The Psychedelic Peak in AUSTRIA
Austria has an equally long history in psy-trance like Germany. There is now hardly any summer-weekend in Austria without smaller but cosy weekend-festivals in the mountains, woods and near lakes. Austria has a well experienced Goa-scene about 15 years heavily influenced by travel-folks inspired from Goa, Koh Phangan and other trance locations globally.
For party fraggles and psy-trancers Vienna is probably best to start with and the city has numerous locations with parties also during the week in summer and winter. Parties are still non-commercial and are based on the original Goa-spirit with lots of stalls, chaishops, fancy fluoro-decoration and fire-, laser- visual- and poi performances. The scene is like a big family divided into several sub-scenes, geographically and music-wise. Five to ten parties on a weekend have become the new standard compared with one or two events weekly only four years ago. Austria has lots of trance-DJs of all kinds of trance – from oldschool goa to progressive, full-on and funky-tribal beats. Numerous trance producers such as mastermind Taliesin (Goa Opera “Spirit Fire” with the Phoenix Firedancers in Vienna and Cologne), Imix, Izga, Kajola, p.s. otherworld (www.interzone-pa.at), Kybalion and many others entered the sphere of masters of ps(y)eremony. The future in Austrian psy-trance lies surely in establishing a new internationally renowned family of psy-musicians.
Since 2003 Austria is worldwide well known for Sonnenklang (www.sonnenklang.at), that has area-wise become one of Europe’s biggest international psy-trance festivals in spring. 8000 people came 2005 to Sonnenklang III “Crystal Children” with tropical temperatures up to 35 degrees about an hour away from Vienna. Sonnenklang IV “The Spirit of Atlantis” will surely be THE highlite of Austria’s psy-trance scene in 2006. More than 100 Liveacts and DJs (Tikal, Azax Syndrom, Para Halu, Psysex a.s.o.) will provide a musical universe on seven dance-floors amidst the impressive scenery of a 800-year-old knight-castle, a 500 year old renaissance castle in the Austrian woods at the beautiful Dobra-Lake. The party will last six days from May 23rd to 28th. This most beautiful alpine location will be transformed by Psynema, Terra Pi Space-creation and many deco-groups into a psychedelic holo-deck from another world.
Also Spirit Base (www.spirit-base.at), the 2nd biggest Austrian psy-festival will last for 5 days in June and numerous international artists (2006: Sun Project, Sally Doolally, P-Mac a.s.o) gather there every year. The location is in a quarry and psy-folks also call it “Desert Goa”, last year with a real camel walking around the camping area. Great projections of mythical faces surround the rocky walls and endless sunflower fields near the quarry invited the 2000 fraggles last year for colourful psy-walks. Organizer Goran also initiated the Karma Lounge in Vienna.
Another important event is the yearly Star Seeds festival of Lebe-Liebe-Lache (Live-Love-Laugh, www.lebeliebelache.com) of DJ Caban, Odinja and their psy-family in the quarry of Falkenstein near the Czech border. Don’t miss the bone-healer Joint Corrector Tom there. These folks have a spirit hard to find elsewhere in the world. Also watch out for the master-minds Horizon and Psyconjurer and their highly spiritual parties in summer.
There are also lots of established and also new events during the week, e.g. Sunday Chaizelt in the famous Viennese Flex-Club. Many other locations in Vienna established a continuous psy-clubbing programme like freaky Area 51 (2Mushrooms), oriental Derwisch, dark-psy at Drachenflug, family-meetings at Luftbad (Khali’s Psychedelic Recreation/Livingroom, Gaby’s Chillospheric Room), psy-dungeons at Fairytales in Weberknecht, Lux (Karma Lounge), Monastery (www.immrama.at), long-time location Subzero (Kinky Trance), Club Pi (with a mixture of dark-psy and gothic of visual master “the funny astronaut”, www.derlustigeastronaut.at) and of course the magnificent moondancer-parties (www.moondancer.at) with internationally top-line-ups in WUK. Organizer, DJ and producer Maxximus is also known for his parties linked to Hommega and Antiworld and to the Gnome (“Wichtl”)-party team at the medieval ruin of Landsee. Global DJ and producer Donziggy (www.donziggy.org) will be heard at the Soulclipse and hopefully carrying so much energy to celebrate another gorgeous festival at the Falkenstein quarry 2006 together with DJ Samurai.
For a gallery and description of most Austrian DJs see one of the best and most extensive Austrian psy-website vulcanic.at (psy604.com), which is also readable in English. See also Malex’ new website www.psyshots.org. Author Tom Rom writes a Goa-newsletter in German to Austrian trance-folks every week (Email see below). Being in Vienna, check out Chactun Cyberstore for club wear, flyers, psy-stuff and scene news. Forget to sleep in Austria – you won’t have time!
Facts
- Austria is a small country with a very big psy-trance scene that gathers in Clubs, open-airs in the mountains, small towns, little villages and of course the psy-capital Vienna. Parties last mostly until noon followed with by after-partys. Party folks are friendly, open-minded and love international visitors.
- Police raids at parties are rare and smoking is mostly tolerated – but still illegal. There is no tolerance for consumption, possession and selling of mushrooms or other stimulating substances. Mushroom grow kits can be purchased in head-shops but it is illegal to harvest the shrooms.
- Being in Vienna, visit these head- and fashion-shops for flyers and parties: www.chactun.at, www.indras-planet.at.
- Most of the parties take place in eastern Austria including Vienna and surroundings, in the provinces of Tyrol (www.psychedelic-visions.at, www.mystery-world.org), Salzburg (www.otherland.at), Styria (www.syriom.com, Alchemy).
- If you need up-to-date party information go to www.goabase.de or www.psyevents.at (see also the new psy-weblog!).
- Get in contact with the Austrian scene on the forum of www.goanet.at. There you’ll find party picture galleries, psy-news and a link to webradio play.fm to listen tracks of Austria’s older and also new upcoming producers.
Links
Contacts
tomrom24@chello.at
 Text
Tom Rom, Vienna, tomrom24@chello.at, www.psyevents.at/tomrom, Mushroom Magazine Austria, Sonnenklang, promo, media, Austrian Goa-newsletter, pics and contact for the Austrian scene. “Fight for your psy-rights and never give up!” |
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