Psychedelic trance

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Psychedelic trance, often referred to as psytrance, is a form of electronic music that developed from Goa trance in the early 1990s when it first began hitting the mainstream. In some psychedelic trance circles and online communities, 'Psychedelic' is the preferred name for the genre as it provides an umbrella term for the many divergent styles including Goa, melodic, dark, progressive and suomi. Referring to it as "psychedelic" also distinguishes the style from the 'clubbier' type of trance music and reinforces the roots of Goa trance in the psychedelic community. Psychedelic trance generally has a fast tempo, in the range 135 to 150 BPM but has developed into numerous different styles within the genre all with their own range of tempos. The emphasis in psychedelic trance is placed strongly on purely synthesized timbres in terms of programming and lead melodies. The original Goa trance was often made with popular Modular synthesizers and hardware samplers, but the preference in Psychedelic trance has moved to sample manipulation and storage in VST and AU software sampler applications. The use of analog synthesizers for sound synthesis has given way to digital "virtual analog" instruments like the Nord Lead, Access Virus, Korg MS-2000, Roland JP-8000 and computer VST and AU plugins like Native Instruments Reaktor. These are usually controlled by MIDI sequencers within Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications.

Psychedelic trance is most popular in Greece, UK, Israel, Portugal, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Belgium, Serbia, Republic of Macedonia, Netherlands, Croatia, the Nordic countries and India. The genre is not as well known outside its scene as uplifting or progressive is.

[edit] Commercial success

In recent years, sales of psychedelic trance have been falling. The decline was : -2,8% in 2001, and -8,8% in 2002. A typical album usually sells around 2,000 copies, and selling more than 5,000 copies would be considered a success. There are only a handful of artists who sold more than 20,000 copies, including Hallucinogen, G.M.S., Infected Mushroom, Transwave, and Astral Projection. Hallucinogen's Twisted has had the most commercial success to date, selling around 85,000 copies.

The reasons for this decline in public interest include overproduction, copyright infringement, and lack of publicity. In fact, the market has not grown much, however the number of new labels and artists has increased exponentially. Much of psychedelic trance is also channeled through illegal copying by sharing of music, particularly among students and streaming audio on the internet. Although this has opened up the market to newcomers, most of these fans do not have the ability to purchase music since it is not normally distributed in mainstream record stores (mostly internet shops).

[edit] Psychedelic trance scene

Psychedelic trance is often played at outdoor festivals. The festivals often take place over a few days with music being played through the night and well into the next day. These big events usually offer a lot of parallel activities, not just music.

The big trance festivals often form a small independent city, where some 10,000 people from different places of the world meet. During winter many parties take place in clubs in modern suburbia or on the many beaches in foreign climes frequented by travellers.

Some people at these festivals frequently consume psychedelic drugs like LSD and psychedelic mushrooms. The smoking of Cannabis is widespread within the global psy-trance scene. Drugs such as Ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamine are also used to some extent. There is also a large portion of the psytrance community - including many successful artists, DJs, party organizers and party goers - who do not use drugs, or no longer use drugs. Many of these people believe experiencing the music in the intended spirit of the festivals is the high in and of itself.

While psychedelic trance music has lost its popularity in the 2000s, it is immensely popular and the dominant dance-genre in South Africa, Goa, Israel and Brazil. It is also particularly popular in Portugal, Greece, Serbia, India, Holland, Mexico, Russia, Germany, UK and Australia, as well as US and Canada where there are smaller but rapidly developing scenes.

[edit] Psychedelic trance artists and projects

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Psychedelic trance is often produced in a collaboration between two or more artists, called a "project". Somewhat different from other genres of music is the fact that one artist could be part of as many as ten or more projects, often simultaneously. Each different combination of artists almost always has a unique name. For example X-Dream (Jan Muller and Marcus Maichel) and Planet B.E.N. (Ben Wierzoch) are two well known projects from Germany. The collaboration between Jan and Ben is called Organic Noise and the collaboration between Marcus and Ben is called Fools and Tools. This partly accounts for the large number of psychedelic trance projects.

As shown above the names of projects made up of the same artists can often be unrelated, although this is not always the case. For example, many projects involving Infected Mushroom are often prefixed with the word "Infected" or postfixed with the word "Mushroom" (Examples: Domestic Mushroom, Infected Astrix).

Making things even more confusing is the fact that the same exact artist(s) or group(s) of artists will sometimes produce music under different project names to showcase different variations of their music. Quasar also known as "Pulsar"(Dance oriented variations) as well as "Trancention" (Lighter trance music),but are really the same artists Quasar and Pulsar VanderHousen.

Very few psychedelic trance artists release albums under their own name (Tim Schuldt & Shanti Matkin are two exceptions). Instead, the name of the project is sometimes chosen to describe the theme of the music being produced. Not surprisingly, Crop Circles and Pleiadians releases are focused on the topic of space travel.

