RAY: Part of the shamanic richness I strive for is the magic of trying to extend the natural universal laws into TRANCE DANCE music and channeling this music in my role as a DJ TECHNO SHAMAN. So that the collective group dynamic can come into alignment, to use these potent spacial moments to access certain knowledge or DATA IN OUR DNA or THE TRANSPERSONAL SELF. We are like the Aborigine, eons ago, who contemplated the planetsphere with their 'dreamtime', whilst beating their sticks and blowing thru a hollowed out pipe (didjeridu). These open-air, wilderness, TRIBADELIC, pagan-like parties (rituals), are along this line of primordial communion. I see cathartic dance as a reconnective therapy, and a rekindling of a free-form play space, which we had as children.
DJKRUSTY: You seem to understand the communally, unifying potency of this art form, where this practice walks hand in hand with the evolution of the multi dimensional human body/brain/spirit somatic. Cyber shamans are pilots navigating the future amidst the turbulence of the all prevalent information wars being waged. The MIDDLE AGES TECHNO AGE. I sense a deep spiritual intent to what you do as if you are guided by HIDDEN HANDS, to assist in the rebirthing of NEW SOUND PARADIGMS, which catalyse TRANSCENDENTAL BLISS STATES, which the mystic strives for and the drug user is seeking.
RAY: This persuit is very TRANSNEPTUNIAN. The dissolving of boundaries. You can see why rave culture is so addictive. Kids want to escape the mundane, and this euphoria is amplified by the use of psychedelics. I think the popular - kiddy rave- drug, 'ectasy,' is the lowest rung on the CHAKRA LADDER. I wish to push it to higher plateauxs of consciousness expansion, and ultimately not with the use of drugs, although they are powerful psychic amplification agents. These substances open doors, but unfortunately habitual, dependent users, get psychologically stuck in the door. Its like regressing back into the womb, where there is no pain of being a separate entity, in an undifferentiated fusion state. The peak experiece, weather it is a sexual orgasm or the self abandonment we feel at a trance dance party, is a letting go of the defences which bind us to our ego, our aloneness, and the controlling personality of the mind. One aspect of the GOA MYTHICAL DANCE PARTY movement has been to bring a more spiritual vibration into this art form, and make the whole experience more cosmic, and ultimately more holistically edifying. This has encompassed a neo-hippie fashion trend, which has identified with the taoistic East and its dieties, and a revisioning of SOUND FREQUENCY ALCHEMY, ritual magic, image media, ceremonial art installations. All of which are infused into a potentially healing, unifying social event, for the individual, the community and the planet. When we dance together, we are one. There is a MICRO/MACRO reverberating affect. Like people meditating or praying together. A now POST GOA, anti-podal mindscape. A mystical experience mediated via the technology. It relates to the maxim of the Aquarian age, where science and a more individuated religious experience can merge. Composers and DJs of Trance Techno, tend to be anonymous communal artists, and don't have the hierarchical, narcissism of the previous rock musician archetype. The author of Cyberia, Douglas Rushkoff, states that, 'the mission of cyberspace counterculture of the 90s is to explore unmapped realms of consciousness and to rechoose reality consciously and purposefully.' And to challenge existing media, manipulated, paradigms of world view held by the dominator culture.
DJKRUSTY: The cyber shaman is an info-warrior out of necessity, and what better way of dismantling obsolete thinking and action, than with the cyber artillery of the techno-fluro-tribal party.
