Alex Fernandes Portraits: The Front 242 project

‘The Nommos’ which consist of Goa Gil and his wife Ariane is a project that combines African drumming and tribal trance dance music.

Goa Gil holding a framed copy of a calendar distributed at the New Years party in South Anjuna. It contains a picture of the 'Big Dipper Band' that Gil was a part of.

For his recent album cover ‘Kali Yuga’, Avatar records, (see http://www.avatar-music.com/artists.shtml) is a fold out poster of the black and white portrait I made of Gil.

Dr Vagator (Francisco Guevara)

Dr Vagator Tatoo

Bojan

D.J. Jonas (Trashlords), Stone Age records.

Giuseppe (Parvati Records)

Goa Gil's Kali Yuga album.

“Culture is not your friend, it's an impediment to understanding what's going on. That's why to my mind the word cult and the word culture have a direct relationship to each other. Culture is a cult and if you feel revulsion at the thought of somebody offering to the great carrot, just notice that your own culture is an extremely repressive cult that leads to all kinds of humiliation and degradation, and automatic and unquestioned and unthinking behaviour.”

- Terence Mckenna , From the lecture: "Into the Valley of Novelty"

Music, like art is sometimes subject to violent misinterpretations and musicians, like artists, can be intellectually complex and controversial.

It has been about three years since I conceptualized this project and made my first attempts to put together a series of portraits of Goa Trance musicians and DJ’s. After many conversations and e-mails, I eventually managed these portraits.

It is not my intent to document everyone who may have been associated with the Goa Trance scene. That would be a rather remote possibility.

Instead, I hope to execute at least six to ten portraits of iconic musicians and Dj’s from the Goa party scene.

I borrowed the title from Front 242, a pioneering Belgian electronic music group that came into prominence during the 1980s. Front 242 - along with other electronic music groups - were amongst the first electronic groups to be played at Goa beach parties in the early eighties. These early electronic bands were a precursor to Goa trance.

The music has its roots in the popularity of Goa in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a hippie capital, and although elements of Industrial music and EBM (Electronic body music or industrial dance music) were already being blended with the spiritual culture of India throughout the 1980s, actual Goa trance did not officially appear until the early 1990s.

The music that would eventually be known as Goa trance did not evolve from one single genre, but was inspired by EBM-groups like Front 242,Yellow, T.I.P, Front Line Assembly, Meat Beat Manifesto and acid house music (a sub-genre of house music), techno and psychedelic rock like Ozric Tentacles, Steve Hillage, Simply Red and Ash Ra Tempel. In addition to those, Eastern tribal/ethnic music was also a source of inspiration.

Goa Trance developed around the same time that Trance music became popular in Europe.

The introduction of techno and its techniques to Goa led to the Goa Trance style; early pioneers included DJ’s like Laurent, Goa Gil, Fred Disko, and Amsterdam Joey.

Many "parties" (generally similar to raves but with a more mystic flavour, at least in early 1990s) in Goa revolve entirely around this genre of music.

Top DJ's from the UK and other parts of Western Europe used to regularly fly to Goa for special parties, often on the beaches or in rice fields. South Anjuna Beach is traditionally seen as the birthplace and center of the Goan trance scene. In other countries, Goa Trance sets are often played at raves, festivals and parties in conjunction with other styles of trance and techno.

Goa Trance was originally referred to as trance dance. The original goal of the music was to assist the dancers in experiencing a collective state of bodily transcendence, similar to that created by the ancient shamans during long periods of drumming in shamanic dancing rituals, through hypnotic pulsing melodies and rhythms.

Goa Trance tracks tend to focus on steadily building energy throughout - using changes in percussion patterns and more intricate and layered synth parts as the music builds a hypnotic and intense feel. To my mind, the Goa parties resemble a ‘tribal shigmo’ with a ‘digital Romoth’ used to induce trance states.

