This is a super long read into the history of trance in a format really conducive to making interesting connections: dialogue! They only got into trance in the 2000s (and are fellow TA members, hello) but it's still a joy to nerd out on all this stuff... infinitespeeds.substack.com/p/states-of-...

Listening to this old fave. First came across this in 2000, when B+W, the speaker and headphone company, gave me a copy. This was on their BlueRoom label. The label I was managing at the time, BlackBoxMusic, was involved in a series of recordings with B+W. #music music.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Late 1990s German breakbeat oddball based around extensively chopped and sliced samples of ping pong balls. The music video is also pretty cute... low-budget computer graphics, certainly not state of the art at the time, but it totally fits 🏓 www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dt6...

Modern psytrance culture emphasizes escapism and an extreme aversion to "politics" as core values. This hasn't always been the case; witness Astral Projection contributing "Free Tibet" to this benefit compilation in 1996! Why "Free Tibet" but not "Free Palestine"? www.discogs.com/release/7785...

Enjoy this trip Enjoy this trip Enjoy this trip And it is a trip

Ishkur's guide to electronic music showcases the wrong mental model to use when thinking about musical evolution. Music, like most culture, evolves rhizomatically, more like bacteria or plants than vertebrates. This effect is especially pronounced under globalization and pervasive internet use.

Into psytrance at all? For too long leading voices in this subculture have been silent about (or even openly supportive of) Israeli war crimes and the ongoing genocide. Sign this open letter of solidarity with the Palestinian people (and be sure to confirm by email)! openletter.earth/psytrance-in...

RA dropping an absolutely scathing evisceration of gentrified Afro house and the blandness of mainstream club culture in 2025. ra.co/features/4469

Essential reading about "psywashing", the process by which global psytrance culture is captured by Israeli ultranationalists to deflect criticism of (and ultimately legitimize) the ongoing genocide. Major festivals are complicit in their silence and booking choices. In Spanish but easily translated.

TRiP was my introduction to psychedelic trance fandom and discourse online. It was active from around 1996 to 2000 and offered taste-making music reviews, event listings, and pseudonymous discussion forums. Before it went offline I archived everything... it makes for a fascinating time capsule 👽

Back in the late 1990s I was so into spinning wax that I actually went to the trouble (and expense) of pressing a dubplate to mix some CD-only tracks: Jaïa - Maï Maï and Nuclear Ramjet - La Chevauchée Fantastique. I wonder where it ended up?

Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, says UN inquiry

We're continuing to grow our cooperative network and reached a new milestone. 1,000 Labels. Independent labels, artists, supporters, and workers are all joining together to build something needed after two corporate sales: a collectively-owned Bandcamp successor.

Sven Väth swimming with dolphins in this idyllic early 90s chill-out music video is quite the vibe 🐬 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZKV...

My old friend Ukiro started a new channel to discuss record collecting and hi-fi audio gear... but mostly music! This video is something I *really* resonate with; collecting can easily become hoarding, and it's very possible to take this hobby to unhealthy extremes. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJK0...

I found these cassette tape scans in a retro trance group on Facebook. Apparently they're from Goa Gil's collection and, judging by the track listings, probably date to the 1987 or 1988 season. It's a fascinating blend of early new beat, electro-industrial dance, and acid house.

I miss many things about the early 2000s but burning, marking up, and maintaining CDs is not really one of those. I had a policy of never bringing originals to gigs so I used to carry two huge binders with 256 CDs apiece.

My music library has a list configured to deduplicate tracks based on audio CRC-32 values... and out of 300k+ files there is, amazingly, one unexpected collision! The surprising couple? Atom Heart's pounding Urban Primitivism - 684 and MentalImage - Uninhabited Planet from the Gliese 581C netlabel.

I love how hi-tech chews up the music of last century and spits it out of a railgun at escape velocity. Recognize that vocal sample? soundcloud.com/multidimensi...

Browsing the Active Meditation catalogue and stumbled upon Skoll Streik, a hard-as-nails darkpsy tune by label boss Demoniac Insomniac, sampling Greta Thunberg! "We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not..." activemeditationmusic.bandcamp.com/album/no-fea...

Sometimes you just have to marvel at the incredible kitschiness of 90s rave music. Gotta love the state-of-the-art 3D graphics in the video too... www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4jH...

