Goa Trance Legacy by DJ Psara in collaboration with Spacedock Records A storytelling journey of Expansive Psychedelic Trance
It’s always a funny thing to write about something one does and more over when it’s in the line of promotional content, because it’s going to be set out to the world, and everyone will make their own mind about it, whatever one says. Or so one hopes... But in the end posterity will decide. Besides that, I would rather go through the journey as I feel it in the style of the reviews I’ve been writing, from time to time, for a group of likeminded friends with whom I share a deep love for known, Rare & Unreleased Expansive Psychedelic Trance.
1. The compilation starts with a magnificent sounding tune by Manmademan from 20 years ago. Oh my… the quality of these analogue sounds is just breath taking… It had to be our way into this listening but also very enjoyable dancing experience. “Hex Hard (’97 Unreleased)” is a ritual of initiation that builds up smoothly and slowly through a hypnotic world of expansive psychedelia. Very powerful trance as we all know them to excel at. A perfect example of rocking magic for the dancefloor mixing perfectly the strong flavours of power rock and the angelic lift of beautiful whispers from another world that is still our own. This is an invocation of the spirits to be, from now and beyond. A portal to the other side. Clearly a personal favourite. A kind of prologue that sums the whole thing up: We are them! 2. Having been initiated into the other side we open the time cycles of the fourth dimension with “Kalachakra”. Artha follows some of the Hallucinogen standards without ever becoming standardized in this masterful arrangement of time signatures, taking us into a perceptic tempo shifting ride that goes straight to the core of abstract abduction. Starting with the ethnic feel of syncopated Sub-Saharan drumming the spaceship soon takes off to the stars with a happy and strong playful range of melodies, glissandos and acid lines, bursting in a joyfully hypnotic climax. Modern storytelling at its best. Melancholy in the nostalgia of the future. The future is here! 3. Up there, ready to ride the universe, our journey now turns into a pleasurable expressive mood. The uniqueness of fauvism in a pitch board. Vast regions of desert above the clouds. “Space Rubble” is a field of blissful glissandos which starts beautifully with a sort of stellar dust slalom of galactic proportions, going up and down, magnificently filtered. New Born is known for his introspective power space rock blues with an exotic feel. Tighten up your seatbelts for a slightly darker trip in which we’re brilliantly divided between the mellow echoes from the far distances of space and a very reliable engine to ride it through. We’re preparing to go inside our minds. 4. With “Pangea” the whole of “this Earth’s” continents are in front of our eyes, equalized into one place, one plane, literally. It’s all out there in front of us. Hypnagogia brings a more Full On flavour of trance to the fold and also a bit of the new Goa Trance feel without ever becoming obvious. There is no standard here, not really. This is a very strong and groovy moment in which we’re still awake but starting to go into wakeful sleepiness. A transfixed uplifting enforcement of ground so we can go further inside and explore the unknown depths of the mind without losing ourselves. 5. And we’re about to unravel the angst of our journey. With hints of melancholic sadness and a metallic cold feel throughout the scope. This is the funky madness of dark Goa Trance. Shadowed in blue with the piercing bright spiking sparks of wielding swords on a fight for which fear might outdo itself… and we could be getting lost in our mind. “Autopsy Degradation” is an exploration of our innermost challenges in a very positive forward attitude. There is so much going on in this tune it’s hard to get it all in a first go. Deep and cold, I like to think of this darker side of Goasia as ‘Gopsy’. This is a fight between giants in our inner cosmos. We touched it.