News	Access Points	Countries	Contact
Profile	Info for Shops	Crew	Newsletter
Preview	Spread the Word	PDF Guide

-> Get the Guide now !

Let it Roll in GERMANY

In the year of the world cup in our country, German football fans are quite anxious: will our boys perform well in front of all those foreign eyes? Compared to this, our psychedelic team can be relaxed, as the festival summer for sure will be jam-packed with fantastic music, décor and people again - everybody here is looking forward to get back into the playgrounds with you!

Choices, choices. No summer weekend without even several open air events, from small free parties to festivals of all sizes. In May trance lovers start to gather outdoors to dance, laugh, feel, to live a dream of creativity and respect. Ask any of the more than 4000 that gathered at last year’s Antaris Project about the vibe, and receive that special smile that tells it all :’) Same with the even more traditional VooV-Experience, uniting more than 10,000 from all over the globe every summer. As many danced at Indian Spirit that has grown into a massive blast, the last big thing of the summer in early September. It was a pity last year the season ended so early, tons of unusually warm, sunny days were yet to come - while some of the summer’s festivals had suffered from bad weather conditions and didn’t break even.

But was it only the weather? Or is it possible that we have too many choices? This is not psychedelic paradise, where you pay in smiles and hugs, sad as it is. Some promoters booked line ups so terrific they could hardly pay for them afterwards, as the core of the psy scene, those that come and dance even if it is cold and rainy, can’t bring enough money to all those party gates every single weekend. Lots of us have to think carefully about how many party weekends they can afford.

This is one reason why we saw many free parties in 2005. Another is that more and more people feel they’ve seen it all and now prefer the more cosy vibe. By far not everybody going to German festivals intends to be kind of neo-hippie, some just want to stick their head into a big fun machine for a long weekend and get really dizzy. This mixture of people you find yourself in when the weather is fantastic can really add to the fun though, with some freaky traveller from Scandinavia dancing to your left, while by first sight you’d never expected the guy to your right shaking his bones on a psytrance floor.

Then there’s the police, who think psy mainly stands for drugs. In at least two festivals they even had undercover people, some dreadlocked, asking around for illicit substances to prove this theory. This was combined with checking lots of cars going in or out, and the police are up for more this summer, they say. Small checkpoints have become common after bigger open air parties, authorities try to make sure that nobody drives drunk or drugged in any other kind. Actually, that should be no problem, still it means that any party guest is suspicious just because of his cultural likings. Some say that this year all police forces will be too occupied until the world cup ends on July 9. I wouldn’t count on that.

Same old story, a task for everybody involved: we need to show that our parties are about music, getting together - a way of life for a part of the scene at least. And if people in a small town like Putlitz, where VooV-Experience found their home and many true friends, do understand this – us – there’s lots of hope for the future ;’)

Most festivals happen in the northeast, in the regions of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg. Such as Liquid Time and Psychedelic Circus, both at season’s opening, Spiritual Healing, Tshitraka Project, ov-silence Open Air to name a few more. New ones appear, and a very old one is gone: Shiva Moon.

An outstanding event is Fullmoon Festival, renowned internationally for the heaviest psychedelic line up around – last year’s installment finally was the moment, when the very dark and twisted stuff had landed in Germany. While all shades of full on culture still is what the festival stands for, the Fullmoon team will include a groove floor this year for the first time like in any other bigger psy event in Germany.

A little more to the south close to Magdeburg, Elfentanz festival (The dance of elves) spreads its magic around an old palace and a forest, home to the elves - believe it or not. In the west there’s Naked festival and last not least Waldfrieden Wonderland, an international gathering surrounded by hills and forrest in the countryside. Everybody is touched when seeing this for the first time. Waldfrieden’s (forrest’s peace) little community that brings out more and more good DJs and DJanes is seated in several buildings including an indoor venue used for parties frequently. Best known artists living in that forrest are Sally Doolally and her husband Goetzlich aka Beauty and the Beat.

You find open air parties in all parts of our country, but the more you move into the conservative southern regions, the harder it gets to organize psychedelic events and carry them out undisturbed. As a matter of fact not every crew will invite the crowd too publicly.

