Psychedelic trance or psytrance is a form of electronic music characterized by hypnotic arrangements of synthetic rhythms and complex layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. It first broke out into the mainstream in 1995 as the UK music press began to report on the trend of Goa trance. Since then the genre has grown immensely and now offers much variety in terms of mood, tempo, and style. Some examples include full on, dark, progressive, suomi, psybreaks and psybient.

 History

VooV Experience 2005 – one of the longest-existing psytrance openair events

An indoor event

The first hippies who arrived in Goa, India in the mid 1960s were drawn there for many reasons, including the beautiful beaches, the low cost of living, the friendly locals, the Indian religious and spiritual practices and the readily available Indian hashish, which until the mid-70s was legal.

During the 1970s the first Goa DJs were generally playing psychedelic rock bands such the Grateful Dead, the Pink Floyd and The Doors. In ‘79 the beginnings of electro music could occasionally be heard in Goa in the form of tracks by Kraftwerk but it wasn’t until ’83 that DJs Laurent and Fred Disko, closely followed by Goa Gil, began switching the Goa style over to electro-industrial/EBM which was now flooding out of Europe from Frontline Assembly, Front 242, and various other bands.

The tracks were remixed, removing the lyrics, looping the melodies and beats and generally manipulating the sounds in all manner of ways before the tracks were finally presented to the dancers as 100% Goa-style mixes.^{[citation needed]} By ’85 all Goa music was electronic and people were constantly searching for new music to remix into the new Goa-style. It was impossible to buy this type of music in stores; even today most psytrance sales take place over the net rather than in physical shops. Arguably the first commercially released trance tune came in ’88 and is accredited to UK acid house outfit the KLF with What Time Is Love. However, at the same time Goa music was being created by pioneers like Art of Trance, Juno Reactor, Eat Static and The Infinity Project.

By ’92 the Goa trance scene had a pulse of its own, though the term 'Goa trance' didn’t become the name tag of the genre until around ’94. New artists were springing up from all over the world and it was in this year that the first Goa trance festivals began, including the Gaia Festival in France and the now world-famous and still-running VuuV festival in Germany.

In 1993 the first 100% Goa trance album was released, Project 2 Trance, featuring tracks by Man With No Name and Hallucinogen to name two. Goa trance enjoyed its commercial peak between ’96 and ’97 with a fair bit of media attention and some huge names in the DJ scene joining the movement. This hype did not last long and once the attention had died down so did the music sales, resulting in the downfall of record labels, promotion networks and also some artists. This ‘commercial death of Goa trance’ was marked musically by Matsuri Productions in ’97 with the release of the compilation Let it RIP.

Israel played a part in this development. Until 1988 India’s borders were closed to Israelis. When they were opened, many Israelis traveled to India after completion of their mandatory military service looking for a cheap, fun place to unwind. When they returned to Israel they brought music and drugs back with them; in ’90 the first psychedelic ‘full moon gatherings’ on Nitzanim’s beaches began.^{[citation needed]} The music was not as dark as modern darkpsy but different from what was already available.

Additionally, the quantity of Goa music coming out of Europe, particularly Scandinavia, provided a good deal of inspiration to younger generations of trance producers. Soon new top-quality acts were popping up on the scene, including most notably Atmos, Ticon, Human Blue, Son Kite and Reefer Decree. The groundbreaking works of these groups paved the way for such presently popular progressive trance artists as Astrix, Perfect Stranger, Ace Ventura and Liquid Soul.

However, the police clamped down hard on these psychedelic gatherings and with such a likely possibility of police intervention it seemed that a new formula was needed, one that would allow trancers to get maximum enjoyment from the party before it was shut down. This formula was basic, fast, and cheesy, with short intense sets; this allowed party goers to have a consistently intense experience from the beginning of the party until it was stopped.

In ’96 the music had changed so much from its Goa beginnings that the term Goa trance no longer seemed suitable and the new term of psychedelic trance, or psytrance for short, was coined to refer to this new style of music. The multi-layered melodies of Goa trance were stripped away and a darker and more repetitive form of music concentrated on rhythm and groove appeared. A landmark album of this change would be ‘98’s album Radio by X-Dream.

In 2002, melodies became popular again, heralding the beginning of full-on psytrance.

Currently, there are many sub-genres within the psytrance scene, including minimal/progressive psy, morning psy, full-on psy, and dark psy. There has recently been a movement attempting to ‘return to the source’ and bring back the original Goa trance sound, such as Metapsychic Records and Suntrip Records, which are dedicated to reviving the roots of the scene and promoting artists trying to recapture the original feeling of the music.