[edit] See also

• List of psychedelic trance artists
• Goa trance
• Psychedelic music
• Psychedelia
• Trance music
• Ambient music
• Psybient

[edit] External links

[edit] General information

• Psychedelic trance - ODP - More information and links by category
• TranceProject.com - TranceProject is an Encyclopedic Database maintains by Trance and Psychedelic-Trance music user's community.
• Isratrance - Archive with information about most of Israel's Psychedelic Trance/Goa Trance artists.
• Psychedelic Mind Expander - extensive database of Goa and psychedelic trance artists, labels and releases.
• Progressive Psytrance List of artists, djs and record labels
• Nativos - Psychedelic Guide. From Barcelona-Spain and Venezuela.

[edit] Portals & Community Sites

• Psynews International psytrance forum
• Oztrance Australian Psytrance Forum.
• CosmicTrance.com - Spanish Trance Community-
• triplag.com Full-on Dark Psytrance Radio Live broadcasts, parties, pics, reviews and art from Ireland, Russia, Venezula,Canada, Bulgaria and many more, the family growing every day. Psytrance as it should be!!
• PsyKe Out - Established in 2001, long running web radio show and now psytrance portal too
• DoofCentral - Your Psychedelic Universe - A Psytrance Portal site including music news, reviews, interviews, articles, events list, doof photos and more!
• Barakasphere Oxfords psychedelic trance adventurers since 1997.
• Ultimatrance - Spanish Trance & Psytrance Forum
• Psygarden.be - Psytrance oriented art and party pictures site.
• psytrance.pl - Polish psytrance website.
• BOMelakiesie - South African Psytrance Portal - online community
• Psycle - Nottingham Psy-trance Collective
• Dream Tunnel Irish Psy Trance scene
• Gaian Mind Philadelphia-based collective that has been producing events in nightclubs and outdoor locations throughout North America since 1996.
• Atlanta Pystrance Atlanta-based psytrance music and art collective. Streaming music, images, and event information.
• Trance.net Psytrance community site with reviews, party-info and more
• Groovy Troopers - South African psytrance dance events.
• 3am.co.za Psytrance - South African psytrance news, music, gear and artist info.
• Australiens.net - Australian Psytrance Resource
• Oz-Trance Mailing List - Long running Australian-based PsyTrance Mailing List
• 604 mailing list - a long running mailing list for Goa trance fans.
• Goatrance.nl - a Dutch Psytrance Resource
• Goatrance.net - a European Goatrance Resource
• Florida Psytrance Florida Psytrance community and forum
• Shiva Shakti Shiva Shakti & Friends - non-profit outdoor trance-dance gatherings in Texas USA.
• TranceAm TranceAm - Community portal covering North America. As seen in Trancer's Guide to the Galaxy.
• TOUCH Samadhi Psychedelic Trance collective in Asheville, NC & Chicago, IL. Events, photos, music downloads, and more.
• Sonic Beating Boston based Psy trance collective
• PSYKS Kosovo based Psytrance Community
• Audiognomes Audiognomes - Midwest USA Psychedelic Trance.
• Psystream.net Bringing the party to you (live psy-trance feed)
• Darkpsy Tribe Dark psytrance info and networking
• Psypix.net - large collection of psytrance party photos
• g.o.a.Play - San Francisco based psytrance collective
• The Chilluminati ~ Bringing Psychedelic Sound, Art and Community to the Midwestern US
• Psy-Forum.co.uk Ace forum for psy-listeners based in the UK and in the rest of the globe!
• Isratrance International psytrance forum.
• Weird Psyance Pictures and videos from a recent(17 Nov 2006) psytrance event in Stockholm.

[edit] Online Music Streams/Downloads

• Psytrance in Russia - Free downloads of psytrance music
• Philosomatika - Longest running goa/psytrance stream
• Mindkiller Radio - Selection of trance music for all.
• DJ Avi .com - Mixed sets
• Sonic-Energy.net - Free downloads, reviews and interviews from an independent source.
• The Wonderland Experience - A feature film shot in Anjuna, Goa, concerns the parties there and has many legendary psychedelic trance tracks in the soundtrack.

[edit] History

• How the Hippies Discovered EDM - history of psychedelic trance
• Psytrance and the Spirituality of Electronics - a formal description of the musicology and structure of Goa and psychedelic trance.
• Sampling Paradise: The Technofreak Legacy of Golden Goa - Goa Trance in the mother ship and a complete outlook of the scene.
• A Decade of Psychedelic Trance - a synthesis on the history of Goa Trance.
• A Psykotropic Trip Through Tribedelic Transcapes - an article that explores the phenomenon of Goa trance.
• Goa Stories - An interesting collection of articles about Goa ranging from the history of the freak scene, the phenomena of Goa Trance and the corruption of the police
• Liquid Crystal Vision - a documentary about GOA. Can be purchased or just watched online.
• What is Goa? - a history of Goa trance from psynews.org.

fr:Trance psychédélique he:טראנס פסיכדלי nl:Psychedelic Trance pt:Trance psicadélico ru:Гоа / Психоделик Транс fi:Psytrance