The music very often incorporates many audio effects created through experimentation with synthesizers. Another important distinction between European trance and Goa Trance is that, Goa trance features spazzy, spontaneous samples and other psychedelic elements. A well-known sound that originated with Goa Trance and became much more prevalent through its successor, Psychedelic Trance (Psytrance), is the organic "squelchy" sound.

A popular element of Goa Trance is the use of samples, often from science fiction movies. Those samples often contain references to psychedelics, parapsychology, extraterrestrial life, existentialism, OBE’s, dreams, science, spirituality and similar mysterious, occult, or unconventional topics.

Goa Trance DJs' mainly used 'MiniDiscs', 'D.A.T' (Digital Audio Tapes) and CDs. Vinyl was very rare or almost never used.

DAT machines from Sony.

With rapid changes in technology, Laptop computers running professional DJ software like ‘Tracktor’ have been incorporated. Other music technology used in Goa trance includes popular analogue synthesizers such as the Roland TB-303, Roland Juno-60/106, Novation Bass-Station, Korg MS-10, and notably the Roland SH-101. Hardware samplers manufactured by Akai, Yamaha and Ensoniq were also popular for sample storage and manipulation.

Goa Trance is closely related to the emergence of Psytrance during the latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s, where the two genres mixed together. In popular culture, the distinction between the two genres often remains largely a matter of opinion (they are considered by some to be synonymous; others say that Psytrance is more "psychedelic/cybernetic" and that Goa Trance is more "organic", and still others maintain that there is a clear difference between the two).

Essentially, Trance music was pop culture's answer to the Goa Trance music scene on the beaches of Goa where the traveler’s music scene has been famous since the time of the Beatles.

Goa Trance enjoyed the greater part of its success from around 1994–1998, and since then has dwindled significantly both in production and consumption, being replaced by its successor, Psychedelic Trance (Psytrance). Many of the original Goa Trance artists are still making music, but refer to their style of music simply as "PSY". T.I.P (The infinity project) Records, Yellow, Flying Rhino Records, Dragonfly Records, Transient Records, were all key players on the beach scene.

For a better understanding of counterculture music, one must examine the philosophy of Industrial music.

Goa Trance and other forms of Trance have their roots in Industrial music, a style of experimental popular music that draws on transgressive themes and is often associated with countercultural angst and anger. While ideologically linked to punk music, industrial music is generally more complex and diverse, both sonically and lyrically. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by Yorkshire band Throbbing Gristle.

Industrial music drew from a broad range of predecessors. The precursors that influenced the development of the genre included acts such as electronic group Kraftwerk, experimental rock acts The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa, psychedelic rock artists such as Jimi Hendrix, composers such as John Cage, and writers such as William S. Burroughs, whose ideas were particularly influential on the scene, particularly his interest in the cut-up technique and noise as a method of disrupting societal control, as well as philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche. Many of the initial industrial musicians preferred to cite artists or thinkers - rather than musicians - as their inspiration.

Alexei Monroe (PhD from the University of Kent, author of many articles on contemporary music, culture, and politics) argues that Kraftwerk were particularly significant in the development of industrial music, as the "first successful artists to incorporate representations of industrial sounds into nonacademic electronic music." Industrial music was created originally by using mechanical and electric machinery, and later advanced synthesizers, samplers and electronic percussion as the technology developed.

The birth of industrial music was a response to "an age [in which] the access and control of information were becoming the primary tools of power."

At its birth, the genre of industrial music was different from any other music, and its use of technology and disturbing lyrics and themes to tear apart preconceptions about the necessary rules of musical form supports the suggestion that industrial music is modernist music. The artists themselves made these goals explicit, even drawing connections to social changes they wished to argue for through their music.
See also sculptor Jungle Goa comment on technology and trance: http://alexfernandesphotography.blogspot.com/2011/02/jungle-goa-on-trance-music.html
The Industrial Records website explains that musicians wanted to re-invent rock music and that their uncensored records were about their relationship with the world. They go on to say that they wanted their music to be an awakening for listeners so that they would begin to think for themselves and question the world around them. Industrial Records intended the term industrial to evoke the idea of music created for a new generation, with previous music being more agricultural.

