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what whas the first New School goa track


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19 hours ago, recursion loop said:

TBH I don't exactly remember what that Hypnoxock goa album sounds like, for we they always were one of the best fullon acts (Synthetic Resurrection!) but when I heard their goa attempts it sounded to me pretty much like "an average newschool album". Maybe i should give it another listen.

thanks for pointing me that way a while back. the synthetic resurrection album is great.

but some of his new stuff is totally oldschool:

 

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2 hours ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

is this a next level version of Goa trance? An enhanced and futuristic Trance?

I wish it was :huh:  

I actually think that todays goa  is sort of natural evolution of the 90's goa. There probably were two important factors:

- Transition form hardware to software which meant more synths, more layers, more processing, more energy, more everything, but on the other hand - no hands-on control, painting notes and drawing automation lanes instead of twisting knobs and playing keys/programming sequencers. I  wonder how many of the newschool producers can actually play keyboard or any other musical instrument.

- More experimental/open-minded forms of goa evolved into psytrance and the core sound of the new goa wave was apparently shaped by the people who wanted to return strictly to "that AP/Etnica/Pleiadians sound of the 90's". This is only a speculation, but that's actually the feeling I'm getting from some of the reivews here - whenever a track deviates from a basic goa fromula (a 303, a booming kick, a fast-paced melody in Phrygian or Eastern scale) there always will be someone saying "it's not goa".  

That SynSun track is rad :+1:

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7 minutes ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

This cheesy fullon wave in the 2000s

I think some portion of it wasn't actually bad and some portion of that portion was even very good. I might be the only person on this planet who thinks so, though.

 

8 minutes ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

You simply could not buy the equipment/PC in the 90s russia..

At that time I had some cheap Yamaha keyboard with an auto-chord mode or whatever it was called, my friends envied me :) Finally I actually learned to play it, but of course it wasn't very suitable for making any kind of electronic music, it only had basic rompler sounds. I didn't care though, I was more into metal and such.

There were some trance acts in Russia though, I remember PPK and later Sensorica, they weren't goa, more Van Dyk kind of trance, but their production was really good.

12 minutes ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

sorry for mei Englisch.

Забей, нормально. У меня не лучше :)

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out of these both neogenia tracks and the first ovnimoon track sound most newschool. they have that more prominent bass mostly missing in oldschool and are overly melodic (typical of 10s newschool). ethereal is of course typical for early (00s) newschool. more atmospheric, melodic but not too much so , and still bright and fluid (unlike most newer newschool and oldschool). chi-ad is real oldschool and sounds like it. deeper, not so much in-your-face and more of that "mysterious" vibe so much oldschool and pretty much no newschool has (not that i think it's a mistake of newschool, they are just different).

all in all, everything except chi-a.d. is easily recognisable as newschool.

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For me:

Celestial Intelligence, Arronax, Artifact 303, Ephedra, Fiery Dawn & Median Project are all most recognisable as new school.

The MOST new school sounding out of them... I couldn't say, so let's just pick Artifact 303 or Median Project.

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The tracks that define newschool goa for me

I think they all have the same set of qualities - strong basslines, dense arrangements with lots of layers, many high-pitched sounds, quite melodic (in a good way).

There is something to be said about "melodic". Goa, especially newschool, is often said to be melodic genre with which I don't quite agree because for me "containing many notes" doesn't equal "melodic", quite a big parts of new goa sounds way too chaotic or disharmonic to me to be actually called melodic. The above tracks have melodies that actually make some sense, at least to me.

 

Btw, as far as Ethereal go, according to Discogs, their first release was in 1999. To me it actually has some of "newschool" traits, despite somehow softer sound

That Radiator track is 2003.

So, do we have the first newschool goa track/act here?

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nice, ethereal wins! in your face jannis!

 

and chi-ad made old school in 2004. even though Earth Crossing is borderline, production style is more new than old, but music style is more old than new..

who else have made New Old School music?

 

and for me the defining track of the genre is Artifact303 - Feelings. it just dont get better :P

 

synsun - quazar was really good. 2001? Had missed it, thanks =)

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1 hour ago, astralprojection said:

synsun - quazar was really good. 2001? Had missed it, thanks =)

i also missed it in this thread. while that ethereal track from 1999 has newschool and oldschool elements, quazar really sounds 100% newschool. even more so than sneila from the same year. i think we can put the birth of newschool at a time no later than 2001.

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45 minutes ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

Yeah i think we are getting closer...haha xD

Too close I would say....near to proper Goa era :blink:

Another thing I've been missing from the Goa era (maybe I;m wrong, my knowledge of New Goa is not extensive) are the samples. 60's and 70's sci-fi movies or spiritual/religious spoken words that were interwoven into the tracks and being a major component of the music.

Who can forget quotes like "You will be robotised" or "People Can Fly"  and so many more. Pick one.

Is that a hint of New School Goa? Back then i called it Club Goa :rolleyes: "He was the last best hope..."

 

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very nice insights and some food for thought here.

but id like to steer back to production style, because new school goa seems to have much more focus in mixing/technical side. More "perfect" like kicks, basslines, hihats, etc. Everything is precisely engineered to absolute perfection (to the best of the artists ability anyway) whereas the old school goa; was much more about the actual music - and the mix and the sound itself was secondary.

now, with new school, i feel the sound and the technical aspect of the track is more in the forefront than it was, and the music comes almost secondary, or at the very least; on equal grounds.

 

this is ofc a very broad generalisation, and there are tons of exceptions..

