Psychedelic trance, psytrance, or psy is a subgenre of trance music characterized by arrangements of rhythms and layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. The genre offers variety in terms of mood, tempo, and style. Some examples include full on, darkpsy, forest, minimal (Zenonesque), hitech psy, progressive, suomi, psy-chill, psycore, psybient, psybreaks, or "adapted" tracks from other music genres. Goa trance preceded psytrance; when digital media became more commonly used psytrance evolved. Goa continues to develop alongside the other genres.
Goa trance is an electronic dance music style that originated in the early 1990s in the Indian state of Goa. Goa trance often has drone-like basslines, similar to the techno minimalism of 21st century psychedelic trance (psytrance). Psychedelic trance developed from Goa trance. The typically long songs built on progressive beat changes are said to put the listener in a “trance”.
Infected Mushroom is an Israeli musical duo formed in Haifa in 1996 by producers Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani. They produce and perform psytrance, electronica, dream trance and psychedelic music. They are one of the best-selling groups in Israeli music history in terms of both domestic and international sales.
Avi Shmailov, known by his stage name Astrix, is a Georgian - Israeli trance music DJ and producer. His specialty lies in the subgenre of progressive psychedelic trance. In 2006, Astrix achieved the 41st position in DJMag's "Top 100 DJs" annual ranking, alongside several other Israeli musicians, with Infected Mushroom ranking the highest at #9. The following year, in 2007, Astrix climbed to the 18th spot on the list, marking a significant representation of the Israeli electronic music scene in the global rankings.,
Etnica is a project originally formed by Carlo Paterno, Max Lanfranconi, Maurizio Begotti, and Andrea Rizzo. They are a very well known Goa trance project from Milan, Italy.
Koxbox is a Danish musical group formed in 1990 that produced psychedelic trance. It consisted of Peter Candy and Frank É Madsen. Ian Ion, their studio producer, is also sometimes mentioned as part of the group.
In'R'Voice began his music career in Moscow, Russia. In the late 1980s, he was a fan of the classic industrial bands like Skinny Puppy, Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb. Driven by the innovative sound of industrial music, Kozlov began to experiment with analogue synthesizers. In 1992, he recorded his first tracks on a Studio “Tandem”, which recorded mainly pop musicians, but had very enthusiastic sound engineers. Together they developed the sound of Kozlov's project Inner Resonance Voice. In 1994, In’R’Voice became hugely popular on Moscow's main radio station Maximum and in nightclubs. A year later he received an award for innovations in music from the Ministry of Culture of Russia.
Mystica is a Goa trance project from Israel, and consists of Avi Peer, Joseph Master and Charlie Ben-moha.
Oliver John Wisdom was a British Goa and psy trance musician, and clothing producer, who lived in London. From the 1990s he recorded under the name Space Tribe.
Suomisaundi, also known as suomisoundi, suomistyge or spugedelic trance, is a style of psychedelic trance that originated in Finland around the mid-1990s. "Suomisaundi" literally means "Finnish sound" in Finnish. Suomisaundi's biggest proponents are said to be Tim Thick and his label Thixx'n'Dixx.
Dave Angel is an English techno musician. Angel was born in Chelsea, London, England. He is the son of a London-based jazz musician, and the elder brother of rapper Monie Love. He had an unorthodox musical education; his father influenced him deeply, as did his friends and his environment, including the radio. He listened not only to Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, but also to soul music and funk. Even though he was playing instruments at 14 years old, including percussion, his musical development was not easy or straightforward.
Return to the Source (RTTS) was a London-based Goa trance club and offshoot record label run by partners Chris Decker, Mark Allen, Janice Duncan and Phil Ross. Along with the recurring Escape from Samsara party, which also had a monthly Friday night slot at The Fridge in the mid-1990s, it was an early mainstay of trance in its underground days and through its breakout in the late 1990s. According to Allmusic, its "compilation series of the best trance music on the scene...brought Goa trance to the mainstream hordes".
The Goa Mix is a two-hour DJ mix by British musician and DJ Paul Oakenfold. It was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 1 as an Essential Mix on 18 December 1994 after the producer of the show, Eddie Gordon, chose Oakenfold to produce an eclectic DJ mix for the show which featured a burgeoning variation of electronic styles, having begun the previous year. Oakenfold had, at this point, developed his own unique Goa trance sound, influenced by his time at hippy gatherings on beaches in Goa, and employed it heavily into the mix, which also made pioneering use of film score samples. Oakenfold used the mix as an experiment in which he tried to fuse electronic music, especially trance music, with film score music, and then to overlay the result with vocal parts, samples and additional production. The mix was split into two parts, later referred to as the Silver Mix and the Gold Mix respectively. Reflecting the Goa influence, the album title did not evolve beyond its simplistic working name.
Nicholas Barber, better known by the stage name Doof, is best known as a British, London-based psychedelic trance musician.
GMS were a Dutch psychedelic trance duo which has attained significant popularity, beginning in the early 1990s. Formed by Shajahan Matkin and Joseph Quinteros in the city of Amsterdam, located in the west of The Netherlands, the duo has attracted a large international fanbase. GMS founded Spun Records in 1999, the first psychedelic trance label in the United States and Ibiza, Spain.
Suntrip Records is a half-French, half-Belgian record label, releasing Goa trance and melodic Psychedelic trance. Suntrip Records was set up in the summer of 2004 by Fabien "Mars" Marsaud, one of the founders of the Psynews.org website and Joske "Anoebis" Vranken, a Belgian DJ and party-organiser.
Electric Universe is a psychedelic trance project from Germany formed by Boris Blenn and Michael Dressler in 1991. Their first EP release, Solar Energy, was an instant hit with the underground trance scene and is often credited with putting the Spirit Zone Recordings label at the forefront of psychedelic trance early on. According to The Sofia Echo, they were "hailed in the 1990s as one of the top psychedelic trance projects to come out of Germany".
Astral Projection is an Israeli electronic musical group, producing psychedelic trance and Goa trance music. Its current members are Avi Nissim and Lior Perlmutter. Although the majority of their releases have been done through their own record company, Trust in Trance Records, they have also released records with other labels including Transient. In addition to an extensive discography, the group has an extensive worldwide touring schedule.
Perfect Stranger is the stage name of Yuli Fershtat, an Israeli musician, producer and DJ, born in 1970 in Moscow, Russia, moving to Israel at the age of 11.
Tristan Cooke, is a British psytrance and Goa trance DJ and producer.
