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The end of an era

Kaz
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  90
Posts :  2268
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 13:36
Goa trance was born on techno roots - Sven Vath and SFX were only a step away from what was the norm of the techno sound at the time... Later the goa sound got defined as something of it's own standing.

1995, Hallucinogen's Twisted album was released, and while the music was based on goa trance (Snarling Black Mabel and Shamanix are good examples of this), it went a long way further than goa trance had ever went, leaving the 'pure energy' format of goa trance to something deeper. This was the beginning of the end of goa trance, and the first movement towards psytrance, while leaving the acid and techno roots that still held strong in a lot of the early movements.

I think it was in 1997 that Tsuyoshi Suzuki declared that goa was dead. At the moment, a lot of people argued with that, but the leading labels (TIP and Dragonfly) had long left the pure goa path (TIP had moved on after the end of the acclaimed Shiva series).

Still, many acts continued to make goa music and not pure psy, but then came Tim Schuldt took goa to a totally different direction - agressive and primal. Thus full-on was born. Tim Schuldt became less and less connected to goa trance and moved forward in his dark paths, Psychopod released their Headlines EP, which was Koxbox's first big step away from goa trance, and acts like Shakta, Deedrah and the most notable newcomers of the time, Growling Mad Scientists started gnawing off the goa trance hold on parties.

Green Nuns of the Revolution and Prana became less and less active until they were almost forgotten, X-Dream moved to a more spacey sound, Hallucinogen had stopped with his goa roots and started making a pure form of psytrance. Astral Projection had released Dancing Galaxy (which is an electronic creation of the highest order, but leaving their famous goa purity behind), MWNN moved on to Perfecto, Shiva Chandra had started moving to a more mechanical sound, and finally, Atmos and Son Kite pounded the last nail in goa trance's coffin.

What started out as a form of irrepresable, naive, and unbounded musical energy had been all but forgotten. The process of the death of goa trance which was started in 1995 was complete by the year 2000.

The death of psytrance was a slightly shorter process - from 1998 with TIP's first real moves towards full-on (that label had set the tone for the entire scene for the previous 5 years with their pioneering of new sounds and ideas), and with many of the leading psy acts moving towards progressive and full-on (Absolum, Tristan, ManMadeMan... the list goes on). At the moment, only one major label continues releasing the 'pure' forms of psytrance, and that's Twisted Records, but even in that label, more and more moves towards full-on and progressive are happening.

... which is the next style to be forgotten? Definately not techtrance, as it's only gaining popularity and still a very young style. Full-on? Still going strong. Progressive? Nothing seems to be slowing down in that one. Since the DJs took over the record labels and started releasing dancefloor friendly music, the process of change in the scene has been dramatically slowed down. TIP World's sound has changed less since it was founded than what TIP changed during a single year.

The process of styles dying and being replaced by new ones has many negative sides. I know it took me years to get over goa trance. But is the slump in record sales a part of the slowing of this process? Do we like the music we hear today so much that it's irreplaceable? Do we even bother searching for something new?

Or will this current era end along with the death of what we call today psytrance?

And perhaps the biggest question: would we be happy with that?           http://www.myspace.com/Hooloovoo222
Jeff
IsraTrance Junior Member

Started Topics :  13
Posts :  180
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 13:56
I' like to ask you a question, kaz. I've read many of your threads dealing with the evolution of Psy Trance.

I'd like to know why you constantly feel the need to express your thoughts about it. I mean, okay, you want to share your point of view with us. And besides, since I'm writing an essay on the same subject, I'm very happy to read another person's point of view on it. But you seem to be one of the very few trying to get a whole picture of the phenomenon.
Others deem we shouldn't waste our time thinking too much, and should rather go to parties more often instead.

Is it only for fear of the future of the scene ?

J.
Pavel
Troll

Started Topics :  312
Posts :  8646
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 13:56
Well i read your essay, and you've got some interesting points here and there.
Now, my point:
I think that evolution is good. I see music evolution sometimes in terms of architecture. If you want to build a strong, firm building you got to have good foundations. In music you got to have styles that influence the artist and gives them the primary tools to build something new.
Need examples?
Listen to Dark Soho for example and see clearly what those guys grew up on. Yes, they do psy trance. But they do something very different and interesting because they had a lot of different influences throughout their lives. There a lot of acts these days that the only thing they grew up was only psy-trance which shuts their eyes and narrow their musical range. Now that just sucks and it shows in their music. Tim Shuldt and that's a great example also came from the rock scene and bought with him unique style that he extracted from his rock past. So as Skazi whom you can hate for his "always the same" sounds, but he definetely has (or had, until recently) his own style that derived from his punk past.
And that's i think is the greatness of our period, we have so much influences from all around us, and the internet that opens us to a vast amounts of information and musical influences. A friend of mine says he has a dream to travel a year to Tibet and to learn their music, he also makes Trance but his style nowadays is very mainstream full-on and i'm pretty sure that when he'll come back from the journey his music will be much more interesting.
That's all i think
          Everyone in the world is doing something without me
Kaz
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  90
Posts :  2268
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 14:10
I write this stuff because I love the trance world, I love the trance music, and I also think that some points need to be expressed. And while writing, I clarify these points to myself. I believe that evolution should not be stopped, even though sometimes it's not easy to accept this change. The problem isn't with people that grew up on the psy sound, the problem is with people looking to the past and not to the future.

