techno with real tribal patterns and groove that is not mechanical.

Electronic only percussion music sucks big time. That's why the various trance genres are cool for me - they compensate the lifeless pulse with nice melodies and sound fx.

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5 hours ago, mundo said:

EDM = electronic dance music, so psy is also EDM. You probably mean the anthem house/trance subgenre that just got renamed in the last years. We have seen other similar rebrandings of old formulas from the 90s with a new name - like all the "bass" subgenres.

Yeah, I'm referring to this specific subspecies of electronic music with big basses, simple melodies, chopped pop vocal samples (or now it may be mantras or tribal chants because it is "psy" and "spiritual") and the compulsory white noise risers each 8 bars. It may have some elements of trance, house, dubstep, electro, now psytrance as well but in fact it is a self-contained genre which has nothing to do with any of these.

I guess it is more successfull at dancefloors because it attracts casual people who just want to dance, hang out and have a good time.  Therefore many of the former trance and psytrance artists are jumping on the EDM bandwagon and adapting their music like that "Long intros? Nah, people wouldn't dance to them. Lush pads, trippy textures, deep atmospheres? Screw that, people need fat bass and a simple tune to sing along. Ok, let's also drop some squelch and a Tibetan chant sample here, maybe some of the psytrance fans will still buy into this".

5 hours ago, mundo said:

The whole psychedelic appeal of the electronic sounds was that they were exotic. Unfortunately, they don't belong in the exotic category anymore with all the electronic music saturation. What about all the Middle Eastern and Indian scales - are they psychedelic? Not really, they were exotic to the Western part of the world and completely trivial to the locals. For some 5 years old modulating the timbre of a loop with a filter may sound weird; I have heard this technique too many times to become impressed.

 Actually I was listening to various electronic music, not only psytrance, for more than 10 years already, and even have made and released few tracks myself so at least I understand how these weird electronic sounds are made. But I'm still finding sounds, melodies and production tricks in various tracks that amaze me every now and then, but not in the EDM area. Not that I'm a genre purist, I agree that EDM serves its own purpose and has its own place but this is not what I will ever listen to on my own.

And after all you've said about the electronic music saturation and that what used to be weird and exotic is not exciting anymore (with which I agree to an extent), it's a bit puzzling that you are finding something valuable in tracks that sound like superficial recycling of the most cliched sounds and tricks, but well, whatever floats your boat.   

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2 hours ago, recursion loop said:

 

I... "Long intros? Nah, people wouldn't dance to them. Lush pads, trippy textures, deep atmospheres? .

 

Do you really think that dance music needs long intros?

Even way-way more sophisticated forms of music like the Western classical or jazz, or traditional world music -arabic, indian etc- need no intro and usually starts with a "hook" (but there is often a middle movement - slow tempo and lyrical melodies - at least in the classical genre).

DJs nowadays don't need 2 minutes of intro to count the measures to properly mix the track. Most djs nowadays just press the start button of their software or mixing table and start clapping hands in the air, while the machine does a better mix.

I'd rather eat my hat than listen to another 4 bar pad loop for minutes (popular formula not only in trance, but in dnb and dubstep too).

2 hours ago, recursion loop said:

" it's a bit puzzling that you are finding something valuable in tracks that sound like superficial recycling of the most cliched sounds and tricks"

How many Shpongle, Astral projection, Infected mushroom etc imitators are out there today? Even the original artists are recycling cliches, becoming a parody of their younger selves. I think that anyone can enjoy a well crafted commercial "tribal chant" track, while knowing that it's just a "fast food".

Full-on and neo-, prog-, dark etc I can't stand anymore - at some point I stopped listening to this type of music, because everyone was using the same bassline, samples and no melody at all. No, thank you.

 

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18 hours ago, mundo said:

Do you really think that dance music needs long intros?