 

but as to the discussion in the above comments, i think those tracks (MFG, Calfornia sunshine, BPC, yahel) are very  old school BUT its a more floaty type of goatrance. (which happens to be my favorite type)

I like the way your brain works Psychedelic Superbeast :)

we are really getting down into the core, the essence and soul - of goa here. 

 

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2 hours ago, astralprojection said:

but id like to steer back to production style, because new school goa seems to have much more focus in mixing/technical side. More "perfect" like kicks, basslines, hihats, etc. Everything is precisely engineered to absolute perfection (to the best of the artists ability anyway)

Actually newschool goa (not all of it, but some part) sounds to me the least "produced" subgenre in the whole psy scene. Typical psytrance mixes (full-on, proggy, hi-tech, whatever) are very clean and polished, basslines are super-tight - otherwise no label will release it. Goa mixes often sound much less polished and often are quite raw. Loud kick and brutal compression on the master bus doesn't necessarily mean good production :). TBH there are some goa artists, including some known and respected ones, whose stuff I just can't listen to because i can't stand their mixing and mastering style. 

 

It's a common misconception that production is cheap these days. Unless you have an acoustically treated studio room and expensive speakers, which not everyone can afford, you would have a hard time meeting the current psytrance production standards. Goa as a whole seems more underground, I know some goa producers are mixing their stuff in their living rooms, with little or no acoustic treatment, with cheap speakers or even just headphones, some even make music on their smartphones and such and release it. 

 

There are artists who deliver excellent mixing and mastering like Ra, latest Mindsphere, Artifact303, some others. On the other hand, old AP albums released in 95-97 sound extremely well produced even today, much better than some of the new releases actually.  

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1 hour ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

We also dont have to forget that a lot of the recent producers dont realy want to make N.Goa...they say that they just do Goa/Psychedelic Trance

It would be really interesting if some producers jumped in the subject and share their thoughts with us. How do they feel about their music? Do they accept the labels we try to put on their music? Is the music they make how they want it to sound? Or are they struggling for something else but not quite there yet? What about the mastering? Are they happy with it or do they just go the flow? (same goes for their music, is it what they want or they just choose what is easier to sell?)

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7 hours ago, Padmapani said:

i also missed it in this thread. while that ethereal track from 1999 has newschool and oldschool elements, quazar really sounds 100% newschool. even more so than sneila from the same year. i think we can put the birth of newschool at a time no later than 2001.

Yeah, now that I think about it I don't think ethereal sounds all that new schoolish.. Quazar though, it's really cool it's from 2001 because it sounds newer than that. 

 

So, ethereal is out, synsun currently is the winner :p

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1 hour ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

Todays Goa is made by scify nerds and gamers who grew up with Matrix and Deus Ex

I wouldn't call them nerds but that is another important topic. Goa producers back then were inventing the genre as they were going along. They had no Goa sounds to draw inspiration from, their inspiration was coming from all different genres. And another thing, because they relied mostly on hardware they couldn't have everything. So they adjusted their music signature depending on the hardware they had. That's why you have Miranda, MFG, Asia 2001 etc etc. All Goa but still distinct to each other. But with software...there are no limits. And that, ironically, is the limiting factor to inspiration. 

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14 hours ago, thanosp81 said:

But with software...there are no limits. And that, ironically, is the limiting factor to inspiration. 

Exactly. These days they have everything at their disposal, thus allowing the artist to truly shape and mold their sound into perfection/the vision they have. 

Not being limited by certain gear. 

 

And just like you said, that very limitation sparks creativity, and now, with no limitations, sadly the musical creativity suffers slightly, which is exactly what I meant above.. With the music almost being secondary to the sound itself,whereas the opposite was true in the old days. 

 

 

I think we found the difference between old school and new school. I'm certain, at least. 

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I've been listening to old and new techno and find the difference to be much less space available in tracks. New can be the true wall of sound effect, annoyingly they also like to fill tracks with wash over like sweep fx. 

There's some good stuff too but I don't hear many people complain about modern techno despite the similarities between it and modern Goa. Ah fuck it let's just call it Neogoa.

Also the popular hiphop of today sucks,  it feels like people only like it because they are told its cool. Good underground and less popular stuff everywhere. Production wise not as much has really changed. But cooler influences from other genres are seeping in keeping it pretty creative. 

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I think we should never, ever try to put music in a box, based on a date. 

The music genre is GOA-TRANCE :D Of course you CAN (depends even) hear the difference between a 1994 or a 2012 created track, but I prefer to call this evolution, and as you know, Filteria is 100% analog/Synths so in theory his album coming out in 2020 could have been made in 1999 for instance :) Naaah, don't limit yourself to such definition, just enjoy the music because of the psychedelic feeling and melodies :) Because it is... Goa-trance :)  

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On 6/24/2019 at 11:32 AM, Anoebis said:

I think we should never, ever try to put music in a box, based on a date. 

The music genre is GOA-TRANCE :D Of course you CAN (depends even) hear the difference between a 1994 or a 2012 created track, but I prefer to call this evolution, and as you know, Filteria is 100% analog/Synths so in theory his album coming out in 2020 could have been made in 1999 for instance :) Naaah, don't limit yourself to such definition, just enjoy the music because of the psychedelic feeling and melodies :) Because it is... Goa-trance :)  

maybe i was a bit harsh to this reply, because i do agree with you in philosophy. but , from a nerds perspective i do want to get to the bottom of this thing :D

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