ISSN 1947-5403
11 papers in the library · 104 citations · publishing 2004-2023
Dancecult November 23, 2023 Trace Reddell
Cognition in extended brain-body music systems becomes especially agile during psychedelic experience, necessitating a sonic rhetoric emphasizing transformative agency. Rooted in the recursive listening spaces of dub, three forms of psychedelic electronica—ambient house, trip-hop and glitch—foster an echological sensibility unique to records made largely from the bits and pieces of other...
Dancecult November 23, 2023 Graham St John
The acid house rave scene of the early nineties sought its champions and there was no spruiker more willing, vocal and weird than Terence McKenna, a figure for whom rave was a novelty signal in a forecasted apocalypse. A slate of music collaborations with McKenna in the early nineties had one feature in common. They recorded McKenna speaking in an alien tongue. Releases with The Shamen, Space...
Dancecult November 16, 2020 Marc-Olivier Castagner
While discourses of peace abound in cultural, youth and EDMC studies, notably in relation to concepts like communitas, the dominant moral and modern conceptions of peace and conflict appear limited to tackling the inevitable conflict dynamics inside parties and around the vibe as a peak experience. Inspired by contemporary peace studies, Peter Sloterdijk's psychopolitical-morphological argument...
Dancecult 2015 Deirdre Ruane 35 citations
Many of the EDM events known as "transformational festivals" provide psychedelic support spaces: volunteer projects caring for festivalgoers undergoing difficult drug experiences. Mostly drawn from the festival community, many volunteer carers ("sitters") subscribe to psychedelic culture discourse which frames these substances as aids to personal growth if handled appropriately. However, within...
Dancecult 2013 Graham St John 8 citations
This article offers detailed comment on the vibe of the exiles, a socio-sonic aesthetic infused with the sensibility of the exile, of compatriotism in expatriation, a characteristic of psychedelic electronica from Goatrance to psytrance and beyond (i.e. psyculture). The commentary focuses on an emancipatory artifice which sees participants in the psyculture continuum adopt the figure of the...
Dancecult April 20, 2012 G. John 5 citations
Psychedelic trance music and culture (psyculture) is explored as a culture of exodus rooted in the seasonal dance party culture evolving in Goa, India, over the 1970s/1980s, and revealing a heterogeneous exile sensibility shaping Goa trance and psyculture from the 1990s/2000s. That is, diverse transgressive and transcendent expatriations would shape the music and aesthetics of Goa/psytrance....
Dancecult 2012 Joshua I. Schmidt 8 citations
Although psychedelic electronic dance music and culture (PEDMC) networks exist across the planet, in Israel this subculture has attained a high degree of mainstream national/cultural prominence. Based on an ongoing ethnographic project, this article discusses Israeli (P)EDMC by comparing and contrasting the multi-functional roles that this music culture plays for two generally non-related local...
Dancecult 2011 Graham St John 10 citations
Connecting three generations of music enthusiasts, Goa Gil is an imposing figure in the world of psychedelic trance. If the title of his 2007 compilation registers intent, he is a Worldbridger. Bristling with motifs of world sacred sites and appropriated "tribal" icons, with Gil seated cross-legged upon the apex of a Mayan temple, the album's cover artwork confabulates the physical, spiritual...
Dancecult 2009 Graham St John 38 citations
is article explores the religio-spiritual characteristics of psytrance (psychedelic trance), attending speci cally to the characteristics of what I call neotrance apparent within the contemporary trance event, the countercultural inheritance of the "tribal" psytrance festival, and the dramatizing of participants' "ultimate concerns" within the festival framework. An exploration of the...
Dancecult 2004 Tobias C. van Veen
An absolute insider of the international underground electronic music scene for 20 years or so, Riccardo Balli is the best conceivable Charon for those who weren't there and want to get at least a flavour of what it was-and still is-all about. But beware, Balli is neither a music critic nor a music historian. Rather, a DJ, label owner, composer, novelist, live performer and, above all, a...
Dancecult 2004 Daniel Paul Schnee
An absolute insider of the international underground electronic music scene for 20 years or so, Riccardo Balli is the best conceivable Charon for those who weren't there and want to get at least a flavour of what it was-and still is-all about. But beware, Balli is neither a music critic nor a music historian. Rather, a DJ, label owner, composer, novelist, live performer and, above all, a...