PS: The fact is that people who grew on the psy sound do NOT make psy today, but full-on and progressive. People who grew up on full-on and progressive... also make full-on and progressive. People who grew up on Depeche Mode or whatever.... well, everyone more or less makes full-on and progressive. It's not the musical background of the people - it's the fact that people are trying less and less to break the boundries of the music, regardless of where they came from. And even acts like Dark Soho are moving more and more into the mainstream of trance, rather than taking their style further.           http://www.myspace.com/Hooloovoo222
lurk
IsraTrance Junior Member

Started Topics :  32
Posts :  226
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 15:15

Kaz, you make some good points, but you try to stereotype things way too much imho. I started listening to this music in London in 1995, back then it was known to me, my friends and most others purely as psytrance. Now, in 2003, it is still known to everyone I know as psytrance. Nothing has died, it has only evolved. It is natural that artists want to blur boundaries and break genres, and this is how the evolution occurs.

PS. I'd love to hear your full explanation of the differences between "full-on" and psytrance
Maxim Kai.


Started Topics :  5
Posts :  138
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 16:19
I think full on is the next.

Future is for psychedelic dub and minimal technotrance.           The Future is Here Now ENJOY
Chi
IsraTrance Junior Member

Started Topics :  26
Posts :  312
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 16:32
Nice work on the evolution of psytrance, many aspects i didn't know...

Anyway, i think you are worrying too much. Just let the music follow it's evolution. Maybe now there isn't much innovation, but that will change for sure, or else the genre will die...

Psytrance has changed so many times, it will change again to suit people's tastes and reflect the current feeling of the artists... instead of a track being produced just for the dancefloor...

I understand your worrying, but i'm sure it has happened many times when goa died.

It's just evolution... good or bad it happens, and the only thing you can do to prevent it is to produce your own music...

If you don't have the time like me, then just buy all the goa albums you can... i'm building my collection little by little...
Gilad Refael
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  79
Posts :  2113
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 16:51
you are very right kaz i enjoyed reading that.
as for my points:
i think that psytrance is coming back. maybe not in the lone deranger way it used to be. but in a new way: the pavarati freaks, crazy music from finland and stuff like that.
but the sad thing today, is that if a style isn't dancefloor friendly, it won't be able to exist (if we talk about an old stlye) or to rise up (if it's a new one). imho the younger brother album can make you dance harder than any full on clone (not all are clones btw).


Quote:

Now, in 2003, it is still known to everyone I know as psytrance. Nothing has died, it has only evolved


lurk, you are right. today's music is the evolution of that same psytrance from 6 years ago. but nowdays, it seems that people have forgot that the word psytrance is PSYCHEDELIC trance, and not just trance.

another thing. i belive that it won't take long till people start to understand they are being fed up with that same thing for like 2 years now.
          REHAB is for quitters
Hg
IsraTrance Team

Started Topics :  73
Posts :  1076
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 17:07
One thing we cannot forget it that musical style and evolution are shaped in parallel with the crowd and the crowd's taste
Trance is not old here in Brazil and the brazilian people, having a first contact with fullon and it's bombastic sounds, fell in love with this type of music. However, today progressive sounds are growing further and "catching" more and more people... Why? Because with time people loose that energy they had when listen to full on, people notice repetitiveness and a new style (prog.) is being opened to fill this gap.

The crowd shapes the style, the style shapes the crowd.

However, I believe that fullon will never be over for us. They may call it something else, but, for sure, that bombastic sound will never be fully abolished. Just like goatrance never was... Psychedelia will never be...

I feel a bit uspet with regard to this dilemma inside the trance world and I thik that we, people plugged in the internet, overtake it. Sure there exist styles, but to me it's more like a different voice that one singer have in comparison with the other. For those that attend big festivals, I would like to know if, for instance you are at Samothraki, then *GMS* starts playing (and, of course, you hate GMS), who would not dance??? Who would not enjoy that moment? From my own experience I can say that not even the old goafreaks that lived goatrance, lived fullon, progressive, psy (bla bla bla), not even them rest at the dancefloor.

