This past Saturday the 9th of April marked UCSB's Isla Vista community's Earth Day celebration! And yes it was a happy hippie tree-huggy filled day with tribal like trading and bartering of organics! So honestly, a pretty cool day venture to add to any college experience while participating in the advocation of responsible intentions towards the environment. But that's not why I am posting here. The reason for inclusion of this event into the Musical Technocracy blogging curriculum is due to the wonderful musical traditions well expressed at the festival that day. In the relaxing and warm afternoon sun I managed to catch a performance by UCSB's Afro-Brazilian Ensemble and the musical roots that they laid down.
With each pulse of the drum and ride off of the edge of a snare not only did the music bring you to another time and place but so did the environment that the music stimulated in the festival goers. An array of people began grabbing hula hoops and hulla-ing any which way they knew how. And might I say they were quite impressive with their hula hoop dancing abilities! Especially the seemingly Sikh gentleman! A big shout out to his skills and the way he moves!
And actually speaking of this gentlemen it was his presence and persona that could not help but jog my memory to other musical and dance personalities that have for a long time fused musical roots and traditions with the "now" in similar spirit. The personalities that I am thinking of are those that comprise the Goa trance and psytrance communities. It was such movements, especially Goa trance in India, that sought out to reestablish the roots of musical traditions into contemporary musical practices. The result was the very instinctual, communal and sometimes tribalistic Goa trance movement.
Perhaps I am making a bit too far of a stretch connecting the Afro-Brazilian beats and Earth Day festival to Goa and psy trance, however I could not help but feel such a connection amidst the activities that afternoon. Perhaps my reasons are then just that... the feeling and mood of the atmosphere, especially considering the hippie cultural movement and spirit are inherent in both realms of the Earth Day movement and Goa trance.
What exactly is Goa trance?... one might be asking. For those perhaps unfamiliar with the genre, Goa trance is a musical movement that actually came out of Goa, India. A place that was once considered a sort of hippie Mecca, which attracted many expatriates from a variety of nations around the world. Looking as far back as the 1960's and 70's one can see the foundations for electronic music development here amidst the European and especially British ex-pat communities that remained in Goa well into the 1980's. Many began experimenting with synthesizers and drum machines while also playing traditional Indian instruments and the fusion of traditional old with technological new came to be. This was in fact around the same time that similar explorations into the electronic production of music was happening in Europe and elsewhere. The difference was that for the developing Goa trance community, their ascetic lifestyle and yogi-esq philosophies as well as drug consumption contributed equally to the development of what became that far out Goa trance. In turn, what evolved from the Goa trance was the psytrance or psychedelic trance that grew in popularity amongst underground electronic music communities in the 1990's and early 2000's. Where as Goa permeated out from India into the world, psytrance had several bastions of founding, development and popularity. Prominent psytrance communities can be found in Israel, Japan, South Africa and also parts of Central and South America. Israel especially has a very happening psytrance scene thanks to the contributions of groups like Infected Mushroom and Skazi.
With all that said, I am thankful for having attended the Isla Vista Earth Day celebration as it has provided me with a wonderful segway into discussing another heritage of electronic dance music that is Goa and psy.
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