Dance music probably doesn't. But I don't think about psytrance or progressive trance as strictly dance music. Actually I'm not much into dancing. I listen to psy at home, in my office or elsewhere where I can put my headphones on. I also prefer melodic tracks, but I love when music has many layers, deep atmosphere, various sound mutations and strange sounds (well, even if they are not strange anymore). What may seem a 4 bar loop put on repeat when you listen to it in passing may contain lots of tiny details and subtle changes that can make it very interesting when you listen to it closely. This is why I listen specifically to psytrance and psychill, good melodies as such may be found elsewhere. Also tracks for dancing and tracks for home listening may need different structure, when I have a 9 minute long track I expect it will tell a story, will have tension, anticipation and climax, or maybe few of them. If it needs a 2-minute long beatless intro to fully unfold then yes, it needs that intro. 

Obviously you are looking for something different in music and that's totally fine ofc. My only concern is that the general trend in progressive seems to be that it is moving from music being good for home listening to music strictly for dancing, adapted to general public and devoid of what makes psytrance interesting for me (progressive psy --> futureprog). Same thing happened to full-on years back. 

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so i've been to this event the past weekend. tristan was good (even though the sound system emphasised the bass so much that everything else was in the background or even inaudible) and blastoyz (at least the second half of his set) was as expected.

what i have noticed is that what serves as buildup to a climax in a tristan track is the "drop" in "futureprog" tracks. this explains why even the parts of a track with beat aren't at all suited for dancing for someone used to other kinds of psytrance.

in tristan's music a break often leads to a short groovy bass/kick pattern which leads to a climax with the hits and some psychedelic percussion coming in. they are accompanied by a steady regular kick/bass pattern which keeps you dancing for the coming few minutes.

for blastoyz on the other hand a break is followed by a goovy bass/kick pattern (most often lacking any melody and even hats) which is then followed by another break. it's intensely frustrating. the best part of his set was the melody of prodigy's voodoo people and even that was painfully slowed down.

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8 hours ago, Padmapani said:

for blastoyz on the other hand a break is followed by a goovy bass/kick pattern (most often lacking any melody and even hats) which is then followed by another break. it's intensely frustrating. the best part of his set was the melody of prodigy's voodoo people and even that was painfully slowed down.

So this futureprog is not even very good for dancing. What it is good for then? :P

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10 hours ago, recursion loop said:

So this futureprog is not even very good for dancing. What it is good for then? :P

i don't know. i thought that it seeks to maximise the opportunities for the crowd cheering (as in "give us the beat now"), but the crowd wasn't impressed at all.

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21 hours ago, Padmapani said:

so i've been to this event the past weekend. tristan was good (even though the sound system emphasised the bass so much that everything else was in the background or even inaudible) and blastoyz (at least the second half of his set) was as expected.

what i have noticed is that what serves as buildup to a climax in a tristan track is the "drop" in "futureprog" tracks. this explains why even the parts of a track with beat aren't at all suited for dancing for someone used to other kinds of psytrance.

in tristan's music a break often leads to a short groovy bass/kick pattern which leads to a climax with the hits and some psychedelic percussion coming in. they are accompanied by a steady regular kick/bass pattern which keeps you dancing for the coming few minutes.

for blastoyz on the other hand a break is followed by a goovy bass/kick pattern (most often lacking any melody and even hats) which is then followed by another break. it's intensely frustrating. the best part of his set was the melody of prodigy's voodoo people and even that was painfully slowed down.

Ha, thanks for the update - I wondered what you decided. I think it's cool that you went there!
True about the price ... Vienna is a lot more expensive. Here you pay 20 Euros for Tristan alone - and maybe even only if you buy the ticket in advance ... and this is why I am, like you, not going often to psy parties anymore - have only been to 2 this year, like you before.

 

41 minutes ago, Imba said:

Watch this then ask Kim Jong-un to #sendnukes ... I almost cried.

This is utterly horrible to watch. Also the mindless people who scream for more ... but hey, even they don't cheer so loud after some time anymore...

We should make a project that makes tracks that only consist of such breaks. 2 hours just like this, swoosh, swoosh, riser, riser, three seconds of kicks, break, two seconds fast kicks, then repeat and swoosh again. All that garnished with nightcore vocals.  Wonder how famous we get with that ... problem is, I will puke within the first hour- but hey, we can make a show out of it <_< 

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