| Goa Trance | |
| Stylistic origins | Trance, Acid House, Psychedelia, Disco, Indian, Arabic |
|---|---|
| Cultural origins | India Late 1980s to early 1990s |
| Typical instruments | Pad, Synthesizer, Drum machine |
| Derivatives | |
| Acid Trance, Deep Trance, Future Rave, Ibiza Trance, Hard Trance, Psychedelic Trance | |
Goa trance is variant of the trance genre that originated from India in the 1980s.
History[]
South Asian music was traditionally known for having trance‑inducing effects, such as Qawwali Sufi music and Indian classical music, which in turn influenced the raga rock and psychedelia trends in the 1960s. While distinct from the electronic genre now known as trance, these earlier trends had an influence on trance music.
The Goa scene had its roots in the late 1960s when hippies from the United States moved there to evade the U.S. military draft. Once a community was established, it became attractive to hippies and free-thinkers, who continued to arrive there even after the draft ended in 1971.
Many of these people had musical roots in '60s psychedelia, and they continued to pursue that by listening to 1970s electronic music after the '60s psychedelia died out. Gradually, they began to add their own synths and drum machines to this and to do their own mixes. Party scenes that developed used these mixes along with some live-performed analog synths, plus audio clips from 1950s science fiction movies, and this became a full-blown genre by the 1980s.
After disco music was introduced to India in the late 1970s, early trance-like songs began appearing in India during the 1980s. Several Indian musicians combined 4/4 disco beats and Roland electronic instruments (such as the TB-303 and TR-808) with trance-like Indian music. Early examples include Charanjit Singh's Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat (1982), "Koi Lutera" (1983) by Bappi Lahiri and Asha Bhosle, and "Pee Pee Pee Pyare Dil Laga Ke" (1984) by Babla & Kanchan. They could be considered early examples of either acid house or trance.
The Goa trance style largely began with Bappi Lahiri's "Habiba" (1988), blending acid house with hypnotic Indian and Arabic music to create an electronic style now known as Goa Trance. "Habiba" was also the first mainstream trance hit, when a music video featuring a breakdancing performance by Jaaved Jaaferi was aired on Indian national TV for New Years Eve in December 1988.
In the early 1990s, Goa Gil defined the sound of Goa Trance as well as Psychedelic Trance, by combining electronic dance music with Indian music at trance parties in Goa.
A unique aspect of Goa trance is that it did not grow around vinyl or turntabling. Most performers used cassette tape, or later in the 1980s, compact discs, for their source material. One explanation for this concerns the climate in Goa; it is very hot there in the summer, and apparently it was difficult to store vinyl without it becoming warped by heat. As such, beat-matching when transitioning between songs did not become a prominent feature of the genre because it was too difficult to do with tapes, and so Goa trance came to feature more variation in tempo than most electronica genres. It also resulted in many Goa trance tracks being very long, to reduce the number of transitions. Some DJs prepared long tapes with simple cross-fading between tracks and then allowed the tape to play unattended during performances.
Goa trance had its heyday in the 1990s. After this, most sources indicate that harder styles began to become more popular in Goa, and so the genre faded in its own hometown.