Updated 2 weeks ago
Individual Years
1990-2 – 1993-5 – 1996 – 1997 – 1998 – 1999
Decade Summaries
Early On – The 1980s – The 1990s – The 2000s – The 2010s – The 2020s
Introduction
This is where all the groundwork was laid, that would see full fruition in the early 2000s.
Goa Trance developed in Goa, India, exploding on the global scene, reaching its commercial peak in the mid to late 90s.
Ravers proliferate, and although they seem a sideshow at first, as the Internet kicks into high gear, many of them proceed to slowly disrupt all major industries, especially music advertising, and retail.
Early hard trance developed at the Dorian Gray in the Frankfurt airport in Germany, the Omen (Sven Väth‘s Living Room) and Aladdins (AB Goldbach) and across Europe.
In the U..S., Goa trance had been played at Connecticut and Massachusetts raves in ’95, and in Washington at a festival in ’94. The first international goa act on the east coast: Slinky Wizard, April 20, 1996.
Goa Trance officially reached New York in September 1996, with the seminal Return to the Source in Liberty Science Center. The organization became known as Tsunami, and ran biweekly events at Vinyl in TribeCa. Shortly after, Synthetic Sadhus began events in the Marc Ballroom on Union Square, which would be the biggest budget events in NYC, ever.
North American information got out via an email list run by mark@indole.net, and NYC information was published by Jeff via the Brainmachines list which later became TripOutNY, and became the basis for all this history listed on this site. Around the turn of the century, Mark Jeff, and the tristate community of trancers collaborated briefly on the Devotional Ministry of Trance, which organized underground open-air events.
Landmark Events
Innovation
►Music
Goa trance started very experimental and rough. In the mid to late nineties, it really spread out globally and started to become known as “psytrance.” It was still developing rapidly by the end of the decade. Another subgenre was the Israeli Nitzhonot, which was kind of braindead and didn’t really go far.
►Tech
1991 – Pro Tools
1992 – MiniDisc
1994 – Yamaha unveils theProMix 01; 1994 – Propellerheads releases reCycle loop splicing; Iomega Zip drive
1995 – MP3
1996 – First DVD “Twister” film launched May 10
1997 – Autotune developed September 19; Flat Screen TVs appear
1998 – SoundBlaster Live! developed in August
1999 – Napster in June; Soulseek; Cubase VST developed August
►Drugs
As the NYC trance scene seemingly sprang out of nowhere and pulled in people from the club world and raves, there was nothing to innovate with drugs in psytrance. No surprises here – LSD, MDMA, 2CB, Ketamine, mushrooms, and marijuana were pretty much everything we needed.
Coke was sometimes around, but it was low key. Meth, opiates, PCP, and GHB were definitely looked down upon.
Deaths
Bill Hicks – Timothy Leary – D.M. Turner – Simon Carman – Nina Graboi
See more: Memorial