HeatSurge
Registered User
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2008
- Messages
- 5,473
I guess hardly anybody from the general population cares at all about the subject I'm going to write about - hell, probably a lot of people from the already very small population who listens to electronic music don't care that much either - and I'm pretty sure nobody at TBG does, but I just feel like making a post about some subject that I deeply care about on a Sunday afternoon, even if nobody gives a shit lulz... so indulge me I guess.
So in the last few years I had been rapidly losing all hope in humanity regarding their tastes in electronic music styles. You see, I was searching for something I liked to listen to when I was still young (in high school), and mostly I was fed what the then-trendy MTV delivered in my newly-opened-to-western-pop-culture country.
I became somewhat of a fan of certain productions by "The Prodigy" and "The Chemical Brothers" at the time, but I mostly listened to top-100 poppy kind of stuff... and then one day, when I was in high school, a new radio was established in the city where I lived. No big difference from the other radios which were already there. It played shitty europop and top-100 during the day mostly, with lame talk shows that I didn't really care about.
What was interesting about this specific radio is that they didn't have 24-hour programming (being a young up-and-coming radio), and they used to play a CD (on repeat) after the nightly programming had ended. Incidentally, the radio is still alive and they turned into even more shit than when they started.... however, back on topic: I liked to listen to those CDs that they played because it was no-ad-interrupted, straight music (which I then used to like to record to casette tapes to listen to later - lulz).
So, one night they played this CD which basically probably "changed my life" so to speak, in regards to music taste anyway. Kind of funny, but at the time I didn't quite understand that there's this whole emerging scene of Goa Trance and that the CD in question was actually Astral Projection - The Astral Files (link: http://www.discogs.com/Astral-Projection-The-Astral-Files/master/8788). What I thought at the time was "hmm pretty cool, I haven't heard anything like this before, but I kinda like it."
Then, in school, through friends and whatnot, I came upon some other current releases which I love to this day. Some notable ones are: Shiva Chandra - Spicy Moments, S.U.N. Project - Drosophilia, S.U.N. Project - Macrophage, Astral Projection - Trust In Trance, Astral Projection - Dancing Galaxy, MFG - The Prophecy, MFG - New Kind Of World, etc.. I suppose I just got into a niche music scene, which was emerging at the time, and the next few years which were basically a "Golden Age" of Goa Trance music.
I kept listening to stuff more and more, but then in around 1999-2000, things in the Goa Trance scene started going stale. I have no idea why, but a lot of Goa Trance artists simply disappeared, and whatever emerged was more progressive-, psy-, or tech- trance than Goa Trance. There was this "sound" which was completely and utterly lost, for years.
I was actually surprised to discover recently that I wasn't alone in my sadness during the the "Dark" years in which Goa Trance was basically dead, for all practical purposes. Several people who missed the "old school" sound of Goa Trance which was lost have recently started a few notable labels which are basically trying to resurrect the genre. Namely, there's Suntrip Records, and Phototropic Records. There's a smaller "Old is Gold" label that is basically one artist who is releasing mp3/wav/flac files online mostly...
I was skeptical at first, knowing that some had previously tried to deliver a truly "oldschool" sound and experience, and mostly failed, until I heard Goasia's (one of the new-school Goa Trance guys') album "From Other Spaces" (link: http://www.discogs.com/Goasia-From-Other-Spaces/release/1130794).
Personally, I think it didn't only meet, but indeed it exceeded my expectations. I'd venture to say that almost every track is as spot-on as to what Goa Trance is all about, and just as epic as the old 1996-1998 releases.
I know in most people's eyes, getting excited about something like this is really obscure and geeky and nobody gives a shit, and to most people electronic music all sounds "the same," but for me, it's kind of significant... so there you go. I'm a nerd/weirdo.
So, basically... Goa Trance is alive again! Nobody knows for how long, but I sure hope there's people out there which will keep it alive, because it's the music I love.
