Free darkpsy/psycore releases are a dime a dozen these days. More than any other style, darkpsy netlabels and artists have embraced the free music concept. I dare not post every new darkpsy release to the front page, however; Ektoplazm would soon be flooded with darkness, and what sort of impression would that leave with first-time visitors and newcomers to psytrance? I have to be choosy with what makes the cut.

With that said, I know there is an army of hardcore darkpsy fanatics out there. For all those freaks who absolutely cannot get enough, here are a bunch of free darkpsy releases that slipped through the cracks…

In recent months, Moonsun Records announced d.N.i’s Insane Destruction EP, newcomers BloodSuck Records dropped Brazilian V.A.Mpires, and Psychotic Viridis Records sought to promote Machines Of Destruction (good luck figuring out how to download that one; Isratrance might help here, or–better yet–Freetrance.net). Shamanicaros released Shamanic Icaros 1 not too long ago while PsyMoon Records put out a compilation, Strange Side Of The Moon, and an album by an artist named Flucturion. The ever-prolific Skitzophrenik Lifeform Records has also been pumping out free releases–11 in all, so far–so I won’t list them off individually. The Ohmage compilation looks very promising but it appears to be incomplete and unmastered. I’ve asked whether they plan to finish it off but haven’t heard back yet. Wonkay Records also has a bunch of free releases available–check out the Cuboid Atom EP, for starters. Too bad their Flash-based home page prohibits direct links to the releases–but hey, that’s Flash for you.

Moving a little further back, the American netlabel Unwashed Records put out two quality releases suitable for those with high-BPM tastes: Cortical Stimulus and the Screwhead Rounds EP. If you like it fast, El Espanto Urbano might be worth checking out; the no-brainer More Than 160 Vol. 2 is their latest. Import Exploit Records released compilations entitled Time For Nightmares and Total Excess, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to actually download them (Flash again). Then there’s Crazy Noise from Blind Noise Records, something I can’t remember checking out at all. If you missed them, Hell Hazers released a couple of compilations: Fear Of Death and V/A – Kitab Al Azif (The Necronomicon). The Darkpsyde features an extensive list of darkpsy artist albums/EP and compilations in addition to a release of their own. The links might not work but at least you’ll have a few more things to track down, if you care to.

How about some live sets? I’ve spied two interesting posts on Isratrance in recent weeks: Kanibal HolokausT vs Jesus Raves live in Belgrade and Mubali live at Sacred Earth, which is fully 3 hours in length.

Feel free to leave a link in the comments for this post if I missed anything.

Photo credit: pickles_pics; original link.

SubConsciousMind’s 2005 album Gfühlsweid (“meadow of feelings”) is available as a free MP3 download from his web site. Composed by Swiss producer Raphael Huber, Gfühlsweid is a very personal creation that aims to express genuine and authentic emotions through music. As Huber states on his web page, “my way is not to deliver perfect music, but music with rough edges and personality.” This is highly evident on Gfühlsweid, an album produced on low-end equipment without the use a software sequencer. For those open-minded trance listeners interested in taking the plunge, the Gfühlsweid web site contains detailed background information that may be of interest. The amount of material available for browsing is quite impressive; I can think of few other artists that are as open about their creative process as SubConsciousMind!

What follows is a vitriolic deconstruction of Big Music in a 40-minute talk by Michael Perkins entitled How Piracy Feeds a Starving Audience. It was originally delivered at The Last HOPE conference in New York City on July 19th, 2008. From their website:

This talk will present observations of the relationship between technology and art in a comprehensive look at how the rise of piracy and its effect on the music industry can enrich the art form as well as the global audience. Drawing from the ideology of open source and user-supported technology, this talk will attempt to demonstrate that the concept of “free music” is set to overhaul the way in which music is created and acquired. The topics to be discussed include the history of the music industry, the war with the RIAA, Digital Rights Management, Creative Commons, and more.

Download a 64kbps MP3 recording of the talk or watch the video (Flash required):

Whenever you are done I have a few thoughts of my own to stir into the mix. Continue reading the rest of this post »

The Portuguese producer Cosmo Circle (Ricardo Gomes) announced his retirement with the release of The Last Encounter, a 5-track EP featuring the remainder of his unreleased work from 2008. It is available for download in MP3 and WAV format but not indefinitely. The links may expire.

Cosmo Circle will be familiar to some Ektoplazm visitors. Gomes released the full-length album Never Land back in 2006 to some acclaim. He also has a few more MP3-only releases floating around: the Decoding Souls EP and Water Memories, a chill out release.

Update: it appears as if Gomes won’t be retiring from trance after all. Stay tuned.

Ektoplazm has recently bounced back from several weeks of intermittent downtime. I have had some serious problems with my former hosting provider, OpenSourceHost. Earlier this month they moved my site from one server to another during a routine upgrade. In doing so, something snapped. I am not entirely sure what it was–all I know is that things were running smoothly before the upgrade. Afterwards, it was bombing each and every day. Continue reading the rest of this post »