Internal Soundscapes

I guess that my issue is I get a bit bored. I know I am not alone in this. However, I do get tired of listening to the same genre of music for any length of time. Almost every one of my 90 posts is about how the mood I am in affects what music I want to listen to, or how it can help to explain and define your mood. Sometimes it leads it, sometimes your mood leads you to the space where you can then pick what you want to listen to.

So where am I today? Well in fact this is where I have been for the last week or so.

Lost in the soundscapes of deep electronica, and the psych trance scene. I love this music , it is so multi-textured and complex. There is so much going on at any one time. It is very much the equivalent of the Prog scene for metal heads.

I think though that it is a little hard for people to get into because of a few things. It is sometimes hard to know where a song starts or ends for one thing. Unless you go to specialist radio stations through the web, it isn't music you really hear that much of. A lot of it is very underground and even when it was at its most global and popular it sat very much in the harder core of club culture. I think the other part of it that makes it inaccessible is that it is inaccessible. Sorry for the truism, but it isn't music that has a melody that you can sing along to, or is easy to simply pick up. You have to listen to it, let it wash over you in a way.

That said, some of it has made mainstream culture, such as this

So, most people do not know it because the music is complex and not easy to pick up and it comes from behind reasonably closed doors. There is also the fact that because it comes from the club scene it is assumed to have a fair bit to do with drugs. I think this is not an unfair assumption, but in the same way that all music at the cutting edge has something to do with drugs. Let's be honest, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson have both died recently from drugs related deaths , accidental I know, however, you get the point. Drugs are everywhere in music.

As you may have guessed from the nature of the music, the over riding drug for this scene tends to have been acid. In fact it is enshrined in this song by Hallocinogen.

However, as with all other music, just because it is associated with the scene, doesn't mean you miss out on any of it because you are not on the drugs. Who knows? Not me that is certain . . .

So that is why people may not have heard much of it. Why should they? Well, apart from the fact that it is multi-layered and complex. it is also very good. I listen to it a lot when I am in a reflective mood. this tends to happen when I am travelling and am forced to sit and be still. Something I am not great at. This music enables me to switch off a bit and go to another place. An interesting place that might not actually reflect the boring sky outside the plane window.

So where should you go? Where to actually start? Start with Hallocinogen and the album Twisted. Then go to Juno Reactor and then to Man with no Name. Come back tell me what you think.

As I said, this isn't easy music. But it is remarkably rewarding and once you get it, there are worlds that open up for you. Almost like doors.