Goa trance 1

Goa trance
Goa trance
Stylistic origins Trance
EBM
Indian classical music
Psychedelic rock
Acid house

Cultural origins Mid-late 1980s, Goa, India

Typical instruments Drum machine

PC
Sequencer
Sampler

Mainstream popularity Mid-late 1990s, Israel, EU, Japan, Brazil, Goa, Maharashtra

Derivative forms Psychedelic trance

Fusion genres

Psybient

Notable artists

Astral Projection - Cosmosis - Dimension 5 - Doof - Hallucinogen - Infected Mushroom - Man With No Name - MFG - Juno Reactor -
Pleiadians - Prana - Shiva Shidapu - The Infinity Project - Total Eclipse - Transwave

Goa trance is a form of electronic music that originated during the late 1980s in Goa, India.

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 with the spiritual culture in India
throughout the 1980s, the actual Goa trance style did not officially appear until the early 1990s. 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 and recreational 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, Simply Red and Ash Ra Tempel. In
addition to those, oriental tribal/ethnic music also became a source of inspiration. 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-esque drum patterns.
The introduction of techno and its techniques to Goa led to what eventually became the Goa trance style; early
pioneers included DJs Fred Disko, Swiss Rudi, Laurent, Goa Gil, and Amsterdam Joey. Many "parties" (generally
similar to raves but with a more mystic flavour, at least in early 1990s) in Goa revolve entirely around this genre of
music. In other countries, Goa is also often played at raves, festivals and parties in conjunction with other styles of
trance and techno.
Goa trance 2

Today, Goa trance has a significant following in Israel, brought to that

country by former soldiers returning from recreational "post-army
trips" to Goa in the early 1990s. A great deal of Goa trance (or now,
more accurately, psytrance) is now produced in Israel, but its
production and consumption is a global phenomenon. New "hot-spots"
today include Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Japan, New Zealand,
Macedonia and South Africa.

One particular underground genre that branched off from Goa trance is
called suomisaundi (Finnish sound), which originated in Finland. One A hand-drawn flyer for a Goa trance party in
of its trademark features is a reference to early- to mid-1990s classic Israel in 1990
Goa trance music, and this genre is often exhibited in Finland's forest
party scene. At these parties, mostly Goa trance and Suomi-style psytrance can be heard.

The sound
Goa trance was originally referred to as trance dance. 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, almost always in common time (4/4)
meaning 4 quarter note pulses per bar. Time is marked with kicks (bass drum beats) on each quarter-note pulse, a
snare or clap on the second and fourth pulse of the bar, with an open hi-hat sound every second eighth note. 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 BPM typically lies in the 130-150 range, although some tracks may have BPMs as low
as 110 or as high as 160. 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, psytrance, is the organic
"squelchy" sound (usually a saw-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 Ensoniq were 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 to drugs, parapsychology, extraterrestrial life, existentialism, OBEs, dreams, science, spirituality
and similar mysterious, occult, or unconventional topics.

Parties
Goa trance parties began in the late 1980s in the state of Goa, India and they can take place in locations such as on a
beach or in the middle of the forest, although it is not uncommon for them to be held in clubs. 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 and the world over. Travelers, beggars and sadhus from all over
India pass by to join in.
Goa trance 3

However, with the proliferation of Goa trance music across the globe, parties are now being held at locations all over
the world. Among the most notable of these parties are BOOM in Portugal, O.Z.O.R.A. in Hungary, Full Moon Party
held monthly at Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand and several events held in Byron Bay, Australia as well as Israel, Japan,
South Africa, Scandinavia and Brazil.
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 such
as Paul Oakenfold, Sven Väth and Andrew Weatherall, 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. Among the most notable are Juno Reactor, Eat Static, Astral Projection, Etnica, Dimension 5,
Doof, Hallucinogen, Infected Mushroom, Man With No Name, The Infinity Project, Section X and Transwave.
Several artists initially started producing Goa trance music and went on to produce psytrance instead, perhaps most
notably Evolution, S.M.I.L.E., X-Dream, Electric Universe, O.O.O.D., Cybersnack, Shiva Chandra, Dominic
Sangeet, Genetic, Tsuyoshi Suzuki, Doof and Dino Psaras. Experimental Goa and psytrance group Juno Reactor had
their music featured in many Hollywood movies like Mortal Kombat, The Matrix and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
However, most of their music featured is regarded as trance or psytrance and of a very experimental nature. Koxbox
from Denmark have Goa trance tracks on the sound track of the movie Pusher, most notably the track 'Fuel On'.
ESPN has featured ~30 second clips of Goa during the scoring recaps for both college and professional games. The
band Alabama 3 / A3 reference Goa trance in track 'Ain't goin' to Goa' from the Exile on Coldharbour Lane album.

New school goa trance

In the recent history, there has been an expansion of new goa trance artists and labels across the globe. Many new
goa fans emerged, and since 2005, goa trance genre has been going through a new cycle of life. This new generation
of artists are very determined and their creativity has been noticed by many goa fans all over the world. Some artists
have already established their own indie labels, while others have made a great success in terms of creativity and
production. Artists like Planewalker, Filteria, Ra (musician), Goasia, Radical Distortion, Agneton, Amithaba Buddha
(musician), Aerosis, Liquid Flow, Khetzal, Yesod (musician), Afgin, Jikooha, Travma (musician), Astrancer,
Antares (musician), E-Mantra, Primal Source, Hexa-5, Virtual Light (musician), Goalien, Arronax, Space Elves,
Alienapia, InnerSelf, Vox (musician), Amanians, Artifact303, Ajna (musician), and many others, represent the new
school goa sound today. The most known labels are Suntrip Records (Belgium), Cronomi Records (Israël),
Phototropic Records (Austria), Prism Code (Canada) Kagdila Records (USA) and Ezel Ebed Records (Turkey).

Further reading
• vijendra kudnekar. & Hollands, R., Beyond Subculture and Post-subculture? The Case of Virtual Psytrance,
Journal of Youth Studies, Volume 9, Number 4, September 2006 , pp. 393–418(26), Routledge.
• St. John, G., Rave Culture and Religion, Routledge, 2003 (ISBN 978-0-415-31449-7).
• St. John, G.(ed.), 'FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor' free ebook download [1], Common Ground,
Melbourne, 2001 (ISBN 978-1-86335-084-6).
• Taylor, T., Strange Sounds: Music, Technology and Culture, Routledge, 2001 (ISBN 978-0-415-93684-2).
Goa trance 4

See also
• Music of Goa
• Psychedelic trance

External links
• Psychedelic Trance [2] at the Open Directory Project

References
[1] http:/ / undergrowth. org/ freenrg_notes_from_the_edge_of_the_dancefloor
[2] http:/ / www. dmoz. org/ Arts/ Music/ Styles/ D/ Dance/ Trance/ Psychedelic_Trance/ /
Article Sources and Contributors 5

Article Sources and Contributors

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Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

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