The results of the Ektoplazm Free Music Survey 2009 are in! Big thanks go out to the 385 visitors who responded to the call in the month of January. The survey had two main parts: one section for voting on the best release of the year and another section designed to gather some feedback about the Ektoplazm web site and netlabel. Here I present the results of the first section–the best free psytrance (and whatever else you find here) of 2009 as voted by Ektoplazm fans like you!

Best EPs

#5: PharaOm – Awakening Bodhisattva [Underground Alien Factory Records]
#4: Dissociactive – Underwater Lab [Sun Station]
#3: Amygdala – The Sprawl [Ektoplazm]
#2: Kino Oko – The Doggy Bag [Digital Diamonds]
#1: Anakoluth – Beyond Reach [Cronomi Records]

Honourable mentions: Mukti – Magick Mother, SoulCraft – Zen Spirit, Faradize – Darknight Castle, Kemonoid – Squishy Fish, and Hypnagog – Dreaming In Pieces.

Best Compilations

#5: Telepathik Nonsense [Wonk#Ay Records]
#4: Art From The Heart [Old Is Gold]
#3: Helicon Vedas [Helicon Sound System/Om Veda Records]
#2: Entities [Croatian Psytrance Community]
#1: Under The Moss [Forest Freaks]

Honourable mentions: Energies Around, Rest In Pieces, T.O.U.C.H. Samadhi 001, Entheos Audio Archive 3.0, and The Future Of Light.

Best Albums

#5: ManMadeMan – Children Of The Light [Ektoplazm]
#4: Disco Hooligans – Clear Skies [Ektoplazm]
#3: Jikkenteki – The Beginning Is At The End [Ektoplazm]
#2: Cybernetika – Atropos [Independent]
#1: SubConsciousMind – Intermezzo Extended [Ektoplazm]

Honourable mentions: Proton Kinoun – Apeiron, Xamanist – Initiation, Freeform Human – Arnika, New Age Hippies – Entrance, and Trebolactiko – Deep Channeling.

There you have it! 2009 was another fantastic year for free psytrance and I think it shows in the quality of releases listed above. Hopefully there are a few in the list above that you haven’t heard and now feel compelled to discover!

This is actually the first time I have surveyed visitors to assemble this list; if you have a look at the Best Free Psytrance of 2008 you can see that it consists of my own personal highlights. I would like to give credit to Volker at Digital Diamonds for introducing me to Google Forms, the system used to operate the survey. Basing this list on community input makes way more sense than filtering through everything myself!

I will have more results from the Ektoplazm Free Music Survey 2009 to post very soon (update: those results are now available here). The next part will consist of your feedback, what styles you want to hear more or less of, media preferences, and some announcements about what sort of changes can be expected to the site this year (all based on your comments of course). Thanks again to everyone who participated and I hope 2010 is every bit as good (or even better) than last year’s bumper crop of awesome free music!

Is your favourite 2009 release listed here? Do you agree with the results?

The psytrance industry is a motley collection of small businesses that don’t always play well together; allegations of misconduct are commonplace in this scene. These petty disputes are frequently made public on big international forums like Isratrance, particularly when disgruntled artists, lacking any other method of recourse, decide to expose shady label owners for non-payment. Obviously the camaraderie experienced on the dance floor does not always extend to backroom business dealings in this subculture. Is it because so much of this business is conducted for small amounts of money over international borders? I can’t say for certain, but there seems to be no love lost between many of the major movers and shakers in this industry.

Case in point: this exchange found on the psychedelic.be forum. Here we have a discussion between Saikosounds and Psyshop, two of the largest (if not the largest) psytrance mail order shops. Both offer in-house distribution for labels (more Psyshop than Saikosounds, really) but there isn’t much of an exchange between them. This is compounded by the rivalry between Psyshop and Wirikuta, another European distributor that deals with Saikosounds. As a result, there are many titles that are available in one shop but not the other–a big pain in the ass for psytrance fans with broad interests. Do you suppose they might work it out amongst themselves to provide a better customer experience in this era of plummeting physical media sales? The answer can be found after the break. Continue reading the rest of this post »