Psy Trance - Your Thoughts

I've never been one for the Psy Trance sound, though managed to catch a set by a guy from Israel last year 'Astrix', he changed my whole perception of the genre.

A set which included driving basslines and heavy guitar riffs, the fella had the place rocking!

It aint my number one style to listen to or play, though I'm enjoying this sound more and more.

A couple of tracks I like personally......

Xerox & Illumination : Tribal Metal
Astrix : On Fire

What are your thoughts on Psy Trance? Is much of it being played in NZ at the moment? I understand a few DJs in the South Island are introducing it into their sets.

hey mate,

yeah theres a few outdoor party djs but one dj in particualr who plays for Nrgize - Balistix he plays whole sets of full on psy trance and rocks the place!!
I've started playing one or two per set- played two tracks by Astrix in welly for new years and they went down real well.

Astrix - poison and monster are good ones too... on fire is the guitar tune aye.

Thats right mate. Poison is another wicked track.

I don't mind the old-skool Goa stuff.

There's quite a number of people playing psy-trance, everything from the full-on styles of Astrix, Hallucinogen, GMS, etc, to the more progressive and minimal styles, ie, Antix, Freq, Xv Kilist, Shiva Chandra...

There is plenty of this going on if you look around for it.... not so much in wellington, tho we do try!

The south island has been into this sound for years, and in Auckland the cyberculture crew has been putting on party for ages, although they aren't doing them anymore.

If anyone's interested in what's going on, i'm sure most of the parties will be posted in this forum now.

either that or check out www.psydj.com as they have a parties section that is focused on the Auckland scene primarily.

Psy Trance is wicked. Wish there was more of it around.

Well, maybe this forum combining might turn out to be a good thing

More into the driving stuff compared to the prog and minimal...

it's nice n driven, with a hell of a lot of funk

I went to earthcore last year.. awesome

I love stuff that I would call "psy - trance" ie. quite tough trance with a psyish sound

There is also another bunch of music that I would just call "psy".. it's basically fast hardhouse with stupid "psychedelic" samples.. it eats arse

outdoor psytrance this saturday in auckland:
http://www.biggie.co.nz/interaction/forum/viewtopic.php?t=151424

Theres an awesoem trance party on this weeked... check the thread 'Clarity'. It will be banging full on psytrance all the way man... on the most amazing soundsystem.

You have to come to believe it... See you there

Great on the 'shrooms

cactus genie - im sure there are lots of psy trance guys playing all over the place at outdoor stuff e.t.c - i was really just referring to those playing it in the clubs (in a hard dance context) hence mentioning Balistix.

Psy is such a huge and varied genre.
You so many styles within 'psy' that range from progressive, techno-y, funky, breaks, hard, dark and more!!

If you like Astrix, i'm guessing you are into hardhouse

try looking at some of the full-on psy sounds from the likes of GMS, Skazi and Whizzy noise.

I sort of prefer the slightly less (but bouncier sounds) of the likes of Gataka, E.V.P, Hydraglyph and Spectra.

Max Maxwell is playing support at STUDIO next weekend for Antix / Sonkite.

He and Bluey combined to form Matipo Pyramid back in the day(NZs first live Psy Trance act)

Come and check it out, the gig wont be full on psy at all but should please the natives.

Infact it should rock.

Fri Feb 3
Studio from 10pm
$25 by texting "sonkite" to 858 or $30 on door
Max Maxwell, Leo, Antix, Son Kite.

I really like Psy - I havent listened to nearly enough of it but from what i have heard it's pretty mean AU.

Alot of the basslines are quite simply amazing,the production in some (most) of teh tunes I have heard has been excellent to say the least - I love the kicks, The effects
The only thing I am not to keen is some of the noises that are used , big phazers , flangers distortion and delays- Like if i heard those on acid itr would probably twist me into a slinky , my face would permanently have ' ooh thats fucking yuck' look on my face .

I have heard Astrix's cd and i thought that was class - That guitar track is cool too.

I would like to hear some techno-y psy if its out there as the stuff i was listning to was rather minimal - which I still found appealing but my sweet spot lies in nice percussion etc.

BK and Nick Sentience , James Lawson , Paul Maddox ben Kaye (all hard dance engineers for you psy heads) are getting right into it and you can hear the psy sound coming thru in hard dance more and more.