About indoor events – it is too much to tell you here. Look out for party dates online at goabase, Chaishop or mushroom when coming to Germany. In Berlin, Hamburg, München (Munich) or the west with cities such as Bochum, Köln (Cologne) or Wuppertal a party never is far away. In places like Hannover, Kiel, Mannheim, Leipzig, Rügen and Schwerin you can’t expect a psytrance night every week, but still regularly.

You find the most active scenes in the big cities of Hamburg and Berlin. In the capital one of the last German psychedelic record shops has survived, Tribal Tools, a real meeting point where promoter teams can check if the date is still free they have in mind for their next party. Another place to get in touch with Berlin psysters is Ministerium für Entspannung (Ministry of Relaxation) with weekly parties and afterhours, offering workshops or yoga on weekdays – at Tuesday nights they serve a good meal for a freak’s price. Meanwhile in Hamburg the only psy club, Traxx closed down, same with Atisha and its beloved Thursday Trancedance nights, once started by early Hamburg Goa artists such as Nartak, Antaro, Sangeet and Planet B.E.N. Another meeting point was the Kisch Kusch shop by t.c.k. and Astrid that closed in autumn, which doesn’t make it easier to get good trance vinyls in Hamburg. The former Traxx team found a new venue called White House Lounge doing two parties a month and their weekly afterhour on Sundays, the ov-silence Friday moved back to Juice Club partying twice a month as well. At Fridays there also is the Tanz ins Licht (dance into the light) in the traditional entertainment and red light district around Reeperbahn.

A very promising and huge event is growing in Frankfurt/Main called The Gathering of the Tribes. Local crew Space Frogz invites the international trance family for the second time this Easter weekend to combine a massive party on five floors, an open air area and a live stage with workshops and lectures to share knowledge and opinions. More than 80 tribes will send one member each to represent them either on stage or by informing about their ideas. All money earned will be given to support a project that helps kids from the streets in former Yugoslavia. You can join with your tribe at Easter 2007, just get in touch with the Space Frogz through their website.

Style wise you can find every shade of underground trance on the German scene, numerous artists and labels. Still the two labels with the highest output, that people here tend to look on as German are divisions of labels based aborad, Millennium/Y.S.E (UK) with A&R DJ Alex Ligowski and Planet B.E.N. Records (Japan). Millennium releases compilations mainly and recently also came up with the debut album by Galactika (aka NOK), one of the first names you hear these days when talking about German full on. Planet B.E.N. with his label concentrated predominantly on a number of full on compilations featuring international big names of which Mekkanikka and CPU now release their albums. After Antaro closed down Spiritzone in 2005, Boris Blenn aka Electric Universe now founded his own label to release a new album cooperating with Ben, soon to be followed by a remix album.

Those that don’t like to be filed under dark psy get more and more attention, such as the labels Noise Poison Records, Spontaenous Aerobics or Psytropic. The recent debut album by Naked Tourist (on Parvati/Denmark) will help the hard psychedelic sound to reach even more ears.

Psy prog is still quite dominant and popular, with Bim’s Midijum being one of the best known addresses. Two new labels were founded in the east by artists, Blue Tunes by Montagu & Golkonda (aka Symphonix), and Vaishyas’ Spin Twist which already came up with three CDs in a rather short time.

D-Nox had a fantastic year, finding attention all over the planet with his progressive trance and house sound, represented on the labels Sprout Music and Plastik Park that he runs with Tobias Bayer. When producing D-Nox works a lot with Frank Beckers (aka Space Safari) who dropped some wicked tunes on his own as well, you will remeber the ubiquitous »Switch«. And again Sebastian Krüger’s Avalanche Records launched very impressive compilations as well as the new Element and a spectacular Taucher album.

There is a number of small labels such as AP or Mental Arts for example, some already around for long such as Plusquam or the more psychedelic Shiva Space Technology, some brand new like Hannover based Liquid Crystal Music. If you want to check some of their releases out, the biggest German distribution and mailorder, Psyshop can help with their pre-listen service. And to calm down and relax afterwards maybe check some of the quality chill out labels we have, Chillcode, c.o.r.n. or Electrolux to name a few ...

Facts

Germany is not a cheap country, but still ticket prices for big festivals are reasonable, around 40 to 50 Euro.
At festivals you get three floors, usually playing psychedelic or dark stuff at the big and progressive trance to house and chill out at the other stages.
Public transportation system is good, check the festival’s sites for special shuttles – so far VooV-Experience is the only one with its own small train station, you get off the train at the camping area :’)