Except for Goa trance in India, parties started to occur in other parts of the world, and the most known ones were in Byron Bay (Australia), where many hippies found their new place for Goa trance, since more and more tourists were visiting Goa and the scene was booming. In England, the first Goa trance parties were organized in London and Manchester. It was interesting that almost the very same DJs performed in Goa and in England, and the visitors were mostly the same in the both areas. It was just a matter of season where the caravan will be settled.
The music in that period (1993-1999) was characterized as psychedelic trance-dance. That term was mentioned even earlier and it was often used as a title for parties. The tracks became longer than earlier, so the average track was around 8.30 minutes, and the tempo was around 145 BPM (beats per minute).
Generally, the BPM range can vary from 120 to 160. The structure of tracks mostly had the same pattern, so almost every track had an atmospheric intro, 4/4 rhythm which was followed by oriental and eastern melodies, acid sounds (the legendary TB303) and vocal samples (mostly taken from SF movies
The climax of the track would usually emerge around 5th minute, although some tracks didn’t follow that pattern. Iconography on parties, CD covers and T-shirts was mostly related to Hindu and Buddhist motifs.
There were also science-fiction motives (mostly aliens, UFOs and other characters), colourful psychedelic fractals and drawings.
The end of Goa trance music occurred in the period between 1998./1999 with the newly formed psy trance sound which was rather minimalistic comparing to Goa trance, containing less melodies, shorter bass lines and sharper kicks with emphasis on psychedelic sound effects. Many Goa trance projects started to fade, while others formed within the psytrance genre.
Although, some other projects kept their former names while they adjusted their production to the present trend.
One of such examples is a legendary Goa trance project – Etnica. Many publishers also followed the change, and one of the biggest trance labels, TIP records was renamed to TIP World. TIP Records used to publish Goa trance (The Infinity Project, Doof, Psychopod...) while TIP World started to publish new projects like GMS, Logic Bomb, 1200 Mics, and others.
After Goa trance found its place in electronic music scene, many new artists, publishers and DJs had emerged. It would take a lot of time to mention all of the names which took part in the scene during the six golden years of Goa trance (1993-1999).
MUSIC - History