My point is that all this talk we have here is nice and appeals to enhance and improve our thoughts and ideas to HELP the scene... It must help or else they are pointless. On the other hand, all this stuff is bull crap, because it has nothing to do with what is the really feeling of trance. The real living-up and sucking-up the scene. This is mere idealization, which I really love and support, but it's not reality.

Out there the parties are rocking, the people are happy, the scene goes on... Styles matter! But, not as much as they do here. IMO the crowd shapes the music and what we have today is a common denominator amogst the crowd's taste. If you dont like it, like me on many occasions, my advice is for you to seek something different, there's plenty out there... have a beer, talk to some friends while that disgusting set is being played and relex, cause there will be a better one. Maybe in the rite place, with the rite people, who knows...

And afterall, even you *can* be the change...

Love and Light!           cna't find it
Anak
Anakoluth

Started Topics :  108
Posts :  2395
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 18:04
i see it positive.....everything that "dies" gains popularity again in the future....as long as i love it, everything's fine. my point of view surely has its origins because of my wide musical taste. i find good things in (almost) every kind of music, i can feel that they have all the same origins. i wrote an essay in school about music evolution in general. so since i enjoy every different aspects of trance, with focus on from minimorning to scando proggressive), it doesnt really matter if it's that popular or not. i still enjoy listening my first goa tapes.

and about innovative artists: indeed sub6 are one of those that i eager for hearing more. and bigwigs.           Anakoluth A Pebble in Your Eardrum's Shoe since 2001!
http://www.myspace.com/anakoluth
http://www.ektoplazm.com/profiles/anakoluth/
http://cronomi.com
Basilisk
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  168
Posts :  2984
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 18:06
Goa trance is not forgotten... the music lives on as long as people are listening. It might not be thriving in the modern music industry but you'll still find passionate souls across the globe entranced by the classic sound... time has no meaning for some music, to some people.
Dovla
IsraTrance Junior Member

Started Topics :  43
Posts :  748
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 20:19
let's consider the worst possible thing that could happen...there is so much music being released today that...when (and if) it all dies and when all the labels shut down....I for one will go back and start from scratch to find music that I didn't manage to hear coz there were so many releases...just start over again and listen to everything that I didn't see on the "first run"

so basicly what I'm trying to say is that already there is enough music for us to last us a lifetime...I look at my dad for instance...he keeps getting music, recording and sharing it with his friends...even though his genre "died" a long time ago.

Now thats IMO the worst thing that could happen...and it really isn't bad....a more realistic view would be that psytrance will continue to evolve into something different that some people will like, some not...in any case we will not forget it and that's the most important thing           DJ Dovla | Interchill Records, Flow Records
www.dovla.info
Kaz
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  90
Posts :  2268
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 21:15
Quote:

PS. I'd love to hear your full explanation of the differences between "full-on" and psytrance



Full-on is music in which the power of the music is in the center. The moment psychedelia becomes neglegible in comparison to the power of the track, it's full-on (Tim Schuldt - Ohm Shiva is psychedelic, but WAY more than being psychedelic, it's full-on). There can be music which is full-on, psychedelic, progressive and with touches of techtrance (some of the older Planet BEN material for instance). Most full-on music today doesn't really try to be psychedelic though.

Quote:

I would like to know if, for instance you are at Samothraki, then *GMS* starts playing (and, of course, you hate GMS), who would not dance??? Who would not enjoy that moment?



When GMS were playing at samothraki, I went to the progressive stage for Tsuyoshi's DJ set. A friend of mine which quite a full-on freak actually left the GMS live act in the middle because compared to the other acts at Samothraki, they were just not special.

Quote:

Goa trance is not forgotten...



"Hardcore never dies"


I'd like to say that Shrom here had a great point about psytrance entering the new scenes - for all of the newcomers to the scene, what they hear today is totally fresh and exciting, and a definate evolution from the music they heard before. And at the moment, most of the scene (I'm talking numbers, ravers included) have been in it 5 years or less.

Of course, a musical style will never die or be forgotten, since every musical style offers something unique, and out of the billions of people in the world, at least one person will like it (probably more). I believe that good music is timeless, but each style is not made out of 100% timeless classics... and the ones which aren't timeless just fade away.           http://www.myspace.com/Hooloovoo222
Dovla
IsraTrance Junior Member

Started Topics :  43
Posts :  748
Posted : Jun 24, 2003 21:40
Quote:

On 2003-06-24 21:15, kaz wrote:
Most full-on music today doesn't really try to be psychedelic though.



you obviously haven't heard acidance records material...it doesn't get any more psychedelic than that...and they are not the only ones that are still releasing this kind of music           DJ Dovla | Interchill Records, Flow Records
www.dovla.info
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