Goa trance

Coordinates	51°2′6″N20°10′4″N
Name	Goa trance
Bgcolor	silver
Color	black
Stylistic origins	TranceEBMIndian classical musicPsychedelic rockAcid house
Cultural origins	Mid-late 1980s, Goa, India
Instruments	Drum machinePCSequencerSampler
Popularity	Mid-late 1990s, Israel, EU, Japan, Brazil, Goa, Maharashtra
Derivatives	Psychedelic trance
Fusiongenres	Psybient

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 including Raff Parente 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 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; In 1999 a group of unknown artists played exclusively Detroit Techno and Chicago House at the venue known as 'Laughing Buddha' (formally known as Klinsons) in Baga, Goa. These artist were the first people to play Techno in Goa on a regular basis. The introduction of mixing on turntables using vinyl was a first for Goa at that time. Until that point 'DJs' mainly used 'MiniDiscs', 'D.A.T' and CDs, without 'beat matching' the mixes.

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, Greece, Republic of Macedonia, Costa Rica and South Africa. One particular underground genre that branched off from Goa trance is called suomisaundi (Finnish sound), which originated in Finland. One of its trademark features is a reference to early- to mid-1990s classic 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 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 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 and unconventional topics.

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.

In 1993 a party organization called Return to the Source 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. 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, Oforia, Dimension 5, Doof, Hallucinogen, Infected Mushroom, Plexus 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 X-Dream, Electric Universe, and Doof.

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 Brixton-based band Alabama 3 reference Goa trance in the single 'Ain't goin' to Goa' (1996) from their album Exile on Coldharbour Lane. Ironically, the 'Alabamas' performed an early set at a Return to the Source party at Brixton Academy as the single was released. Source promoter Phil Ross and the Alabama's manager at that time Stuart Green, coincidentally playing in the same football team.

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, 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).

See also

Music of Goa

Psychedelic trance

External links