History
The music has its roots in the popularity of Goa in the late 1960s and
early 1970s as a hippie capital, and although musical developments were incorporating elements
of industrial music and EBM (electronic body music) with the spiritual culture in India throughout
the 1980s, the actual Goa trance style did not appear until the early 1990s.[1] As the hippie tourist influx tapered
off in the 1970s and 1980s, a core group remained in Goa, concentrating on
developments in music along with other pursuits such as yoga andrecreational drug use. The music that would eventually be known as Goa
trance did not evolve from one single genre, but was inspired mainly by
EBM-groups like Front Line Assembly, Meat Beat Manifesto, Front 242 and A Split-Second, acid house (The KLF's "What Time Is Love?" in particular), techno, Orbital, and psychedelic rock like Ozric Tentacles, Steve Hillage and Ash Ra Tempel.[citation
needed]In addition to those, oriental tribal music/ethnic music also became a source of inspiration.[citation
needed] A very early example (1974) of the relation between psychedelic rock and
the music that would eventually be known as Goa trance is The Cosmic Jokers' (a collaboration between Ash Ra Tempel and Klaus Schulze) highly experimental and psychedelic album Galactic Supermarket, which features occasional 4/4 rhythms intertwined
with elements from psychedelic rock, analog synthesizers and occasionally
tribal-esquedrum patterns. 
The music played was a blend of styles loosely defined as techno and
various genres of computer music (e.g., high energy disco without vocals, acid
house, electro, industrial gothic, various styles of house, electronic/rock
hybrids). The music arrived on tape cassettes by fanatic traveler collectors
and DJs. It was shared (copied) tape to tape among Goa DJs, which was an
underground scene, not driven by labels or music industry.
The artists producing this 'special Goa music' had no idea that their
music was being played on the beaches of Goa by cyber hippies. The first techno
that was played in Goa was Kraftwerk in the late 1970s on the tape of a
visiting DJ. At the time the music played at the parties was live bands. Tapes
were played in between sets. In the early 1980s, sampling synth and MIDI music
appeared globally and DJs became the preferred format in Goa, with two tape
decks driving a party without a break, facilitating continuous music and
continuous dancing. There had been resistance from the old-school acid heads
who insisted that only acid rock should be played at parties, but they soon
relented and converted to the revolutionary wave of technodelia that took hold
in the 1980s.
Cassette tapes were used by DJs until the 1990s when Digital
Audio Tape were used. DJs playing in Goa during
the 1980s included Fred Disko, Dr Bobby, Stephano, Paulino, Mackie, Babu,
Laurent, Ray, Fred, Antaro, Lui, Rolf, Tilo, Pauli, Rudi, and Gil. The music
was eclectic in style but nuanced around instrument/dub spacey versions of
tracks that evoked mystical, cosmic, psychedelic, political, existential
themes. Special mixes were made by DJs in Goa which were the editing of various
versions of a track to make it longer. This was taking the stretch mix concept
to another level, trip music for journeying to outdoors.
Goa Trance as a music industry and collective party fashion tag did not
gain global traction until 1994. By 1990/91 Goa had become a hot destination
for partying and was no longer under the radar: the scene grew bigger.
Goa-style parties spread like a diaspora all over the world from 1993 and a
multitude of labels in various countries (UK, Australia, Japan, Germany)
dedicated themselves to promoting psychedelic electronic music that reflected
the ethos of Goa parties, Goa music and Goa-specific artists and producers and
DJs. The golden age and first wave of Goa Trance was generally agreed upon
aesthetic between 1994 and 1997.
Sound
The original goal of the music was to assist the dancers in experiencing
a collective state of bodily transcendence, similar to that of ancient shamanic
dancing rituals, through hypnotic, pulsing melodies and rhythms. As such, it
has an energetic beat, often in a standard 4/4 dance rhythm. A typical
track will generally build up to a much more energetic movement in the second
half then taper off fairly quickly toward the end. The tempo typically lies in the 130–150 BPM range, although some tracks may have a
tempo as low as 110 or as high as 160 BPM. Generally 8–12 minutes long, Goa
Trance tracks tend to focus on steadily building energy throughout, using
changes in percussion patterns and more intricate and layered synth parts as
the music progresses in order to build a hypnotic and intense feel.
The kick drum often is a low, thick sound with prominent sub-bass
frequencies. The music very often incorporates many audio effects that are
often created through experimentation with synthesisers. A well-known sound
that originated with Goa trance and became much more prevalent through its
successor, which evolved Goa Trance into a music genre known as Psytrance, has the organic
"squelchy" sound (usually a sawtooth-wave which is run through a
resonant band-pass or high-pass filter).
