No culture so far discovered lacks music. Making music appears to be one of the fundamental activities of mankind; as characteristically human as drawing and painting. The survival of Paleolithic cave-paintings bears witness to the antiquity of this form of art; and some of these paintings depict people dancing. Flutes made of bone found in these caves suggest…
Recently I retrieved the metal stamper plates used to press the first and likely the only vinyl record I will ever have a hand in making: the Liquid Neon Sky EP. Until recently, these stamper plates were stored in a warehouse somewhere in Toronto, set aside after the production run in November of 2002. For whatever reason the plant held…
A free culture supports and protects creators and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual property rights. But it does so indirectly by limiting the reach of those rights, to guarantee that follow-on creators and innovators remain as free as possible from the control of the past. A free culture is not a culture without property,…
Here I have collected a list of thirteen killer tunes from the dark side of psychedelic trance. Most of these were purchased on CD from Saikosounds, my main physical media supplier these days. In alphabetical order by artist name: Atriohm – Pagan Anesthetic (Encephalopaticys Remix) [Noise Poison Records] Baal – Rite Of Passage [Underground Sound Promotions] Derango – Via [Parvati…
The fact that digital content can be distributed for no additional cost does not explain the huge number of creative people who make their work available for free. After all, they are still investing their time without being paid back. Why? The answer is simple: creators are not publishers, and putting the power to publish directly into their…
Here is another list of twenty progressive tunes that have been rocking the speakers here at Ektoplazm in recent months. Most can be purchased at the regular digital download shops but some were released exclusively on CD. Ace Ventura – Sao Paulo (Astronivo Remix) [Iboga Records] Astronivo – Bonanza (SQL Remix) [Tribal Vision Records] Astronivo – Nature of Destiny (Brisker…
Tsunami is a one-off compilation assembled by Opher AKA India Drop for Kinetic Records, New York City. Although technically one of the first major psytrance releases from a North American label, the music is entirely European and Israeli, with a mix of exclusive and licensed tracks. The release was made primarily to advertise the Tsunami organization, then a major event…
2008 was a fantastic year for free music. Now, having had more than a month to reflect, I have compiled a list of personal highlights. I’ll own up to being involved in some of these projects in some capacity or another, but this bias shouldn’t come as a surprise—I wouldn’t be working so closely on some of these projects if…
Voojoo Rituals is an obscure Israeli psytrance compilation from the turn of the millennium boasting an impressive collection of exclusive cuts found nowhere else. It is lightly mixed by DJ Gidi, who orchestrates mercifully brief and mostly non-invasive transitions, almost certainly arranged in a DAW (digital audio workstation). The packaging is peculiar; this CD comes in some kind of…
The question of tradition interests me because Goa has become the site, both mythical and historical, for a sort of tantric hand-off between an earlier generation of Western trance dancers and today’s psychedelic ravers. Whether or not Goa is the core source of rave spirituality, the freak colony has grown into a spiritual origin, a source. But this…