Late April of 2006 marks a full decade since my first experience of trance. Ten years ago I attended my first electronic music event: a party thrown by Syrous, one of Toronto’s early large-scale rave production organizations. The party was held in a huge warehouse complex in the industrial wastelands of the west end. Three rooms featured jungle, house, techno, and other forms of electronic dance music. I had never experienced anything like it; here were thousands of people dancing, shouting, jumping around, and going completely mad to the sound of the omnipresent drums. While the various styles of music played in the big rooms failed to intrigue my interest at the time, I made a deep and lasting connection with a few of the sounds I heard in the smaller third room. “Mr. Nivok” (more properly known as Nivoc) from Montreal was there playing an old school Goa trance set.

After this first taste of Goa trance, it took me about a year to reconnect to the psychedelic underground. Few events in Toronto seemed to feature the style, or perhaps I was simply unable to locate the relevant information. I attended gatherings organized by Moonshadow and Resonance in 1998, checked out the first BLA parties when they started up, and later on, became a regular at R351570R and Deep Sea Fish. I must direct some appreciation to all these crews for many excellent nights. What a long strange trip it has been. Thank you, everyone!