Other music technology used in Goa trance includes popular analogue synthesizers such as the Roland TB-303, Roland Juno-60/106, Novation Bass-Station, Korg MS-10, and notably
the Roland SH-101. Hardware samplers manufactured by Akai, Yamaha and Ensoniqwere also popular for sample
storage and manipulation.
A popular element of Goa trance is the use of samples, often from science fiction movies. Those samples mostly contain references todrugs, parapsychology, extraterrestrial life, existentialism, OBEs, dreams, science, time travel, spirituality and similar mysterious and unconventional topics.
Notable releases
Old School Goa Trance:
|
§ Pleiadians - IFO
§ Blue Planet Corporation - Blue Planet
§ Battle of the Future Buddhas - Twin Sharkfins
§ The Muses Rapt - Spiritual Healing
§ Green Nuns of the Revolution - Rock Bitch Mafia
§ Jaïa - Blue Energy
§ Tim Schuldt - Singels Collection
§ UX - Ultimate Experience
|
§ Shakta - Silicon Trip
§ Technosommy - Synthetic Flesh
§ Toï Doï - Technologic
§ Deviant Electronics - Brainwashing is Childs Play
§ Planet BEN - Trippy Future Garden
§ Colorbox - Train to Chroma City
§ Ominus - Ominus
§ Xenomorph - Cassandras Nightmare
§ Hunab Ku - Magik Universe
§ Slide - Unstable
§ Hux Flux - Cryptic Crunch
§ Lunar Asylum - Lunar Asylum
§ OOOD - Breathing Space
§ Cydonia - In Fear of a Red Planet
§ Orion - Futuristic Poetry
§ Miranda - "Phenomena"
|
New School Goa Trance:
§ Antares - Exodus
§ Goasia - From Other Spaces
§ Goasia - Dancing With the Blue Spirit
§ New Born - The Trip Of The Luna King EP
§ Afgin - Astral Experiences
§ Mindsphere - Inner Cyclone
§ Khetzal - Corolle
§ Ethereal - Anima Mundi
§ Ra - 9th
§ Ypsilon 5 - Binary Sky
§ E-mantra - Arcana
§ Agneton - Horizon In Your Head
§ The Distant Civilization - Y
§ M-Run - Some Run Just For Fun
Parties
There have been attempts to formalize parties, such as those held at
Bamboo Forest, into commercial events, which was initially met with much
resistance. The need to pay the local police baksheesh means that they're now generally staged around a bar, even though this
may only be a temporary fixture in the forest or beach.
The parties around the New Year tend to be the most chaotic with bus
loads of people coming in from all places such as Mumbai, Delhi,Gujarat, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and the world over. Travelers and sadhus from all over India pass by to join in.
Perhaps the first "Goa party" in London was an underground TIP
party in December 1990.[citation
needed] TIP parties are legendary underground events.[citation
needed] TIP, standing for the band name The Infinity Project, consists of Raja Ram and Graham Wood. They went
on to do special, one off events and set up Tip
Records in 1994 which became one of the
pioneering labels of the Goa Trance genre. In 1993 a party organization called Return to the Source also brought the sound to London, UK. Starting life at the Rocket in
North London with a few hundred followers, the Source went on to a long
residency at Brixton's 2,000 capacity Fridge and to host several larger 6,000
capacity parties in Brixton Academy, their New Year's Eve parties gaining
reputations for being very special. The club toured across the UK, Europe and
Israel throughout the 1990s and went as far as two memorable parties on the
slopes of Mount Fuji in Japan and New York's Liberty Science Center. By 2001
the partners Chris Deckker, Mark Allen, Phil Ross and Janice Duncan were worn out and all
but gone their separate ways. The last Return to the Source party was at Brixton Academy in 2002.
With the proliferation of Goa trance music across the globe, parties are
now being held at locations all over the world.[citation
needed]Among the most notable of these parties are Boom Festival in Portugal, O.Z.O.R.A. in Hungary, Full Moon Party held monthly at Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand and several events held in Australia as well as Israel, Japan, South Africa, Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, Braziland British Columbia, Canada.
Goa parties have a definitive visual aspect - the use of
"fluoro" (fluorescent paint) is common on clothing and on decorations such as tapestries. The
graphics on these decorations are usually associated with topics such as aliens, Hinduism, other religious (especially eastern) images, mushrooms (and other psychedelic art), shamanism and technology. Shrines in front of the DJ stands featuring
religious items are also common decorations.
In popular culture
For a short period in the mid-1990s, Goa trance enjoyed significant
commercial success with support from DJs, who later went on to assist in
developing a much more mainstream style of trance outside Goa. Only a few
artists came close to being Goa trance "stars", enjoying worldwide
fame.
Several artists initially started producing Goa trance music and went on
to produce psytrance instead.
