Dark psytrance (killer psytrance, dark psy, horror trance, horror psy, black trance) is a darker, faster and more distorted form of psychedelic trance music, with tempo ranges usually from 145 to 180 BPM. 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 occasionally from other tracks. Sometimes sampling elements from other genres of music is done to mock the original tracks.
The atmosphere and theme of the tracks often resemble those from genres such as dark ambient, musique concrete, darkcore, power noise and industrial music. At times more atmospheric and deep sounds are used for a haunting and Gothic effect (examples of this include Parasense, Kemic-Al, Xenomorph), some times artist such as Dark Soho add in metal samples to darken the music, connecting it to industrial metal. Use of glitch techniques can often be found in dark psytrance music (examples of this include Kindzadza, Cosmo, Highko, Noonsphere, and D4rylG).
Recently, some 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), oCeLoT and C-P-C.
Since the early days there have been many different festivals, also known as open air parties or raves, going on all around the world. Some of the prominent ones are Vorax in Barcelona, Spain, Liquid Moon in Zurich, Switzerland, Goa Gil's Birthday Bash, Gaian Mind Summer Festival, and the Ord Festival.
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