Etnica is a project originally formed by Carlo Paterno, Max Lanfranconi, Maurizio Begotti, and Andrea Rizzo. They are a very well known Goa trance project from Italy.
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Max Lanfranconi, Maurizio Begotti, Carlo Paterno and Andrea Rizzo met during various parties in Italy at the end of the 1980s. Altogether they started to compose music in the early 90s as The Etnica Band but before that Max had already released as co-producer two singles in the mid-80's on an independent Italian label (Time Out). Max was also famous in Milan for the organization of the famous Dance All Night parties, the first official parties in Italy to last till the morning lights. Andrea had a solid classical music background that combined with the melodies of Carlo and Maurizio's sense of arrangement would soon lead to the production of some of the most classics goa trance tracks.
Their first EP was published on Brainstorm label in 1995, and was entitled Big Dust in Chapora Fort. Their first album, The Juggeling Alchemists Under The Black Light, was out the same year on the German label High Society. This helped the band build a solid reputation in the Psychedelic trance scene. Their second album, the classic Alien Protein, was released in 1996 on Blue Room Released.
Carlo had the idea of launching a party-oriented side project, Pleiadians. Starting off with an EP on Symbiosis Records in 1995, they have thus far produced two albums Identified Flying Object (1997), and Family of Light (1999) in which Carlo was partially involved. Their first album, I.F.O. was produced by Carlo during the summer of '96 to be finalized with the other band members in September of the same year, but released only a year after on Dragonfly Records.
They also had a side project in 1997, Crop Circles, that was a collaboration with another Italian band, Lotus Omega. This project's name echoes the fact that their music incorporates mostly sci-fi themes, not unlike the work they did as Pleiadians.
In 1998 the band moved its studios to Ibiza were the project would be carried on by Max and Maurizio only. After the writing of their third full length album Equator (1999), Andrea left the band as well. Since 1999 the band has changed their sound to be up to the modern standards of production, following the worldwide trends and trying to achieve a more mature sound, after successfully proving that they could realize some of the best goa trance tracks ever.
Their fourth album, Nitrox (2001) is the result of this evolution and worked really well on the dance-floors at the time of release.
The following album, Chrome (2002) displayed a further development in sound production and clarity and was so successful that they released two versions, one for Europe and one for Japan.
Their sixth Etnica album Sharp (2004) was liked by old time fans too as it featured a return of melodies, like they did in the past times, but still showed a crystal clear and professional production.
In 2006 a seventh album was released, featuring all their best hits remixed by the most famous psytrance producers of the millennium. This one was highly acclaimed by every fan worldwide.
The Pleiadians project was relaunched in 2006 with the release of a third opus, an album called Seven Sisters, that delivered many sci-fi oriented tracks, released on Harmonia Records.
Etnica are still very active in the scene and weekly performing DJ sets and Live sets all around the world.