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Leading the Psy-Culture from ISRAEL

When we talk about Israeli Trance, what are we talking about? Are we talking about the Israeli Trance music or the Israeli Trance culture? I guess we should talk about both, separately and together, since they are two different things, and yet, they are so connected.

We'll start with Israeli Trance music. We have a lot of it; we had it from the start and have it still - fresh sounds, old sounds, new styles and old styles. At the beginning, in the good-old-days, the production of music was more analog, and required lots of equipment, time and effort. Trance music was also not that popular, so the quantity of Trance music all around the world was little, and Israeli Trance was leading the way with names like Astral Projection and Infected Mushroom. Through the years, Israeli artists and labels continued to lead the music in our Trance world, but we have all seen a lot of music created in other countries, providing new styles and new qualities. Nowadays, when creating music is much easier and more widely spread, Israeli artists took that opportunity, learned from artists from all over the globe, and started creating new music, original and diverse. If the old days gave us mostly Goa and Full On Israeli music, we now see many more artists creating music in other styles, like progressive and minimal. We also see artists switching genres over time, trying and tasting new possibilities (e.g. Ace Ventura who is part of Psysex). The fact that music creation became easier, also caused many more people to try and create music on their own, and therefore, enlarge the variety we have. Because there is so much music around here, there is also a great need of label, and so we have many of those too, such as Hommega, BNE, Aleph Zero, Doof, Domo, VP, Com.Pact and USTA. Having so much music, also turned Trance in Israel to something very common which enables almost every radio station has a Trance radio show, many people have Trance ringtones on their mobile phones and Trance artists win music award. Variety and diversity, that's the name of the game.

What about Israeli Trance culture? What's going on there? Well, I gave a short summary of our culture's history last year, telling you about how the parties started all the way in 1991 and how over the years the parties have shifted from clubs to nature and vice versa; how Trance had turned more mainstream and became a little more commercial; how it became more common and more accepted. If I want to summarize the current parties' status in one word, I'd probably say "variety". When you look for a party on the weekend, you'd probably have to choose between a full on party (organized for example by Moglix Crew), or a progressive party (let's say, one by the 3rd Empire's) or maybe a Finnish party (organized by Rataxes) or a Dark party. You might want to go to a more exclusive party (such as those by Danko & B.I.G. parties) or go to a nice small party (by Ryjiy and the FTF crew). But Trance culture is not just parties, it's not just the music and it's not just the drugs. It's not just the location, or just the production, and not even just the people. A good place to start when you want to know more about the Israeli Trance culture is IsraTrance (www.isratrance.com), which has the biggest trance forum on the Internet. IsraTrance is an Israeli oriented site which might explain why over a quarter of its active users are Israeli, but it's also a great meeting place for people from all over the world. The community of Israeli Trance is a community that believes in a dream, that has hopes and that has a future.

So I can't really tell you what Israeli Trance is, I can't even say which half of it is more dominant. All I can tell you is that it's probably a mix both and that it's big. To know better you'd have to come and join the karhana yourself!

Facts

Population: 6,500,000 people
Size: 20,000 sq km
Climate: Great. Mostly sunny, very little rain.
Capital: Jerusalem (but nightlife capital is Tel Aviv)Transportation: public transportation is quite cheap, but does not run on weekends (Fri-Sat)
Things to do and see: beaches, archeology, nature, cultural events, museums, nightlife and of course, parties