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Today's hits:
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Goa is a state on the west coast of India, about an hour flight or 24 hour train ride from Bombay. It is culturally different from the rest of India because it was a Portugese colony until the 1960's.
A few factors made Goa into the home of trance:
Sometime in the late 50's to mid 60's the area was "discovered" by a group of travellers, including "Eight Finger Eddie", and a small international psychedelic scene began to meet there to party during the dry season. There was beach theater psychedelic rock, etc.
- it does not rain between October and March
- due to the catholic influence, there was a tradition of Winter festivals
- the beaches are beautiful
- it's cheap to live there
- people are sweet
Cut forward a few years:
In Europe, which had not seen much of a psychedelic scene during the punk era, two things arrived at the same time - MDMA (Ecstasy) and Detroit house and techno music. MDMA had been used by trippers and psychologists in the USA for a while, either as a tool for therapy, or to have small intimate naked gatherings by rivers, on beaches, in bedrooms, etc. Where in New York MDMA was absorbed into the already existing psychedelic scenes, in Europe it sparked a new scene (having little scene to be absorbed into). The European version of hippies already caravanning about, began to have dance parties fueled by the new beat, and the new chemical culture.
Back in India, the subsubculture of travellers brought this music to the winter enclaves of Anjuna, Vagator, etc., as well as Ko Samui, Ko Pangan, Kathmandu, etc. The DJ's, music makers, dancers, etc. shared the old hippie/acid approach to life, even MORE tempered by Indian metaphors, and the music changed over time to reflect these various feelings, belief systems, etc...
Goa trance was born!
As the early 90's moved into the mid 90's, the style began to spread out of the traveller circuit, and back into Europe. As more people who did not come out of traveller culture got into the music, is grew a little harder and darker in some ways, and more substyles began to appear. This is where we stand now, as the term "Goa trance" grows to be a recognized marketable genre, and the scene is going through all the growing pains that every other cool scene (especially psychedelic ones) have had to go through... As it mutates, warps and grows, we try to ride the wave of Goa trance, knowing we will have a good ride, that eventually like all good things it will collapse under its own weight, hopefully not before its mutated beyond any expectations we might have for it now.
Goa is a paradise on the shores of India, a place where hippies and travellers have retired or retreated to since the sixties. It is also the starting point of a vibrant type of dance music named after the area. 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 (1997). 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 (1996), 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.