Gathered here are five recordings that I have previously shared with my Facebook fans and Twitter followers. These recordings are not my finest; visit my DJ profile for a full listing of my best studio mixes and live recordings.

Some recordings turn out and some do not. A lot of this has to do with my approach to DJing (which relies on a certain amount of crowd engagement to really shine). I treat the set as a journey, not just a showcase of hot crowd-rocking tunes in whatever order. Moreover, the journey is entirely improvised; I haven’t planned a set in years. I step up to the decks (now a laptop and controller) and select an introduction with as little as 10 seconds to go. From that point onward anything can happen. My role is that of navigator; I chart a course through exotic dimensions of sound, but I don’t travel alone. I rely heavily on my intuition, reading the crowd for signs of where we should be going. In this sense, my sets are a “co-creation”, the result of a dynamic linkage between dance floor and DJ booth.

As great as that might sound, such an approach doesn’t always work, particularly when there isn’t a lot of energy in the space. This is often the case at small, poorly attended events where the dance floor never reaches critical mass, or during unpopular time slots, before the dance floor really starts to take off (or, rarely, long after it winds down). A few of the recordings in this post were taken under such conditions.

The other issue with live recordings is technical precision. Every DJ that takes risks will botch a mix now and then, particularly in small clubs with poor monitoring. It’s not so bad in the moment but such flaws can be magnified by repeat listening. I’ve also had some problems with pops, clicks, and gaps in the audio signal, some of which I have gotten to the bottom of, others which remain mysterious. Even if I record a great set I tend not to share it widely if there are any obvious blemishes.

Anyhow, the point of writing all of this is to explain why I haven’t released these sets before, and why I won’t be giving them a “wide release” (like the mixes on my profile). I’ve also treated this as an opportunity to share a broad outline of my philosophy of DJing, ideally so that you enjoy the listening experience a little more (and perhaps forgive the flaws that you may notice).

Alright, let’s get started… Continue reading the rest of this post »

With the winter chill setting in I am happy to present another round of hot new tunes available from Ektoplazm. This has been a great month for free music, and I’m excited to share with you just a few of the gems that have crossed my stereo in the last little while. Each and every song listed below can be downloaded for free in CD quality direct from Ektoplazm; just click the track title to be taken to the original release drop page. You are welcome to preview these songs with the streaming audio player below; simply click the arrows to skip ahead or go back (Flash required):

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Radioactive.Cake – Bending Rodriguez [Glitchy.Tonic.Records]
Moody grooves and groovy moods; Zenonesque progressive psytrance at its best.

Onionbrain – Lunatic [Uroboros Records]
Dark and ominous progressive psytrance vibes from Brazil with some fun samples about UFOs.

Hanuman – Requesting Energies [Neurotrance Records]
Massive darkpsy tune from Chile loaded with powerful beats, heavy bass lines, and super trippy atmospheres. Now this is killer night music! It might be a bit brash for some listeners but I quite like it.

The 1134 – Ghost Train
High-quality twilight-style full-on from California. This song faithfully captures what was great about South African psytrance before the style slid off into endless stop-and-start territory.

Talpa – Unusual Chair [Pyrethrum Records]
Fantastic full-on psytrance with a breathtaking degree of creativity on display. Simply amazing!

Kadasarva – Cybermind [Sun Station Records]
It was almost impossible to pick a favourite from Kadasarva’s outstanding album Steamagination. The level of detail and obvious care put into the composition of this retro-flavoured psytrance is very impressive.

Amygdala – Wintermute [Ektoplazm]
Alright, I’ll admit that I am rather biased here (this selection is from my latest compilation, Spectral Circuitry). This track reminds me a lot of classic Transwave and Koxbox without sounding derivative. The way it opens up at the very end is simply magical; this is what I love about Goa trance. Try it and you’ll see!

Prog-A-Lot – Heart Connection
Aaron Peacock’s new side project harkens back to a more innocent time in electronic music history while remaining true to his distinct style of trance production. Lovely tune.

Globular – Nahajai
Euphoric psychedelic dub with lovely Indian vocals, shimmering melodies, and intricate bass lines. This is just a taste of Globular’s forthcoming debut album :)

Maharishi – Call Of The Ancients [OUIM.net/Space Baby Records]
An awe-inspiring piece of exotic tribal breaks filled with luscious psychedelic atmospheres and magical vocals. Just “wow”!

Interested in hearing more recommendations from the top? Check out previous free music charts from November, October, August, July, June, the spring and winter of 2011, and the fall and summer of 2010.

Photo: Kipling Power.

