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Righto, column as promised. Thanks to Basilisk for the extra information regarding Minilogue and Extrawelt!
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Electronic music has a habit of repeating itself. First founded on the basis of being avant-garde and freethinking, it tends to reincarnate every decade or so in a never-ending quest for innovation. The repetition is intriguing and somewhat amusing, while the constant push for improvement is one of the field’s best attributes. In 2008, John ‘00’ Fleming released a three disc set titled Psy-Trance Euphoria. In the release booklet he states:
“Psy-trance has an interesting history. It originates from its cousin Goa trance that was born in the early ‘90s, though musically they are very different. Goa trance relies on sophisticated melodies and lush moments; it was these elements that became its downfall as Goa trance started to reach out to the commercial masses, especially when we saw the birth of the regular trance scene in the mid ‘90s, things started to merge together somewhat. The Goa trance community were simply passionate about their scene, so wanting to protect their asset they took things back underground. They rebelled about the current state of trance [note: hellooo Armin!] and took the opposite approach, stripping tracks of all melodies, making them quite minimal, thus having to use fat bass lines to drive the tracks.” Then later: “The name ‘psy-trance’ was born to distinguish it away from the regular ‘club trance’ sound as the old Goa trance tag was still tarnished.”
Fleming is accurate in his assertions; it was indeed the corruption of the original Goa sound led to the birth of psy-trance. It also gave rise to ‘nitzhonot’, a bombastic genre akin to euro-trance with a psychedelic edge. However, what seems lost on Fleming is the irony that his comments are printed in a CD distributed by The Ministry Of Sound, one of the biggest and most commercialised labels in the world. Like its forerunner Goa trance, psy-trance has once again come to the fore as music made for the masses, assisted by artists like Infected Mushroom and Yahel. This aside, there is still plenty of quality psy-trance available. Released last month was the follow up, titled Psy-Trance Euphoria 2, looking to cash in on the success of the original. There are three discs: "Progressive Psy (Morning)", "Deep ‘n’ Serious" and "The Fun Stuff! (Full On)", featuring artists such as Perfect Stranger, Vibrasphere, Ace Ventura, Wizzy Noise, Astral Projection and Astrix. This one is definitely worth picking up.
Also coming full circle is the migration of quality trance artists to techno. In the ‘90s this movement shifted names like Sven Väth, Oliver Lieb, Stephan Bodzin and Oliver Huntemann to greener pastures, and it’s happening again. Tech-heads should know the names Minilogue and Extrawelt well; these popular duos first appeared on the scene in 2000 and 2005 respectively. Less well-known is that prior to their success with techno, both groups had massive profiles in the psy-trance world as Son Kite and Spirallianz. These two acts are the forerunners for a larger movement which will include names like Perfect Stranger and DJ Pena, recently interviewed and already consciously taking the techno road. Whether this will be a positive or negative for each respective genre remains to be seen. Check this space in 18 months! |
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