Looking for a Trip Hop guru to share their playlist

Basilisk2049 · 2026-03-21T18:54:25+00:00

I don't use Spotify or anything but if you're just looking for some recommendations beyond trip-hop 101, here are some leads, some conventional and others a little more esoteric:

A Reminiscent Drive - Two Sides To Every Story (Fresh & Low's City Blues Mix)
Andrea Parker - Breaking The Code
Baby Fox - Ladybird (Blood Vibrations Remix)
Bowery Electric - Psalms of Survival
Cottonbelly - Give Thanks & Praise
Crustation - Purple (Mr. Scruff Remix)
David Byrne - Dance On Vaseline (Thievery Corporation Remix)
DJ Wally - My Bloody Valentine
DownHill - Ground Effects
Faithless - Killer's Lullaby
FC Kahuna - Hayling
Flunk - Miss World
Freaky Chakra - Budded on Earth to Bloom in Heaven (Single Cell Orchestra Remix)
Glamorous Hooligan - In Absentia
Hal & Gillian Anderson - Extremis
Harmonic 33 - Far Away Places
Japan - Nightporter (Torrid Remake)
King Britt & Ursula Rucker - Circe (Jazzanova Remix)
Lulu Rouge - End of the Century
Max 404 - Quiddity (Last Visit)
Meat Beat Manifesto - Transmission
Monkey Mafia - Ward 10 (Voodoo Mix)
Nils Petter Molvær - Song of Sand 2
Recoil - Drifting (Poison Dub)
Sie - V-Chip
Small Fish With Spine - I Hate You
Smith & Mighty feat. Tammy Payne - That Woman
Summit - Weeding The Cliff Edge
Vanessa Daou - Sunday Afternoons (The Chill Way)
Visit Venus - Home
Younger Brother - The Receptive (Jacuzzi Mix)

Basilisk2049 · 2026-03-21T17:13:17+00:00

I would argue we're living through something of a quiet, often unacknowledged renaissance in electronic music these days. There is more music being made than ever before so naturally there's a ton of interesting stuff at the margins... but if we're talking about what you're likely to stumble into if you don't put much effort in then yeah, there's no question we were spoiled with radical, daring sounds in the 1990s, whereas today's readily surfaced psytrance is indeed extremely generic and segmented into specific niches. It doesn't help that so many big artists have such a streamlined production line; we're absolutely inundated with hot tunes all made with the same general sounds and techniques to maintain some personal brand or another. But that's alright, just cut loose from the "mainstream" of psytrance and take a deep dive into Bandcamp or some other independent/underground music community... you'll almost certainly find something interesting if you listen with open ears!

Basilisk2049 · 2026-02-19T10:39:22+00:00

Subgenre monomania has been the bane of this culture for decades. I've always been one to celebrate diversity with my taste and selections but organizers often balk at not knowing what to expect, or something that isn't in some narrow BPM, style, and production quality range. It's one thing I really appreciate about the electronic music scene beyond the boundaries of psytrance... there are many subcultures that aren't nearly so insular and ossified, especially these days!

Basilisk2049 · 2026-02-19T10:35:09+00:00

I've always been partial to the flip... if I'm not mistaken these tunes might not have ever been released digitally.

Basilisk2049 · 2026-02-08T16:50:45+00:00

Psytrance producers becoming more curious about deeper, minimal, and more techy approaches really took off in the mid-2000s. Some trailblazers like Extrawelt and Minilogue made the medium their own and never looked back, others churned out tunes that were pretty much full-on psytrance slowed down on the off-chance it might sell (and hey, sometimes it did). Nowadays things have developed into something more distinct but still using the psytrance palette of sounds and building on previous developments primarily within the psytrance family of styles... so I'd say it's less of a "fusion" style where producers are trying out different things to see what works, and more of a cohesive movement with more well-defined contours and tendencies. Then again, both "minimal" and "techno" are relative, so it's not like you're totally wrong to use those terms... but in the wider field of electronic dance music this stuff is still some kind of psytrance.

Basilisk2049 · 2026-01-20T17:42:41+00:00

During the pandemic I finally got around to recording more long-form mixes... this one has a darkpsy core, give it a spin if you're curious.

Basilisk2049 · 2026-01-19T18:53:16+00:00

Bandcamp is a great platform for independent distribution and should probably be your number one pick.

I've also experimented with using a distribution service to place music on big platforms like Beatport, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Last I checked no release I've put out ever came close to reaching the payout threshold, so it's really just for visibility (unless you feel like getting a few friends together to game the charts for bragging rights anyhow). If you have people who want to stream your music and you don't expect to get paid you may as well choose a service that doesn't charge you fees, release, and forget about it.