The psytrance subreddit is going "no politics" to smother support for Palestine and criticism of Israel's genocide, plenty of which seems sparked by the recent drama of Skazi pulling out of Tomorrowland. "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." 💡

Catching up on what Irori Music put out since Ektoplazm went into hibernation and this hi-tech release from 2020 is an immediate WOW signal. It ticks all the boxes: killer bass-heavy beats, transcendent atmospheres, a good balance of glitch and groove. irorimusic.bandcamp.com/album/cronoc...

Skazi cancels himself at Tomorrowland. Given his overt and unapologetic support of Israel's genocide in Gaza why was he even invited in the first place? www.belganewsagency.eu/israeli-dj-s...

This is perfection ✨️

This record from Out of Orbit Recordings really flew under the radar all these years... but it's obvious this is a pseudonym for some more well-known producer(s). Rendez-Vous at Night certainly sounds like Anders Trentemøller! Maybe the others are Martinez. www.discogs.com/release/5880...

@stanthemanchan.bsky.social Nice to see you here! Cool pfp too 🦋

Just purchased 15 rare old tunes from JunoDownload and it's a small miracle none are transcodes or vinyl rips.

If I could resurrect any old time psytrance internet personality on Bluesky it would probably be Damion from Psyreviews.

Sometimes you gotta stop and appreciate that Man With No Name, a project borne of Spaghetti Westerns, was the most obvious artist to remix Pistolero.

As it’s Glastonbury, we remember this day in history 26 years ago where I did a review on E

Psytrance culture's obsession with keeping politics off the dance floor continues to run headlong into the realities of an ongoing genocide. This Australian festival they only raised concerns and opened dialogue... but it was enough for Infected Mushroom to cancel. psymedia.co.za/infected-mus...

I'm really loving hi-tech these days but so many tracks are immediately disqualified for: 1) chipmunk bass lines; if you can't keep it deep ur doing it wrong! 2) super smashy snare on every second beat, something I also despise about a lot of milquetoast nu-disco 3) ludicrous speed; 220+ is too much

[hard-to-swallow-pills.gif]: sometimes a rare record is just rare and hard to find mainly because it sucks 💡

this is the funniest way to describe brian fucking eno

Too busy tapping my foot and swaying to Daft Punk's Revolution 909 to notice the earthquake!

Is there a weird archivists starter pack? I want to follow more people who are absolute perverts for niche collecting/preservation and who post pics of stuff they love

Absolutely loving this killer remix of The Weeknd - Blinding Lights at 204 BPM. m.soundcloud.com/drdownsmusic...

A question I dread: so, what genre do you play? 😳

Listening to so much classic (and especially liquid) drum 'n bass while out on the town these days. It's such a refreshing change of pace... and constantly gives flashbacks, for inasmuch as I got way more into trance, being from Toronto means you were always around the influence of jungle.

Sometimes wish I could just share a song instead of a wall of text to express a feeling... incidentally, I only just realized Spring Heel Jack was involved in the making of this all-time classic, but it makes total sense. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKOK...

I've had the phase "WE SHARE THE SAME DREAM" rattling around in the back of my mind for days now... couldn't recall where that was from but I was still surprised to find it's the name of an Abakus album from 2009. Gave this track a ton of play back when it came out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOIK...

Another day, another psytrance scene luminary openly posting in support of genocide on main. It's sad what became of so many former heroes of the underground.

I'm really promiscuous in my music taste but can't seem to get into gabber at all (this despite my growing love affair with hi-tech). Still, it was quite a spectacle to hear some old-fashioned skull crushing kick drums rain down on FINAL last night. And the aesthetic... 🤌

is there no place in the media landscape for a grim spectre offering cryptic portents of the forthcoming calamity

Never expected a psytrance feature in @jacobinmag.bsky.social but here we are. Music festivals everywhere shouldn't be platforming artists openly supportive of genocide. (And please ignore the somewhat silly section over-analyzing track titles...) jacobin.com/2025/03/aust...

Relive the bizarre brilliance of The Knife's "Like A Pen"... still one of my all-time favorites from the Swedish electro-pop iconoclasts! www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcCQ...

Really gutted to realize every known digital copy of C.M. - Dream Universe (Man With No Name Remix) is in mono! The only stereo copy I've been able to find is on the original vinyl.

9 times out of 10 when you see a darkpsy release described as "experimental" it's just an incoherent mish-mash of poorly produced noise. I really love the exceptions though.