Some one put some links upto some mixes defining each style if you wouldnt mind - Ta.

Also if anybody has some nice Psy kicks i could steal could they please get in touch. I only heard one track in 13 or something that had a a clean kick to sample.

if any psy peeps - producers in particular want to talk tunes my msn is camcorrosiv @ hotmail . com

Talking of some of these more well known producers / Djs who are bringing the Psy Trance sound into their style, is Olly Perris who recently recorded a wicked mix, Where most of the tracks he used are avalible for purchase from trackitdown.net

i play psy quite a bit in my sets and am even going away from the hardtrance sound i used to play a little, sometimes il play a set of psy and i also find you can play it at the start of a hard trance set and cross over quite nicely, CM email me spinrecords@ihug.co.nz i aint got many but i definatley got some you could use.

we generally stock a good dozen psy albums here in Christchurch, more the full on stuff that can be played with hardtrance and theyre being picked up by lots of the local dj's if anyone is interested in getting hold of some good full on psy to play in their sets you should get in touch with me.

Ilogik 18th March @ Base
Darren C B2B with Ballistix are playing a set of on psy before Ilogik. Ballistx is one of the people that bought the more full on sound of psy into the clubs down here and the punters have been loving it and ive just started putting a lot of into my sets as well....... the new sound of harddance?????

the psy trance scene ate itself imho... If they had dropped all the ethereal bollocks, the stupid names and over the top graphics a long time ago they would of reached alot more people.

here's a run down from my perspective - starting in about 1994

Psy (or goa in it's formal glory) went through a massive creative period from about 1994-1998 thanks muchly to a few key people. Youth (bass player from killing joke and award winning producer) who owns butterfly studios / records in brixton london - opened up his studio for lots of fresh young talent and dragonfly records was born. Raja Ram (old geezzer who likes to dance alot and plays a mean flute) started "the infinity project" which brought in simon posford (hallucingen) and TIP records was born (later to become TIP world) Across the planet Israel's Astral projection was kicking things off and "trust in trance" was pushing the israeli sound - all these people, there friends would be meeting up in Goa for the season (northern hemispheres winter) and exchanging ideas / music and getting alot more people interest int he scene as a whole....Meanwhile back in london there was a few more big things taking shape - juno reactor which was formally released on novamute moved across to blue room records (yes those people who make those great POD speakers) and this enabled them to release a swag of material over the next few years (juno reactor sell alot of records) -this became the home to x-dream (germany) (and their many alias's) Etnica (italy) Total Eclipse (france) Cwithe (holland) and it was now the sound started to really spread across europe - producers from Italy, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, and then Scandanavia started releasing on the UK based labels - Now there was Flying Rhino, TIP, Dragonfly, Blue room records, Matsuri (owned by infamous return to the source DJ tsuyoshi suzuki) Symobosis records (which never really got going very well except having some fantastic releases) and transient. With the introduction of more european artists the sound spread and before long psy record labels began springing up across europe - especially in scandavia - It's about now that the music really started to diversify and take off in different directions. People now came divided in what was happening - it no longeer was one scene but a collection of different people who thought what direction was best to push. Flying rhino bought in cass who tried to shake up the label - he changed the sound they were releasing - he changed the direction and then he left to start his fire projct and took Slide with him. When he left flying rhino it pretty much fell over.

by the late 90's and early 00's the global psy scene was pretty massive and some of the major record labels was starting to see this - this bought the introduction of shitloads of "now thats what I call goa" style compilation releases at which point I see when the psy trance psy imploded - there was now shitloads of psy labels - all releasing heaps of music but not much of it very creative or innovative - the honeymoon period had ended - UK based flying rhino, blue room records & matsuri records all dissappeared, TIP went belly up and reformed it self as TIP world - even dragonfly slowed down it's releases. Then the music went deep and dark - it was no longer that friendly happy Goa music as it was been played more in warehouse styled clubs - It appeared it was no longer for the love of it - Cliche after cliche of Etherreal UFO shiva styled market bollocks appeared - trying to sell an ideal to a swag of self styled wannabe hippies. Now do not get me wrong - the soap dodgers have always loved a healthy dose of psy with their acid - however these were the new hippies - the ones who made a huge mess of litter at parties whilst preaching some mystical experince they had had and it was because of the UFO that had talked to shiva or some other crap. Yes now it was all about the drugs.....

