Psychedelic trance
Psychedelic trance, psytrance, or psy is a subgenre of trance music characterized by arrangements of rhythms and layered melodies created by high tempo riffs.[2][4] The genre offers variety in terms of mood, tempo, and style. Some examples include full on, darkpsy, forest, minimal (Zenonesque), hitech psy, progressive, suomi, psy-chill, psycore (fusion of psychedelic trance and hardcore), psybient (fusion of psychedelic trance and ambient), psybreaks, or "adapted" tracks from other music genres. Goa trance preceded psytrance; when digital media became more commonly used psytrance evolved. Goa continues to develop alongside the other genres.[2]
Derivations[edit]
Psybient[edit]
Psybient, also known as psychedelic ambient or ambient psy — is a genre of electronic music, that contains elements of ambient, downtempo, psychedelic trance, dub, world music, new wave, ethereal wave, and IDM.[21] The genre is also known for different alternative names used in different time periods, — the earliest developments of the genre within ambient house and chill-out music scenes were known as psychill, psychedelic chillout, psy chillout, the later works within goa trance and psychedelic trance scenes are known as ambient psytrance or ambient goa. The dub derived developments are known as psydub and psystep.
Psybient pieces are structured to generate vast soundscapes or a "musical journey". Like psytrance, it emphasizes ongoing rhythm, but due to its ambient and atmospheric sections it focuses less on beatmatching and allows for a myriad of tempo changes.[21]
Cultural research[edit]
In 2007 research was conducted on the global psytrance scene. 600 people from 40 countries provided detailed information via an online questionnaire.[28] The results were published as "Beyond Subculture and Post-subculture? The Case of Virtual Psytrance" in the Journal of Youth Studies.[29]
In 2012 Graham St. John published Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance, Equinox. (ISBN 9781845539559).