Obscure Genres : Psytrance

Psy Trance. Some people can't stand it and some people really have a strong connection to it. Psychedelic Music has always been a bit weird and has a bad rap with the mainstream crowd. "Only druggies listen to that stuff" you know. While it is psychedelic in nature and i'm sure people on drugs like that type of music that doesn't mean you should dismiss it as only for druggies or to be heard on drugs. This music has its own subculture just like most subgenres do. It has its own art style, fashion, sound and community. Psy Trance is said "by the psytrance ravers" to be the last true subculture left. Usually only psytrance ravers know about psytrance raves that go on and keep it close knit because they don't need bad vibes or narks crowding around them. These are the still happening forest raves and illegal warehouse raves and psy trance rave promoters put on the best theatrics out of any other style rave in the scene. Its psytrance and its colorful and theres lots of lights and lasers and pretty pictures and good art.

Psy Trance started out in Goa, India in the 90s. It was meant to bring more spirituality to dance music. The music has a steady progressive rhythm with a fruity kick and fast bassline with seemingly random outer space inspired acid squelches and trance synths. It can seem kinda weird and it might be kinda weird but it does work and when you listen to it you can see what the initial idea was for the music. The put an image in your mind of what the music is like to me is its like a dance party right normal 4 on the floor beat but its deep and kinda strange its fast yet still a calm steady rhythm and you are flying through outer space and see the occasional shooting star or meteor and less frequent but still see nebulas and you know space dust and what not lol. Its like flying through space in my mind. Its all very outer spacey to me. All the basslines sound pretty similar with a trancey riff and some space samples. An hour long mix can go by like that. That kind of the point of the trance thing though.

Ancient Shamans and even Shamans today use a 4-7 beats per second rhythm a fast rhythm to induce a trance state so they can go visit the spirit world and this music recreates that atmosphere while giving you uplifting progressive melodies to heighten your experience with it. You can lose your self very easy listening to psytrance. I could easily dance 10 hours straight and not even realize its been 10 hours if its psy trance i'm not even kidding. Non stop dancing all through the night no problem. Its a good genre to rave to and to study or work to imo because of the trance state it can put you in. Its a very special and unique type of electronic and it deserves its praise. My father first got me into psytrance with artists like GMS and IM so its always going to have a special place in my heart. The Ravers are really nice sometimes theyre tripped out space cadets on drugs but alot of the time they are kind of new agey nice people who are partial to dance music.


Here are the Top Artists to get you into Psy Trance:
Growling Mad Scientists
Infected Mushroom
Astral Projection
1200 Micrograms
Shpongle
Hallucinogen
Astrix
Vibasphere

I think to listen and download these you have to make an account on the website which is a drag but I promise it is worth it these mixes are bomb!

Mothership by Alecsey
Star Burst by Outrunner
General Psy Trance search on House-Mixes

Obscure Genres : Gabber

Gabber Baby! In Europe this isn't so obscure but in the usa it is. It's also known as Rotterdam Techno. So I've loved gabber for a pretty long time since I was a like 13 years old I've listened to this shit. It's basically the heavy metal of electronic music. At that time I listened to alot of punk rock and metal music all goth status but my true passion lies with EDM I'm a raver at heart and it affects me the most out of other kinds of music. Anyways this music is 160-200BPM, uses a distorted bassline with trance, techno and electro riffs or screaming / disturbing vocals. It's the dark side. It's Evil techno lol. It can be happy the more old Skool gabber is fun and bouncy but modern Gabber like angerfist is fast and sinister. If you like heavy bass and insane drops with 200bpm distorted kicks you'll love this too. Some may think it's not creative enough not involved enough but gabber isn't about creative it's about hardcore music and this is the best of it. On a side note there's even a dance to go rough this music it's called hakken. I might talk about dances later

Not to say it isn't possible to be creative. I believe some of the mixes I've done of gabber music are creative. They are structured a certain artistic way and the way I DJed the mixes was influenced by the artistic experience I was trying to conjure up. Here are my gabber mixes:

Nokturnika by Catapilla on Mixcloud

El Demento by Catapilla on Mixcloud

U WOT M8?! by Catapilla on Mixcloud

Top Artists via last.fm give em a listen :)

Angerfist

Neophyte

3 Steps Ahead

DJ Sharpnel

Evil Activities

The Prophet

Helblinde

Endymion

Obscure Genres : Neurofunk

So Neurofunk. The name is kinda weird. This is a more  darker sounding subgenre of drum and bass electronic music. It started around 97 in London and got its name from critics saying it sounded like funk but done differently thus neurofunk.

It's close relatives in my opinion are jungle,  darkstep and intelligent.

The music is good it's kinda like jump up dim and bass but without that usual bum tat dida dida bum tat and more unusual usually more like a bum bump bump doot... doot... do da bum bum bum blat... blat.. blat dut dut. You probably can't really understand that but that's what it's kinda like as best as I can put it in a blog.

They usually use a dark gritty bass stab as the synth melody to a track and emphasize it with the drum and bass kicks and snares and what not usually a serene soundscape for the breaks and build up then they drop dirty neurofunk style basslines that emphasize darkness and a feeling of sudden anxiety after being in a happy place. That's what it's like to me and that's definitely interesting and artistic in my book. I enjoy it. I made a mix of mostly spor he's a producer spor is actually just the name for his drum and bass projects his name is really Jon Gooch. But anyways I made a mix you can listen to it it's neurofunk.

Sugar High by Catapilla on Mixcloud

Top Artists via last.fm give em a listen :)

Noisia

Spor

Black Sun Empire

Phace

Calyx & TeeBee

Ed Rush & Optical

Black Sun Empire & Noisia

Mefjus