With a hint of winter chill in the air I am happy to present another round-up of some of the finest tracks posted on Ektoplazm this month. Each and every song listed below can be downloaded for free in CD quality direct from Ektoplazm; just click the track title to be taken to the original release drop page. You are welcome to preview these songs with the streaming audio player below; simply click the arrows to skip ahead or go back (Flash required):

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Onionbrain – Desert Song [Selknam Records]
Deeply mysterious progressive psytrance from a top-notch compilation.

Faxi Nadu – The Deep [Postunder Records]
Distinctly original psytrance with a highly experimental touch. The entire album is full of surprises but this track is particularly delicious.

Vertical – Plastic Plants [Visionary Shamanics]
Ultra-psychedelic forest music in the Parvati vein, literally oozing with mind-altering potential.

Glitch – Sacred Geometry [Psybliminal Records/Ritual Records]
Blazing South African psytrance with just a touch of wobble. Quality stuff for the dance floor.

Keamia – The Real World [Elephant Head Records]
This is a lovely full-on morning tune filled with passion and spirit. Keamia has made a lot of progress since he began releasing music on Ektoplazm.

Mantra Flow – Behind The Shadow [Panzar Produktionz]
Bombastic progressive psytrance with huge melodies and loads of energy, almost like full-on pitched down and beefed up a few notches.

AstroPilot – Emptiness [Sun Station Records]
Pulsating and airy, this smooth piece of deeply progressive trance hits all the right notes.

GoaHuman & Sirius – Solar System [Underground Alien Factory Records]
Downtempo Goa trance at its finest; a pleasant surprise from the prolific UAF Records.

Brujo’s Bowl – Organic Structures [Timewave Records]
I have become a huge fan of Brujo’s Bowl since he appeared on the site earlier this year. This is another great psy dub tune from this talented newcomer.

Hinkstep – Medusa [Omnitropic]
Strange, exotic, and disarming psychedelic downtempo from one of the most musically articulate albums of the season.

Interested in hearing more recommendations from the top? Check out previous free music charts from October, August, July, June, the spring and winter of 2011, and the fall and summer of 2010.

Photo: Friday Night Campfire @ Harvest 2011.

If you have visited Ektoplazm anytime in the last two months you have probably experienced slow transfer rates, corrupted downloads, and/or significant downtime and unavailability. There has also been a problem with individual release download counts spiralling wildly out of control. These issues have been plaguing the site since early August. Usually, such things are easily remedied with an email to the technical support staff at my web hosting company, but not this time. Unfortunately I was completely consumed by the last of my undergrad degree requirements in late summer and was unable to devote my full attention to the problem. I have, since then, spent an inordinate amount of time trying to address the underlying issues. Now, having alleviated the worst of the problems, I figure it is time to post an “official” update about he situation. Be warned: things get a bit technical from here on in.

Continue reading the rest of this post »

Time for another monthly round-up of top tunes released through the Ektoplazm free music portal! Even though we hit a rough spot in September (a subject for another post) there is an incredible amount of quality music flowing through the site these days. I’d like to draw your attention to ten of the best recently posted songs (according to my taste, anyhow). Each and every song listed below can be downloaded for free in CD quality direct from Ektoplazm; just click the track title to be taken to the original release. You can also preview these songs with the streaming audio player to hear them all at once; simply use the little arrows to skip ahead or go back (Flash required):

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Gorm – Grumble [Silent Existence]
Filthy Scandinavian forest music with groovy bass lines and heaps of atmosphere.

Cenotes – Smektachius [Forest Freaks]
A pure psychedelic delight from Lithuania. Cenotes is a collaboration between P.Tale and DoHm, another one of my favourite producers.

Re-Horakhty – Spring Tools [Rising Sun Crew]
Full power night music! I’ve been a fan ever since I heard Dungeon Keeper on Under The Moss Vol. 2.

Paraklang – Second Mind Desaster [Independent]
Ripping twilight-style full-on psytrance with catchy riffs and an excellent sample.

Wirrareka & Chors – Horizon [Timeflux Records]
Full-on psychedelic morning trance faintly reminiscent of Mr. Peculiar. Strikes a nice balance between smooth and snarly.

Vishudda – All You Need Is Love [Panzar Produktionz]
Pumping progressive psytrance with an irresistible drive and a fantastic melodic finish.

Faradize – Forgotten Psy [Ektoplazm]
Exotic melodies and classical atmospheres merge in this curious fusion of styles.

Sephira – Destiny [MerKaBa Records]
Deep and mysterious progressive psytrance. The entire album is a gem; don’t miss it!

Astropilot – Yasmin (2011 Rework) [Neogoa]
Luscious tribal downtempo and deep trance. Pure relaxation and entrancement.