I like psy trance - some of it is the best damn music to dance to that's ever been made. However I really dilsike the psy trance scene - its UV paintings it's stupid "cosmic " names and its "psy trance is the best and only music I'll listen to" mentality. If it could wise up - put on a good show and try something new and use soap it could be huge - and actually fun...


assid's all time top 5 psy tunes.


astral projection - in-novation
hallucingen - lsd
gms - do androids dream of electric sheep
x-dream - create your own happiness
juno reactor - rotorblade

Too fucking much assid!!!
Love ya work and couldn't agree more...it's some serious mess with you head shit to get your groove on to that's for sure!

I love Astral Projection so much I stole their name.

Nah i dont think so but some welcomed new production techniques - mainly basslines and kicks.

Hard dance/ trance gets most of its energy from loads of percussion a few melodical or complimentary layers,big riffs, hooks, rises , drumrolls and crashes are used in every single track .

Psy from what i gather uses less percussion and the percussion is used in a different way. The song structure is generally quite a bit different (which could be a good thing). Breakdowns with euphoric rises and drumrolls arent really used in psy like they are in harddance and any hard dance dj will tell you that a good rise or drop is very important for the crowd.

Thats my opinion in saying that i'd love to hear psy that proves me wrong.

"psy" is too wide a genre now to be categorised so easily.

There is uplifting cheesy psy (Infected mushroom, Astrix, Eskimo, etc) that has a lot in common with Hard Dance, but is a whole lot more interesting imho... it still has build-ups and break-downs. Many hard-dance fans are now finding this stuff and are getting hooked.... witness the huge crowd of people at Clarity this weekend just been, many who had never heard "Psy" before and loved it.

Then there is the other "full-on" psy that doesn't necessarily have an actual melody, and may have more in common with Techno, in that it's all about the layered sound.

Then there is the dark and weird stuff that seems more about the weird noises and dark driving bass than anything else...

These last two seem to have a higher than normal percentage of musical purists (or "facists")...

Nowadays a lot of people also label progressive and even chillout music as psy... check out www.psyreviews.com some time... the guy who writes the reviews is a total asshole, but it's interesting to see that he believes that "Psy" is either 145bpm full on dark minimalist stuff, or 80bpm chillout music.

Like many wide genres, there is some really good Psy, and there is a whole heap of really crap psy.

Sure they are... Most of my set has good breakdowns with massive tech euphoric buildups which help you loose your place in the world



Listen to almost anything from the following labels: Nano, Wild Things, Sanskara Records, Turbo Trance Records, Oxygen Records and U.S.T.A.

Its such a massive genre, you need to find the psy sound within it that you like.

There's the hardhouse sounding psy that most of ya have prolly heard but try digging around and you'll find some real good groovy tunes just waiting to be played

Assid brother that was a very astute perspective on what I believe was one of the most interesting electronic scenes to shift and shape dance music. Read like a set list to one of my sets in the late 90's.

Create your own happiness- X-dream truly one was one of the magical/seminal masterpieces of this sound.

I think what alot of people have failed to understand about the whole goa/psy thang, is that initally this music was organic. It was designed to be played outdoors and that the people in this scene were at the forefront of new technologies 5-10 years ago which are only now, in the past couple of years appearing on the club floor. Be it soundsystems or laser technologies. (3d laser beams Return to the Source 98 spring vivdly to mind). This made it an EXPERIENCE. A culture. A lifestyle. Go to a 5 day outdoor party and it will be like nothing you have ever experienced, sure there might be "soap dodgers" but heaps of cool cats too.

As the music has become mainstream it has been dilluted, for whatever reason, to make it more accsessible, to sell more units. This happens with almost all sounds. There will always be purists who want to protect "there" sound, which is fine it just pushes it back underground, where it rebirths and changes.

If anyone wants to get a taste of two of the top acts in thos genre, who are currently championing the psy/prog sound.....

Studio this Friday the 3 Feb will be killer

SONKITE and ANTIX you cant ask for much more

CHUR

Listen to almost anything from the following labels: Nano, Wild Things, Sanskara Records, Turbo Trance Records, Oxygen Records and U.S.T.A.