The first industrial artists experimented with noise and aesthetically controversial topics, musically and visually, such as fascism, serial killers and the occult, the history of uniforms and insignia" and Aliester Crowley’s Magick was present in Throbbing Gristle's work, as well as in other industrial pioneers.

Their production was not limited to music, but included mail art, performance art, installation pieces and other art forms.

Early industrial music often featured tape editing, stark percussion and loops distorted to the point where they had degraded to harsh noise.
Vocals were sporadic and electronically treated. Traditional instruments were often played in nontraditional or highly modified ways. Custom-built fuzzboxes for guitars produced a unique timbre.

Documentary about the the people of EMS (Electronic Music Studios) a radical group of avant-garde electronic musicians who utilized technology and experimentation to compose a futuristic electronic sound-scape for the New Britain.Comprising of pioneering electronic musicians Peter Zinovieff and Tristram Cary (famed for his work on the Dr Who series) and genius engineer David Cockerell, EMSs studio was one of the most advanced computer-music facilities in the world. EMSs great legacy is the VCS3, Britains first synthesizer and rival of the American Moog. The VCS3 changed the sounds of some of the most popular artists of this period including Brian Eno, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd.

Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle built speakers, effects units, and synthesizer modules, as well as modifying more conventional rock instrumentation, for Throbbing Gristle. He also invented a device named the "Gristle-izer", played by Peter Christopherson, which comprised a one-octave keyboard and a number of cassette machines triggering various pre-recorded sounds.

The purpose of industrial music initially was to serve as a commentary on modern society by eschewing what artists saw as trite connections to the past. Throbbing Gristle opposed the elements of traditional rock music remaining in the punk rock scene, declaring industrial to be "anti-music."

Early industrial performances often involved taboo-breaking, provocative elements, such as mutilation, sado-masochistic elements and totalitarian imagery or symbolism, as well as forms of audience abuse, such as Throbbing Gristle's aiming high powered lights at the audience. Jon Savage, the Cambridge-educated writer, broadcaster and music journalist, considered some hallmarks of industrial music to be organizational autonomy, shock tactics, and the use of synthesizers and "anti-music." Industrial Records was perhaps even more important an attack on the public consciousness than Throbbing Gristle.

New school Goa trance

Recently, there has been an expansion of new Goa trance artists and labels across the globe. Several artists initially started producing Goa trance music and went on to produce Psytrance instead.

Many new Goa fans emerged, and since 2005, the genre has been going through a new cycle of life. Some artists have established their own indie (independent) labels, while others have made a great success in terms of creativity and production. Currently, there are many sub-genres within the psytrance scene, including minimal/progressive Psy, morning Psy, full-on Psy, and dark Psy.

The Goa Trance School has its influence in many other countries particularly Israel and Finland. Trance is very popular in Israel, with psychedelic trance producers such as Infected Mushroom, Astrix, and Yahel Sherman achieving worldwide fame. One particular underground genre that branched off from Goa trance that I like is called Suomisaundi (Finnish sound), which originated in Finland. One of its trademark features is a reference to early- to mid-1990s classic Goa trance music, and this genre is often exhibited in Finland's forest party scene. In China, Chinese trance is a subgenre of trance music that originated in 2000. It derives from House, Techno, Psy and Goa Trance.

I hope the Front 242 series goes out to all lovers of Trance music and people wanting to experience or just curious about the global phenomena of Psychedelic-Goa trance. Goa/Psytrance has re-shaped the style and atmosphere of Trance parties worldwide.

A Psytrance party is definitely an unforgettable experience, a party of peace, spirituality, smiles and good music.

Links to interviews with Goa Trance DJ's (GateLessGate Magazine)
Chicago 1200 mics
http://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/category/1200-mics-chicago/

GMS(Growling Mad Scientist) -The Bansi interview

http://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/category/gms-the-bansi-interview/

Last Hippe Standing Goa Gil interview