History
The music has its roots in the popularity of Goa in the late 1960s and
early 1970s as a hippie capital, and although musical developments were incorporating elements
of industrial music and EBM (electronic body music) with the spiritual culture in India throughout
the 1980s, the actual Goa trance style did not appear until the early 1990s.[1] As the hippie tourist influx tapered off
in the 1970s and 1980s, a core group remained in Goa, concentrating on
developments in music along with other pursuits such as yoga andrecreational drug use. The music that would eventually be known as Goa
trance did not evolve from one single genre, but was inspired mainly by
EBM-groups like Front Line Assembly, Meat Beat Manifesto, Front 242 and A Split-Second, acid house (The KLF's "What Time Is Love?" in particular), techno, Orbital, and psychedelic rock like Ozric Tentacles, Steve Hillage and Ash Ra Tempel.[citation
needed]In addition to those, oriental tribal music/ethnic music also became a source of inspiration.[citation
needed] A very early example (1974) of the relation between psychedelic rock and
the music that would eventually be known as Goa trance is The Cosmic Jokers' (a collaboration between Ash Ra Tempel and Klaus Schulze) highly experimental and psychedelic album Galactic Supermarket, which features occasional 4/4 rhythms intertwined
with elements from psychedelic rock, analog synthesizers and occasionally
tribal-esquedrum patterns.[citation
needed]
The music played was a blend of styles loosely defined as techno and
various genres of computer music (e.g., high energy disco without vocals, acid
house, electro, industrial gothic, various styles of house, electronic/rock
hybrids). The music arrived on tape cassettes by fanatic traveler collectors
and DJs. It was shared (copied) tape to tape among Goa DJs, which was an
underground scene, not driven by labels or music industry.
The artists producing this 'special Goa music' had no idea that their
music was being played on the beaches of Goa by cyber hippies. The first techno
that was played in Goa was Kraftwerk in the late 1970s on the tape of a
visiting DJ. At the time the music played at the parties was live bands. Tapes
were played in between sets. In the early 1980s, sampling synth and MIDI music
appeared globally and DJs became the preferred format in Goa, with two tape
decks driving a party without a break, facilitating continuous music and
continuous dancing. There had been resistance from the old-school acid heads
who insisted that only acid rock should be played at parties, but they soon
relented and converted to the revolutionary wave of technodelia that took hold
in the 1980s.
Cassette tapes were used by DJs until the 1990s when Digital
Audio Tape were used. DJs playing in Goa during
the 1980s included Fred Disko, Dr Bobby, Stephano, Paulino, Mackie, Babu,
Laurent, Ray, Fred, Antaro, Lui, Rolf, Tilo, Pauli, Rudi, and Gil. The music
was eclectic in style but nuanced around instrument/dub spacey versions of
tracks that evoked mystical, cosmic, psychedelic, political, existential
themes. Special mixes were made by DJs in Goa which were the editing of various
versions of a track to make it longer. This was taking the stretch mix concept
to another level, trip music for journeying to outdoors.
Goa Trance as a music industry and collective party fashion tag did not
gain global traction until 1994. By 1990/91 Goa had become a hot destination
for partying and was no longer under the radar: the scene grew bigger. Goa-style
parties spread like a diaspora all over the world from 1993 and a multitude of
labels in various countries (UK, Australia, Japan, Germany) dedicated
themselves to promoting psychedelic electronic music that reflected the ethos
of Goa parties, Goa music and Goa-specific artists and producers and DJs. The
golden age and first wave of Goa Trance was generally agreed upon aesthetic
between 1994 and 1997.
Sound
The original goal of the music was to assist the dancers in experiencing
a collective state of bodily transcendence, similar to that of ancient shamanic
dancing rituals, through hypnotic, pulsing melodies and rhythms. As such, it
has an energetic beat, often in a standard 4/4 dance rhythm. A typical
track will generally build up to a much more energetic movement in the second
half then taper off fairly quickly toward the end. The tempo typically lies in the 130–150 BPM range, although some tracks may have a
tempo as low as 110 or as high as 160 BPM. Generally 8–12 minutes long, Goa
Trance tracks tend to focus on steadily building energy throughout, using
changes in percussion patterns and more intricate and layered synth parts as
the music progresses in order to build a hypnotic and intense feel.
The kick drum often is a low, thick sound with prominent sub-bass
frequencies. The music very often incorporates many audio effects that are
often created through experimentation with synthesisers. A well-known sound
that originated with Goa trance and became much more prevalent through its
successor, which evolved Goa Trance into a music genre known as Psytrance, has the organic
"squelchy" sound (usually a sawtooth-wave which is run through a
resonant band-pass or high-pass filter).