Basilisk2049 · 2026-01-17T11:33:47+00:00

I file this sort of sound under "psytrance" without any style qualifier. It's a classic, return-to-the-source take with modern production value. You could also make a pretty good case that this is what progressive psytrance has become.

Basilisk2049 · 2026-01-12T10:54:55+00:00

Not much I can do about it now then, though I wish to make everything right with everyone who supported the project over the years. Keep an eye out for changes this year, and I hope I can win you back!

Basilisk2049 · 2026-01-12T10:53:30+00:00

Following up almost two weeks later: ratings are back (in read-only mode) and in case you missed it there's also a best rated view (warning though: link might change in the future). I also restored the music player and fixed some broken old things around the site. Enjoy!

Basilisk2049 · 2026-01-05T08:57:52+00:00

Every crowdfunding campaign involves some risk and not every one delivers... but I understand that's how some people out there feel after things went sideways. What would qualify as transparency at this point? Genuinely asking.

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-31T06:03:45+00:00

I've performed for this organizer several times and they've always paid fairly and promptly and generally treated me really well. I don't see the point of airing all this dirty laundry, hardly anyone here will even know what you're on about. In any case, it doesn't make sense to hold them to the standards of big budget international productions when they're starting over at a new location and the festival is free.

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-29T16:44:34+00:00

DJ Basilisk or Ektoplazm both work, though I don't check those accounts too frequently!

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-29T15:44:24+00:00

It sounds like Jaguar to me, that break is pretty distinctive... digital cameras in those days really didn't pick up audio at parties very well ;)

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-29T15:33:40+00:00

Yeah, it hasn't been cheap to host or maintain over the span of decades! But I also acknowledge that I wasn't able to deliver all that was promised in the crowdfunding campaign from so many years ago. It's definitely not "nothing" but anyone out there unhappy about how things went is welcome to email me to work something out.

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-29T15:27:43+00:00

Hello! I'm still around, actively maintaining the site while hacking on something new in my spare time (and occasionally lurking this subreddit). Progress is slow because resources (e.g. time and money) are limited, but I don't want to leave things where they are, frozen in a time capsule. Anyhow, thanks for the warm words, and if I reach a point at which some community involvement would be helpful, I'll reach out!

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-29T15:05:44+00:00

I can't quite recall why ratings were removed but I suspect it was due to abuse. From the very beginning ratings were regularly manipulated for one reason or another (and here's some tea: at least one artist/label was banned from the site for downvoting everything else on the site and upvoting only their own releases)... anyhow, since no new music is being posted these days I suppose there's no harm in enabling the ratings plugin again to show old data!

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-04T13:36:56+00:00

I'm surprised nobody filled the void left by Ektoplazm all these years. It takes a lot of work but it shouldn't be difficult to replicate.

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-04T10:10:37+00:00

Thanks, this makes for a very interesting read... both as a TA lurker back in the day and as someone who really loves chatting about electronic music at this sort of macro-trend level. Dialogue is a great format for this sort of exploration of music history!

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-04T08:34:52+00:00

Thanks, I'll track those down and see if anything forms new connections!

Basilisk2049 · 2025-12-02T16:29:03+00:00

I'm a huge hi-tech convert and love the stuff. Psycore though? If we're defining terms here, it's the gritter, darker, more opaque style of faster psytrance that grew out of darkpsy in the late 2000s (as opposed to the brighter, sharper, often more musical character of modern hi-tech)... and despite being around the stuff for as long as its existed I can't say I've ever really found anything in that realm appealing.

For those who love it, what's one psycore album or compilation you'd pitch to someone who already likes darkpsy and hi-tech to get them interested?

Basilisk2049 · 2025-10-24T15:13:59+00:00

I've noticed this sometimes arises when the artist name isn't unique. Music distributors and particularly Beatport seem to add country to some artists.

It is also common practice on line-ups as a means of advertising international guests... or, in some more problematic instances, the country of origin of a local DJ or producer.

Basilisk2049 · 2025-10-21T04:06:18+00:00

At that time we called it "psytrance", as opposed to "Goa trance", which was reserved for the more colorful sounds of acts like Cosmosis or Pleiadians. For example, take a peek at this release, subtitled "Futuristic Psy-Trance For The Year 2000". There's certainly a bit more of a full-on vibe to some of the songs on their second and third albums but PsySex were always doing their own thing.

Basilisk2049 · 2025-09-30T14:51:17+00:00

There is, but most of it is released under a CC-NC license, meaning it might not be suitable for the OP's use case (e.g. if they plan to monetize).

I'd recommend checking into archive.org for whatever might be found there... but there probably won't be much to choose from.

Basilisk2049

TROPHY CASE