The sound quality is kind of shitty, and whoever was shooting this had the camera operator skill and brain function level of a drunk hippopotamus, but after hearing this, I'm pretty sure this is going to be playing when Zeus descends on his chariot (or whatever he's ridin', can't remember exactly) from Mount Olympus:
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So in the last few years I had been rapidly losing all hope in humanity regarding their tastes in electronic music styles. You see, I was searching for something I liked to listen to when I was still young (in high school), and mostly I was fed what the then-trendy MTV delivered in my newly-opened-to-western-pop-culture country.
I became somewhat of a fan of certain productions by "The Prodigy" and "The Chemical Brothers" at the time, but I mostly listened to top-100 poppy kind of stuff... and then one day, when I was in high school, a new radio was established in the city where I lived. No big difference from the other radios which were already there. It played shitty europop and top-100 during the day mostly, with lame talk shows that I didn't really care about.
What was interesting about this specific radio is that they didn't have 24-hour programming (being a young up-and-coming radio), and they used to play a CD (on repeat) after the nightly programming had ended. Incidentally, the radio is still alive and they turned into even more shit than when they started.... however, back on topic: I liked to listen to those CDs that they played because it was no-ad-interrupted, straight music (which I then used to like to record to casette tapes to listen to later - lulz).
So, one night they played this CD which basically probably "changed my life" so to speak, in regards to music taste anyway. Kind of funny, but at the time I didn't quite understand that there's this whole emerging scene of Goa Trance and that the CD in question was actually Astral Projection - The Astral Files (link: http://www.discogs.com/Astral-Projection-The-Astral-Files/master/8788). What I thought at the time was "hmm pretty cool, I haven't heard anything like this before, but I kinda like it."
Then, in school, through friends and whatnot, I came upon some other current releases which I love to this day. Some notable ones are: Shiva Chandra - Spicy Moments, S.U.N. Project - Drosophilia, S.U.N. Project - Macrophage, Astral Projection - Trust In Trance, Astral Projection - Dancing Galaxy, MFG - The Prophecy, MFG - New Kind Of World, etc.. I suppose I just got into a niche music scene, which was emerging at the time, and the next few years which were basically a "Golden Age" of Goa Trance music.
I kept listening to stuff more and more, but then in around 1999-2000, things in the Goa Trance scene started going stale. I have no idea why, but a lot of Goa Trance artists simply disappeared, and whatever emerged was more progressive-, psy-, or tech- trance than Goa Trance. There was this "sound" which was completely and utterly lost, for years.
I was actually surprised to discover recently that I wasn't alone in my sadness during the the "Dark" years in which Goa Trance was basically dead, for all practical purposes. Several people who missed the "old school" sound of Goa Trance which was lost have recently started a few notable labels which are basically trying to resurrect the genre. Namely, there's Suntrip Records, and Phototropic Records. There's a smaller "Old is Gold" label that is basically one artist who is releasing mp3/wav/flac files online mostly...
I was skeptical at first, knowing that some had previously tried to deliver a truly "oldschool" sound and experience, and mostly failed, until I heard Goasia's (one of the new-school Goa Trance guys') album "From Other Spaces" (link: http://www.discogs.com/Goasia-From-Other-Spaces/release/1130794).
Personally, I think it didn't only meet, but indeed it exceeded my expectations. I'd venture to say that almost every track is as spot-on as to what Goa Trance is all about, and just as epic as the old 1996-1998 releases.
I know in most people's eyes, getting excited about something like this is really obscure and geeky and nobody gives a shit, and to most people electronic music all sounds "the same," but for me, it's kind of significant... so there you go. I'm a nerd/weirdo.
So, basically... Goa Trance is alive again! Nobody knows for how long, but I sure hope there's people out there which will keep it alive, because it's the music I love.
The sound quality is kind of shitty, and whoever was shooting this had the camera operator skill and brain function level of a drunk hippopotamus, but after hearing this, I'm pretty sure this is going to be playing when Zeus descends on his chariot (or whatever he's ridin', can't remember exactly) from Mount Olympus:
<object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LYVdHMxC8mU&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LYVdHMxC8mU&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object>
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