Dark psytrance

Dark psytrance
Stylistic origins Psychedelic trance, Dark electro, Harsh noise, Industrial metal, Electro-industrial, black metal, doom metal, dark electro, Cybergoth, doomcore, noisecore, industrial hardcore, power noise, harsh noise, speedcore, digital hardcore, futurepop, wreckstep, darkstep, darkcore
Cultural origins Mid 1990s; Russia, Germany
Typical instruments Software synthesizer
Drum machine
Audio filter
Sequencer
Sampler
Vocals
Mainstream popularity small
Fusion genres
Dark prog[1]

Dark psytrance (also killer psytrance, dark psy, forest trance, horror trance, horror psy, psycore, or black trance) is a darker, faster and more distorted form of psychedelic trance music, with tempo ranges usually from 145 to 180 BPM, but reaches +220 BPM. "It is in Russia where so called "Dark psy" (experimental genre of psytrance music, which traits include gloomy infernal aestethics in the tradition of Hardcore, high BPM level, dense basslines, lack of melodies, and the introduction of variety of samples from Horror films, screaming, different noises and effects) is getting to the popularity of Full On originating in Russia and Germany, the style has recently expanded to other countries worldwide.

Characteristics

Dark Psytrance generally does not use vocals, though sampling is common, with speech and other kind of samples usually being taken from different kind of movies (especially horror or sci-fi movies), or from cartoons such as Futurama, South Park, etc.

The atmosphere and theme of the tracks very loosely resembles those from genres such as dark ambient, musique concrète, darkcore, power noise and industrial music. At times atmospheric and "deep" sounds are used to create a haunting and Gothic effect such as those used by Xenomorph, Psychoz, Parasense and Kemic-Al. On the other side there is high-tech darkpsy, with a higher BPM (160-220), and powerful baselines, without a gothic or horror atmosphere. Other artists such as Baphomet Engine and Whicked Hayo add in metal samples to darken the music, linking it to industrial metal.

Recently, some artists who previously were dark psytrance artists, such as N3XU5, Darkpsy and Fungus Funk, have started producing a more melodic, South African-like sound, whilst some others are starting to experiment with using melodies and morning trance elements in dark psy like Deja Vu Fabrique (Zolod from Parasense), Psyc0ma, and C-P-C.

The beginning of the new decade has seen a tremendous rise in the popularity of high BPM music. With tracks going as fast 180-190, this type of music is generally associated with horror samples and evil and devilish atmospheric synths.

References

External links