Cover art for a Goa Trance compilation album
SHAURYA SINGH THAPA spread the word for the Goan artists or tried producing Goa-inspired trance themselves . In fact , it was an Israeli duo , Infected Mushroom , that brought this particular sound to the ambit of world music . Infected Mushroom continue to be trailblazers in genres like psytrance and dreamtrance .
In1992 , the first Goa trance festivals began their course , including the Gaia Festival in France and the stillrunning VooV festival in Germany . The Indian state ’ s trance music scene had successfully been exported to the rest of the world . However , this was the time when Goa trance began to reach its saturation point . UK based-Dragonfly Records attempted to market on Goa trance resulting in an album titled Project II Trance . The album was a compilation of many Goa trance-inspired tracks by trending DJs of the time . Unfortunately , the sales were low and the buzz started dying out .
The now-defunct trance record label Matsuri Productions dropped a compilation , Let It Rip , in 1997 . Interestingly , the album ’ s backsleeve read , ‘ R . I . P : Mother Theresa , Princess Diana , William Burroughs & Goa Trance ’. Goa ’ s gift to global electronic music did have an expiry date .
But is Goa trance dead ? That can be argued upon but what can ’ t be denied is that its legacy still lives on as psytrance continues to draw in artists and fans from all over the globe . Apart from India , psytrance has a fostering scene in Israel , South Africa and western Europe .
In the 21st century , Indian psytrance DJs have been performing all over the world . Aghori Tantrik , a premier psytrance maestro from India , even founded his own record label , Sonic Tantra Records , in 2005 . Similarly , another pioneer Sumith Suresh aka Braindrop owned three labels under the banner of Occulta Records group .
In the end , psytrance might not be a part of the country ’ s mainstream music but the genre still needs to be recognised in the annals of Indian music history as a cult movement of its own …
Cover art for the album Patala by Aghori Tantrik
Goa Gil
Goa Gil with sadhus
Cover art for Flipknotic Fables by Flipknot
Farebi Jalebi
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