SeaMoon – A Deep Breath [Psyderweb Records]
Enchanting downtempo trance from Germany. SeaMoon made a big splash with his debut, A Twisted Downbeat Adventure, and I have been looking forward to hearing new work ever since. This delivers.

Interested in hearing more recommendations from the top? Check out previous free music charts from August, July, June, the spring and winter of 2011, and the fall and summer of 2010.

Photo: Parc Royal.

Welcome to another monthly round-up of the best in free music from Ektoplazm! I’m your host, Basilisk, and I am happy to present ten of my top picks for August, 2011. Each and every song listed here can be downloaded for free in CD quality direct from Ektoplazm; just click the track title to be taken to the original release. You can also preview these songs with the streaming audio player to hear them all at once; merely use the little arrows to skip ahead or go back (Flash required):

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Paranoiac – Inside [Burning Trip Records]
A pinch of the ol’ ultra-psychedelic, from Argentina no less. Highly atmospheric and involving work from a new talent in the scene.

Sanathana – Exorcism In Zulu Land [Biijah Records]
Extremely haunting night music that sweeps out of the speakers and cloaks you in a shroud of darkness.

Red – Polo Umie [Digital Dream Records]
Premium quality Russian psytrance. A little dark, but also groovy and atmospheric.

Civil Disobedients vs Mark Day – Conceptual Dream [Wonk#Ay Records]
Menacing psytrance with deadly bass lines and an irrepressible drive. The sample is rather timely, I might add.

The 1134 – ReDizzle
Californian twilight music with plenty of meaty melodies and loads of attitude.

Elegy – Black Sun [Panzar Produktionz]
Pumping progressive psytrance with plenty of warmth and majesty. Lovely stuff from Panzar.

Nozem – Merlin’s Beard [Drumlore]
Something fun and cheeky from Drumlore, Ektoplazm’s techno-oriented sublabel.

Brujo’s Bowl – Techno Trousers [Glitchy.Tonic.Records]
Bloody fine tune from Brujo’s Bowl, a new act from mid-Wales that is absolutely burning up the charts these days. Sublime! Hear more on Three Drops To Evolution.

Globular – Seeker [Gliese 581C]
Amazing psychedelic dub in the style of Ott, and every bit as good. Yes, that’s high praise, but it is certainly deserved. Be sure to snap up “C-Happy” on Space Forming Vol. 3 as well.

Easily Embarrassed – Blessed Day On Distorted Shape [EE Records]
The entire album is an extravagant delight but this song is particularly wonderful. Deeply emotion and highly cinematic; this is music to carry you away!

Interested in hearing more recommendations from the top? Check out previous free music charts from July, June, the spring and winter of 2011, and the fall and summer of 2010.

Photo: Arc Study II.

OpenMind is a new North American festival, now entering its second year of operation. I missed the inaugural event due to my commitments at Shambhala in 2010 but heard plenty of good things when I returned from my summer travels. Since the Eclipse festival team took the year off OpenMind is looking to be the big trance festival of the season here in eastern Canada. This year, OpenMind is being held for the entire week spanning August 9th to 16th at Whispering Pines Campground, somewhere between Montreal and Ottawa, roughly a five hour drive from Toronto.

So what makes OpenMind different? Although I am mostly basing my impressions on the promotional material I’ve seen, it feels like more of a west coast festival than we are used to finding out east. Whereas Eclipse focused on providing world-class stage design and musical talent, OpenMind appears to be taking more of a “holistic” approach to festival design, opting for two relatively modest stages and more emphasis on workshops, yoga, visionary artwork, film screenings, healing services, and so on. Considerable effort has also been sunk into environmental concerns, as can be seen in their rather extensive sustainability plan. This is not to say that the music won’t be excellent. Au contraire, the the line-up features some excellent acts including international headliners Seb Taylor (performing as Kaya Project and Hibernation as well as playing a special Shakta retro Goa set) and Irina Mikhailova as well as Canadian heroes Ekoplex and Ben Rama, both of whom have excellent releases out on Ektoplazm, and newcomers Psilocybernetics. I am particularly interested in hearing Rikam (Tech Safari/Eclipse Festival) this year as he is scheduled to be playing a classic psytrance set.

