Psytrance
- Thread starter Jim Daze
- Start date
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
I recently looked at the sinewaves of 180 psytrance tracks. Every single one of them is a solid waveform, you could even view it as being akin to a flat line. A flatline.
Gabba Flamenco Crossover
High Sierra Skullfuck
I've been waiting for years for trance to undergo that mindfuck experimental stage that hardcore went through in 93, but it just refuses to do it.
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simon silverdollar
Guest
i guess because psytrance is shit to begin with, so no talented producers, interested in pushing dance music forward in new directions, would ever get involved with it.
Gabba Flamenco Crossover
High Sierra Skullfuck
I dont know if that's an adequate argument. Psytrance producers are obviously good at doing what they do, otherwise the scene wouldnt endure the way it has. Maybe it's because it's so sealed off from interlopers from outside that scene, who would provide impetus to develop the sound - without that, the only progressive movement is to further refine what it's already doing.
swears
preppy-kei
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simon silverdollar
Guest
but it seems to be that psytrance is only 'sealed off' from others because other people, those not involved in the scene, think that it's so shit! it's not exactly hard to get hold of, or experience live- most teenagers now who are into mdma and raving will have come across a fair amount of psytrance whether they like it or not (i know i did). in this way it contrasts with, say, grime, which really is difficult to experience if you don't live in london.
also, while i agree that being open to people outside the scene can be important in pushing music in new directions- hardcore's openess to ragga and hiphop being an example here, i guess-, 'outsiders' aren't always necessary to shift a scene in new directions: look at the really weird techno that coming out of Germany at the moment from people like Villalobos and the Perlon lot. they're all as techno as can be, but they're still making big changes in the sound.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I think it's also a sound that is intrinsically quite hard to push anywhere new - the rhythmic parameters are quite tight so you couldn't start messing with the beat, it's a fairly 'pure' sound so you couldn't start reconfiguring the relations of the influences on the sound (which seems to be part of how jungle kept fresh), it's based on repetition and gradual builds, so you it'd be hard to start sticking in mad turnarounds...
Maybe it'll collide with nu-dnb (which is afaict the other big sound at new-raves) to produce a sort of 21st century happy hardcore. That could be fun, in a two wrongs making a right sort of way...
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simon silverdollar
Guest
actually, though, there was some quite weird psytrance being played at the Glade; the opening DJ one day played really odd minimal stuff, but with the creaks and squelches that typically crop up in psytrance, and with a few dub elements too.
so perhaps there are progressions going after all. still didn't sound very good tho!
so perhaps there are progressions going after all. still didn't sound very good tho!
by 'nu-dnb' do you mean pendulum-type stuff? pop and not necessarily so dark, or? so this is the stuff being played at new-raves? am genuinely curious
Gabba Flamenco Crossover
High Sierra Skullfuck
I was at a rave up a mountain in wales over the weekend & I played a load of early 90s acid techno - djax, +8, shiver, communique, UR etc.
'ver kidz' lapped it up (all 30 of them).
i really really dislike the psy-trance i hear at most parties, i'd even say hate, but i have been assured by a friend who knows his dance (into lots of older acid/minimal techno, early warp, electro etc) that there is some really really good stuff tucked away. at glade there was a dj on the sunday playing some fucking sick tunes, i would never have called them psytrance, but then often that how it is from outside, there are clearly interfaces with techno and progressive and other stuff, its just that (a) it never gets played at the big, bate raves, and (b) its easily mistaken for those genres its interfacing with. as always, the mainstream archetype has emerged and dominated, and its the most obvious, brass music ive ever heard, but there is blatantly material worth searching for
i can't stand the balls to the wall full-on psy toward the goa end of the spectrum, but the last time i had any contact with the psy thing there was some minimal psy coming out that was dark as fuck and a lot more slinky.
like i said in another thread, theres very little difference between that stuff and someone like pan-pot that minimal heads masturbate over regularly. different basslines and thats about it.
like i said in another thread, theres very little difference between that stuff and someone like pan-pot that minimal heads masturbate over regularly. different basslines and thats about it.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I've only got Sarah Champion's word for it (in that Observer piece) and for all I know she might lie through her teeth. She says that the sountrack is 'psytrance and drum and bass.' I'm assuming that the drum and bass is somewhere in the clownstep to darkstep neck a load of pills and run on the spot region - I'd be surprised if it was all about Sileni or something. Certainly when I've been to places with psy trance in one room and dnb in another, the dnb was Nosia, Teebee, Pendulum, Andy C and co.
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simon silverdollar
Guest
friends of mine in nottingham go to free parties in the countryside where the music is mainly drum n bass.