GOA TRANCE

Goa trance is best described as a psychedelic dance music. In Goa, India the main dance drug is LSD. Needless to say, the music and its composers take full advantage of this, constructing each song with a complex weaving of synth, 303 and analog noises into a powerful, kaleidescopic tapestry of sound. Then add to this strange samples from films and other sources, and whooshes and bleeps that further stimulate the psychoactive mind. The beat is a steady 4/4 kick but is often hidden deep within the twirling array of analog sounds. Much of the melody comes with a constant barrage of evolving 16th or 32nd note sound streams.

Record labels involved in the Goa trance scene include Dragonfly, Flying Rhino, Perfecto Fluoro, Platipus, TIP; with artists such as Man With No Name, Hallucinogen, Total Eclipse and Astral Projection. There are also noted Artists from Germany (Kox Box on Harthouse), Israel (Har-El) and Australia's Psy-Harmonics label.

Goa trance has been with us for longer than you might think..4 years at least. However it has only really hit the mainstream of rave culture in the last year. Paul Oakenfold, a key proponent of Goa trance, really burst the bubble with his 'Full Moon Party' Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1 last Christmas, and since then more and more artists, labels and clubs have come to embrace it. One major reason for this rise is the amount of people moving away from Ecstasy as a dance drug and towards LSD, for which this music is geared. The build up of a resistance to ecstasy, its diminished quality over recent years and the fact that LSD cannot be adulterated being contributing factors.

Goa trance could be compared to classical music, because the tracks take you on a journey and have a proper beginning and end, and that it seems to have more substance than other dance music (if you are used to it and know what to look for). Carefully chosen samples contribute far more than empty vocals, meaningless words. The power in a Goa track is in the evolution.

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