I am very happy to be scheduled for two long sets on the main stage at OpenMind. Both time slots are just shy of three hours, a good amount of time to tell a tale, and both span the midnight hour. Midnight is a transitional time when the task of the creatively-minded DJ is to bridge the gap between different moods and lead the journey into the colourful darkness of night. On Saturday I will be playing after Kaya Project and just before a night-time psychedelic DJ. This calls for movement from tribal breakbeat realms into playful organic progressive (what I have been calling Zenonesque recently) and onward through the majestic beauty of proper night-time forest music. The idea here is to turn the psychedelia up to 11 and tune into the ancient consciousness of the whispering pines. Sunday night I’ll be rifling through the archives to share some of the finest old school Goa and classic psytrance. Since its a night-time set you will likely hear music from X-Dream, Cydonia, Tim Schuldt, Metal Spark, Hux Flux, Juno Reactor, and the like, but I never plan my sets so I can’t say anything for sure. Expect something like what can be heard on my Moonshadow studio mix. The rest of Sunday night is going to be a blast: it’s Goa trance (both old and new, I am assuming) all the way into the morning hours. I’ve never actually heard a full night of proper Goa trance at a festival. Can you believe it? Not even back in the 1990s did I experience such a treat. As you can imagine, I am quite excited about the music program at OpenMind this year.

Here’s the pitch, in the words of the organizers:

OpenMind Festival started from a vision; a vision to help consciousness to arise, to help us all to awaken about environment, nature, others, and about ourselves. This seed has grown into the OpenMind Eco-Festival; a gathering of celebration, well-being and peace much involved in sustainability.

The vision of the festival is to burst current paradigms to enter in a new sustainable and free era; as well as to create an important positive impact on the environment, societies and global consciousness. To achieve this, our mission is to create individual and global change by creating spaces to allow the blooming of our children’s hearts and the experience of a new healthy, balanced and sustainable way of living. We put forward an extensive sustainable plan which you can consult on our website.

OpenMind Eco-Festival is not only a visionary gathering of celebration, but also a moment to take care of ourselves; to reconnect with nature, with others and our inner child. The one week event has many different activities to offer: A sunny music stage playing world music, tribal, psychedelic trance, goatrance, psy-tribal, reggae, dub, trance; an ambient music stage playing ethnic music, Indian, psybient, downtempo ambient; an extensive yoga/workshops/conferences stage on a variety of conscious subjects; a healing area where all kind of therapist and healers offer free treatments; An enchanted forest to purify the contemplative mind; a visionary art exhibition; a giant labyrinth; a conscious cinema; sweat lodges; positive ceremonies; circus performances and original animations; a children’s village; a community kitchen; an artisans village; conscious restaurants and much more!

The concept of the festival is to create a moment out of ordinary life, out of time, to be able to experience new things, to discover new tools for enlightenment, to live fully each moment without thinking about anything else. To achieve this, besides all activities offered and quite innovative decorations, all activities (but food) are free on site. Enjoy!

For more information please visit the OpenMind homepage and check out the Facebook event invite.

June was yet another busy month behind the scenes here at Ektoplazm. The year is halfway over and I’ve already posted almost as many releases as I did in 2010. Quality has not suffered as the free music gates have opened up… far from it! This month I am pleased to highlight ten more great tracks from a wide variety of artists and labels. Each and every one can be downloaded for free in CD quality here on Ektoplazm (just click the track title to be taken to the original release). You can also preview these songs with the streaming audio player to hear them all at once; merely use the little arrows to skip ahead or go back (Flash required):

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Pick – D.M.T. [Atomes Music]
Dark and sinister Zenonesque minimalism from one of my favourite producers. It’ll scratch your brain. What’s not to like?

Neuromodulation – The Others [Uroboros Records]
Deep driving night-time progressive psy from Australia. Haunting stuff!

N.O.M – Step 5 [Helicon Sound System Records]
Haunting, immersive, and evocative dark psychedelic trance with atmospheres that seem to go on forever.

Gu – Critically Busy [Psyculture Festival]
Proper night music in the Parvati vein.

Overdream – Zurna [Sun Station Records]
Powerful full-on psytrance with soaring melodies and an old school touch.

Javi – Something Is Crawling [Neogoa]
The dark side of new school Goa trance. Haunting melodies and mesmerizing atmospheres bring this song alive.

Noble Savage – 7th Seal [Liquid Tune Records]
An unusual blend of forest music and morning trance with old school Goa influences.

Psypheric – No Return [Gliese 581C]
Artful progressive psytrance with a deep tribal drive and plenty of atmosphere.

Electrocado – The Crotch Thruster [Hass Records]
Weird and wobbly Australian progressive psytrance with a glitchy streak. Highly creative genre-bending music to rock the floor.

Brujo’s Bowl – Healing With Sound [Arkona Creation]
One of the big hits of last month: an exotic blend of psychedelic chill and just the right amount of dubstep vibes.

Interested in hearing more recommendations from the top? Check out previous free music charts from June 2011, the spring and winter of 2011, and the fall and summer of 2010.

Photo: Hart Plaza UFO.