Cheers mate will do - Thats what i needed

Best psy tune EVER

Koxbox - Stratosphere

I know its old, but damn all these youngins need to have a listen to that shit

heh - good tune - i saw koxbox live in london once...

they were warming up for juno reactor and x dream who also both played live....

Psy was what got me in to electronic music. I was lucky enough to be introduced when I was about 17 (1997) when shit was really going places. I remember hearing Etnica, Electric Universe, Juno, Hallucinoge, Eat Static, Atralasia, Astral Projection, Xdream and fuck loads more and being put in a trance, literally. This was well before I even knew about drugs.

I would listen to it for hours on end and fall in to the music imagining what the sounds represented. If you've ever tripped really hard, you'll know how you can see sounds, hear colours etc. I was seeing this with Psy without the use of drugs in a pretty basic form. The sounds take on a shape and pain a picture.

I gave up on Psy when i found a kick ass dnb scene in wellington ang really got in to the gigs.

now, I've come back and Psy is so different to how it was in the late 90s. I love it though. The Full On is like nothing else. You can compare it to other 140-150bpm dance music but I don't get that same feeling. That 16th baseline, while despised by others, is what keeps me going for hours, stomping it out till the sun comes up.

The minimal prog on the other hand is just so beautiful and the way it builds, builds and builds some more then drops like a ton of bricks, I don't know how to describe it with words. It's a sensation that't not like anything else.

I just got back from my first ever Rainbow Serpent festival with the likes of Mr P, Space Tribe, Panik, Freq, Son Kite, Peter Digital and beckers. Holy shit man, that was the most unreal experience of my life. Psy in this environment was another level all together. I think if you kinda like psy then you owe it to yourself to get down with the hippies for a few days out in the bush. It takes on a whole new meaning.

bah, rant over. i love psy. for me, it's about a feeling i get when i hear it that no other style really does. I love a lot of tunes, dnb, breaks, electro etc but get me in the middle of 3k people at sunrise in the middle of nowhere and I'm about as euphoric as I can possibly be.

Love music and what it can do for you. If you're open to it, you'll be amazed.

By the way, if you are keen on checkin son kite before this weekend's AKL gig, here you go
http://www.purplesnow.net/Data/mp3/SonKite_live_Tokyo.mp3

this is a wicked set but i can tell you their set from sunday morning at RSF was another step up. brace yourselves

A really cool psy-trance artis is RinkaDink. Saw him live back home, Woow!!

Personally i dont think Astrix,Infected etc. are psy at all..too housy!..Infected id class more as 'Electronic'..this is a topic weve discussed over the years and i reckon all music is psychedelic!!..except hip hop

Our website is up.. www.psy-tearoa.com ..its a bit early but weve been hassled by many people to get in up anyway..there ..(soon) you willbe able to find, listen too annd buy the latest release etc. with prices ranging from $15 to $30 ..there are also a huge number of dj's in NZ playing some of the phattest tunes but the scene still seems a bit underground here ! We are activelly involved in the Australien festivals/party's and have just returned from Rainbow Serpent that got almost 7000 people through the door lots of semi naked ladies running amok...lovely!!
Anyone keen on a good three day festival check out the Parihaka Peace festival in March - 10th - 12th to be exact. We have been asked to do the electronic zone and will feature a few of the artists who graced Rainbow with their very fine music..do come along as we will also be showcaseing many of NZ's finest 'psy'dj's....the music will comprise of phat prog, dirty electro, ambient, funk, downbeat trip-hop, and the dirtiest psy-trance youll find in Taranaki ..we also have a big geo-desic dome which will host the downbeat, trip hop and funk with live acts aswell as dj's. Will be a good chance to come find out what we class as 'Psychedelic'..

Parihaka's going to be gooooooooood.

have always been a big fan on Psy trance ever since i got a "hallucingen" cd i havnt gone back

love some of his older tracks

I hail from Parihaka - didnt realise this was going to be part of the Peace Conference. Do you guys know anything about Parihaka and what happened there?

It's all on www.parihaka.com.

i luv Tikal, Ticon, S.U.N Project & Penta !!!!!

and if you like groovy i recomend you to listen to Skazi !!!

off course luv Infected Mushroom and Astrix.
specially Astrix - Underbeat