One of my hobbies is musical archaeology: sifting through the archives in search of obscure, overlooked tracks from a bygone era. This virtual crate digging occasionally turns up intriguing results, including one recent find by The Shamen, a popular late 1980s/early 1990s electronica act unjustly known for some rather cheesy hit songs. Unbeknownst to me, they burst their own…
Slight Return starts deep and builds slowly, touching on many different moods and styles as it unfolds, blending elements of house, techno, and trance. It was also a farewell set of sorts—a heartfelt parting gift to my hometown—not a “goodbye” but a “see you later!”…
Synaptic FX presents Future Architect, a blend of neotrance, pop techno, and deep house. This set crosses between many different styles and moods in a journey through contemporary 80s-influenced dance music.
Round Revue was the first house-oriented set I played in my hometown after returning from my first sojourn in Taiwan. People were more accustomed to seeing me playing psytrance so I had fun flipping the script and playing a selection of tunes that had worked wonders on East Asian dance floors over the course of the previous year.
This set was recorded live at Spacecamp Psyfari 2014, a psytrance festival held in Iowa, USA, on the morning of August 24th, featuring 100% Creative Commons-licensed music from Ektoplazm. DJ Basilisk began at sunrise, transitioning from a night of hard and heavy hi-tech into full-on psychedelic morning trance by the very end, touching on darkpsy, forest, twilight, new…
DJ Basilisk proudly presents The Colours of Ektoplazm, a 5-hour, 69-track midtempo and downtempo odyssey featuring 100% Creative Commons licensed content released through the Ektoplazm free music portal. This mix explores the incredible diversity of Ektoplazm’s electronic music catalogue, shifting seamlessly between intricate breakbeat patterns and pulsating four-by-four rhythms, touching on all points of the sonic spectrum from…
Everything on this planet has something to do with music. Music functions in the realm of sculptured air. Polluted as our atmosphere might be, air is the thing that makes music work. Since all other things that occur in the sound domain are transmitted to the ear through that swirling mass, depending on how wide you want to…
Year of the Snake is a vocal-heavy set oscillating from dark and moody to bright and funky, blending deep and dirty house beats with pop techno and indie dance. Smooth and catchy, it has something for every fan of 80s-influenced underground dance music.
Fear of Fours represents another foray into deep house and pop techno with vocals, always with a balance of darkness and light, groove and sensibility. These selections were completely unscripted, as usual.
I prepared this post to provide some insight into the making of Ektoplazm’s Greatest Trips, a “best of” compilation highlighting some of the finest music I’ve had the pleasure of distributing via Ektoplazm, the free music portal I launched in the mid-2000s. The site grew from humble beginnings to become a major focal point for psychedelic trance culture…