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HolyLight

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So I just remembered this site which I used to browse a lot in the early days. Before discogs came around.

I went to the site to check if it was still online, and it was. So while reading the ”about” section where psynews is mentioned, I just became curious who made the site, and what he/she is called here? :) 

I think psydb is a unique database with information. That I personally feel would be really cool if it was integrated to psynews.
 

Like psynews own little discogs. Perhaps if the person behind psydb don’t fancy it. Perhaps someone here could make something similar for this forum?

The psydb site is not updated anymore. And I think it would be great with something similar but that is updated with all the neogoa stuff as well.

So that while browsing this site for reviews/interviews etc, releases would be easily browsed/researched as well. Without having to check everything on discogs. 
 

Stupid idea?

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3 hours ago, astralprojection said:

edit: no it was psydb, but the site looks nothing like it used to, looks ugly as heck now what happened to it

Yes that struck me as well, at least in my memory it was a very visual and fun to navigate site. My guess is they perhaps migrated the content from an older system or something.  Or just tried to update the look I dunno. It’s basically dead now with no new updates.

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The migration happened at some point in 2017, here's what it used to look like: https://web.archive.org/web/20170708040116/https://www.psydb.net/

I like the site for the samples database. I had a side project which was a living map of connections between psychedulic culture music, movies and literature through samples. But I never got time to finish it. Psydb is the best source of samples for goa trance.

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39 minutes ago, acid-brain said:

The migration happened at some point in 2017, here's what it used to look like: https://web.archive.org/web/20170708040116/https://www.psydb.net/

I like the site for the samples database. I had a side project which was a living map of connections between psychedulic culture music, movies and literature through samples. But I never got time to finish it. Psydb is the best source of samples for goa trance.

Cool thanks! Now I remember, that’s something I used to spend a lot of time doing, looking up the origin of the samples.

It was kind of like the lyrics site genius for psytrance. Before genius.com of course. Funny thing is nowadays you can find some stuff like that on genius.com as well, for example Infected Mushroom-The Shen.

https://genius.com/Infected-mushroom-the-shen-lyrics

and The Missed Symphony

https://genius.com/Infected-mushroom-the-missed-symphony-lyrics

The artist/group discography was also quite vast. Overall with all the combined information the site contained, it was a bit like the blotter vault at erowid. But for psy trance.

Very interesting trip down memory lane browsing the artist pages now on psydb via waybackmachine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171019200653/https://www.psydb.net/artists/m/miranda.php

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15 minutes ago, Diaks said:

It was kind of like the lyrics site genius for psytrance. Before genius.com of course. Funny thing is nowadays you can find some stuff like that on genius.com as well, for example Infected Mushroom-The Shen.

Yes and whosampled.com has a massive database of samples across all genres of music, however they are not using that data to its full potential. What we need is a living cultural map of connections, so we can for instance visualise clusters of psychedelic music inspired by particular movies.

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1 hour ago, acid-brain said:

Yes and whosampled.com has a massive database of samples across all genres of music, however they are not using that data to its full potential. What I want is a living cultural map of connections, so I can for instance visualise clusters of psychedelic music inspired by particular movies.

There would be a lot of nodes connecting to The Matrix movie around 2000 :D

MFG had some really interesting samples. For example the sample in ”Intelligent Machine” that quotes some of Shylock’s dialogue from William Shakespeare’s book The Merchant of Venice.

Not sure where they sampled it from. But it really fits the enigmatic mood of the track/album. And perhaps mirror the cultural upbringing/schooling of the artist. Since it’s a jewish character in the book. 

The samples text for context:

'If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

One would assume they might have read the book, but who knows. It’s stuff like that, which added to the mystery surrounding the goa artists of the 90’s. Often no photos on the albums of the artists, just some names and greetings in the album sleeves.

Miranda beeing one of the few I think which put her photo on Northern Lights album. Which I think reflected the ambition of the label and artist, to reach a wider audience. Also evident with the Antiloop remix on the album.

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Yes indeed, and it really mirrors the widespread interest in science fiction among electronic music/psy trance producers.

That was what really got my attention with a lot of goa trance albums in the 90s. The very interesting scifi themes, in the music/samples/style as well as the album cover artwork.

Two very good examples for me are Miranda-Northern Lights and Miranda-Asynja.

Northerns Lights is more grounded in real science. With the text in the inlay, and with the female voice speaking in the intro track, explaining the aurora borealis phenomena.

And Asynjas album inlay with photos from area 51 and some info reflecting samples in the tracks as well. A very cohesive theme.

 

 

Edited by Diaks
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3 minutes ago, Diaks said:

Yes indeed, and it really mirrors the widespread interest in science fiction among electronic music/psy trance producers.

That was what really got my attention with a lot of goa trance albums in the 90s. The very interesting scifi themes, in the music/samples/style as well as the album cover artwork.

 

 

Yes! How many goa artists used that project genesis sample?

Exploring the samples have led to me finding lots of interesting stuff in both directions.

My favurite find via a sample is probably the film "Murder By Death" sampled by Sandman in Flight Or Fight.

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Also, here's a small mindspin. If you listen to this great track:

and watch the great film "Strange Days" you will recognise the sample.
But if you watch the movie then hear the track afterwards, you probably won't remember the sample as it's just a background radio.

Made me wonder how the order in which we perceive music and movies matters a lot.

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11 minutes ago, acid-brain said:

Also, here's a small mindspin. If you listen to this great track:

and watch the great film "Strange Days" you will recognise the sample.
But if you watch the movie then hear the track afterwards, you probably won't remember the sample as it's just a background radio.

Made me wonder how the order in which we perceive music and movies matters a lot.

Interesting find and reflections. Indeed sometimes I wonder how the process went for some artists, if they were actively searching through movies for a fitting sample, or just watched a movie an though: oh that sounds dope! Sampler on.

Since sampling something from scratch yourself, is a more active decision/action than relying on a sample library, which was also extremely popular of course.

For example with Infected Mushroom, since they used to work for a very long time on each album, one would assume that every sample was carefully selected to fit the themes. But I’m sure a lot of playful joking around as well sometimes resulted in great results.

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