Other music technology used in Goa trance includes popular analogue synthesizers such as the Roland TB-303, Roland Juno-60/106, Novation Bass-Station, Korg MS-10, and notably
the Roland SH-101. Hardware samplers manufactured by Akai, Yamaha and Ensoniqwere also popular for sample
storage and manipulation.
A popular element of Goa trance is the use of samples, often from science fiction movies. Those samples mostly contain references todrugs, parapsychology, extraterrestrial life, existentialism, OBEs, dreams, science, time travel, spirituality and similar mysterious and unconventional topics.
Notable releases
Old School Goa Trance:
|
§ Pleiadians - IFO
§ Blue Planet Corporation - Blue Planet
§ Battle of the Future Buddhas - Twin Sharkfins
§ The Muses Rapt - Spiritual Healing
§ Green Nuns of the Revolution - Rock Bitch Mafia
§ Jaïa - Blue Energy
§ Tim Schuldt - Singels Collection
§ UX - Ultimate Experience
|
§ Shakta - Silicon Trip
§ Technosommy - Synthetic Flesh
§ Toï Doï - Technologic
§ Deviant Electronics - Brainwashing is Childs Play
§ Planet BEN - Trippy Future Garden
§ Colorbox - Train to Chroma City
§ Ominus - Ominus
§ Xenomorph - Cassandras Nightmare
§ Hunab Ku - Magik Universe
§ Slide - Unstable
§ Hux Flux - Cryptic Crunch
§ Lunar Asylum - Lunar Asylum
§ OOOD - Breathing Space
§ Cydonia - In Fear of a Red Planet
§ Orion - Futuristic Poetry
§ Miranda - "Phenomena"
|
New School Goa Trance:
§ Antares - Exodus
§ Goasia - From Other Spaces
§ Goasia - Dancing With the Blue Spirit
§ New Born - The Trip Of The Luna King EP
§ Afgin - Astral Experiences
§ Mindsphere - Inner Cyclone
§ Khetzal - Corolle
§ Ethereal - Anima Mundi
§ Ra - 9th
§ Ypsilon 5 - Binary Sky
§ E-mantra - Arcana
§ Agneton - Horizon In Your Head
§ The Distant Civilization - Y
§ M-Run - Some Run Just For Fun
Parties
There have been attempts to formalize parties, such as those held at
Bamboo Forest, into commercial events, which was initially met with much
resistance. The need to pay the local police baksheesh means that they're now generally staged around a bar, even though this
may only be a temporary fixture in the forest or beach.
The parties around the New Year tend to be the most chaotic with bus
loads of people coming in from all places such as Mumbai, Delhi,Gujarat, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and the world over. Travelers and sadhus from all over India pass by to join in.
Perhaps the first "Goa party" in London was an underground TIP
party in December 1990.[citation
needed] TIP parties are legendary underground events.[citation
needed] TIP, standing for the band name The Infinity Project, consists of Raja Ram and Graham Wood. They went
on to do special, one off events and set up Tip
Records in 1994 which became one of the
pioneering labels of the Goa Trance genre. In 1993 a party organization called Return to the Source also brought the sound to London, UK. Starting life at the Rocket in
North London with a few hundred followers, the Source went on to a long
residency at Brixton's 2,000 capacity Fridge and to host several larger 6,000
capacity parties in Brixton Academy, their New Year's Eve parties gaining
reputations for being very special. The club toured across the UK, Europe and
Israel throughout the 1990s and went as far as two memorable parties on the
slopes of Mount Fuji in Japan and New York's Liberty Science Center. By 2001
the partners Chris Deckker, Mark Allen, Phil Ross and Janice Duncan were worn out and all
but gone their separate ways. The last Return to the Source party was at Brixton Academy in 2002.
With the proliferation of Goa trance music across the globe, parties are
now being held at locations all over the world.[citation
needed]Among the most notable of these parties are Boom Festival in Portugal, O.Z.O.R.A. in Hungary, Full Moon Party held monthly at Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand and several events held in Australia as well as Israel, Japan, South Africa, Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, Braziland British Columbia, Canada.
Goa parties have a definitive visual aspect - the use of
"fluoro" (fluorescent paint) is common on clothing and on decorations such as tapestries. The
graphics on these decorations are usually associated with topics such as aliens, Hinduism, other religious (especially eastern) images, mushrooms (and other psychedelic art), shamanism and technology. Shrines in front of the DJ stands featuring
religious items are also common decorations.
In popular culture
For a short period in the mid-1990s, Goa trance enjoyed significant
commercial success with support from DJs, who later went on to assist in
developing a much more mainstream style of trance outside Goa. Only a few
artists came close to being Goa trance "stars", enjoying worldwide
fame.
Several artists initially started producing Goa trance music and went on
to produce psytrance instead.
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