RAY: Its to do with very subtle realms of energy related to the STRANGE ATTRACTOR theory in 'the new physics'. The relationship of technology to organic interdimensional consciousness. It comes down to FRACTAL HARMONICS, numerology, sacred geometry and manipulating symbols and sound signatures (beats and frequencies) - thus creating A DIGITAL OCCULT-- a holistic-hip-gnostic -- music of the spheres. So that we realign with organic RYTHMYSTEC CYCLES OF BECOMING, at one with the galactic dance. Ultimately this reveals that we are all individually, co-creators of the universe, EACH OF US IS EVERYTHING. The heavens do incline but they do not compel. We do have free will and we create our fate, the stars do reveal connecting patterns, and mirror life on this earth plane. Astrology is the study of the relationship between time, space, cycles of nature and internal/external personal and collective events. When I do a party I always cast an astrological chart to check out what energies are involved, to gauge what kind of art to present and what type of music to emphasise. Obviously the Moon cycle is a very powerful barometer on the psychic atmosphere and mood of the public, but also other celestial alignments, so you know what kind of powers you are playing with. DEE JAYS ARE POWER FREAKS ! I feel a huge amount of responsibility in this role. If you sense the need to cast yourself in this directing, controlling, position, then try and do it in a clear minded way, without unconciously projecting too many personal agendas thru the prime time of these trance-dance, altered state, sacred spaces. The dancers put themselves in your hands to take them on a journey, its like psychic surgery. Its important to understand the dynamic of raising this energy in the body and psyche, thru progressing the various levels of intensity in the music, to make a spiralling progression. Its to do with raising the kundalini serpent energy in the body's chakra system. The party is a chakra journey, and finally you reach a crown-chakra-type unfolding, like a flower, when the light comes in the morning, and the progression of the music should reflect this. But this can only come if you have ridden thru the more interior, darker, dimensions of the vigorous, visceral night groove. This darkness into light, sound into light, dynamic is a powerful quality of the Goa style, wilderness partys. If you can adjust the sound with this celestial shift of energy, it creates immense, ecstatic rapture, which can take the gathering into a melting, ascension, state.
DJKRUSTY: Dance has always been central to any ritual magic and god-head experience. Shamans and priests/priestesses from all societies and known civilisations thru out the world have used music and dance to induce trance states. A basic esoteric teaching is that each being is a microcosm -- a reflection or miniature -- of the macrocosm, or universe. Each of us truly does contain the energies of the cosmos within us. Ecstatic sacred dance is a means of stimulating these energies and bringing them into expression and activate a deeper level of consciousness. Such dance is the intent of this techno tribal movement, offering the sacred opportunity for people to experience their BLISS. Non-believers and non-participants will never understand the true ritual power of dance. There is a connection between the catholic mass religious ritual and a trance techno dance party. Participants at raves, especially outdoor ones, feel a connection with another level of consciousness and realise a personal, rather than an institutional, diefied, dogmatic, spiritual experience.
RAY: This transcendent, dissolving, unifying experience is fundamental to the psycho/spiritual nature of humans. Deep down we yearn to experience this connectivity to the whole, which is what we experienced when we were in our mother's womb; at that initial stage, our spirit is taking form, coming into a body. We truelly feel that we are the centre of the universe, floating in space (the oceanic womb), where there is no ego, no sense of self, no separateness, we feel a total interconnectivity with everything. The innate desire to lose ones self in a transcendent, transporting experience, pulls us back to that primordial source experience; it is like a returning home. This can be realised in various communal spiritual practices which all the religions tell us about, or to lesser degrees, even just going to the pub or being in a crowd at a sports match. This ectatic state of intoxication on the spirit, or just being part of an event, is the craving we have when we gather together for social intercourse, or even as a passive audience. Humans have a strong need to come together for a unifying collective experience, and I sense, it connects us to a very communal, tribal, element in our social nature. The Greeks strove to recreate this archetypal need with their emotionally-charged, mythological, theatre. The mass hysteria at a sporting event, matches that of a full blown rave. Perhaps one is seen to be more regimented than the other, but there are codes of conduct, mind sets, and regulartory factors, weather that be referees, djs, rules, bpms, or beat/style genres of music and body expression. And of course, psyche-lubricating-substances, or soma, are a part of the whole dissolving process which assist in the dropping of our defences, temporarily. So that we can let go and feel connected to something greater than ourselves, but then we have to come back down again and be alone with all our conflicting feelings. So its always this pull between wanting to be in a fusion state, the bliss we experienced in the womb, and the pain of having to become a separate entity and live in the boundaries of the body and work with mental and emotional processes which challenge us with a vast erray of dysfunctionalism in our innate quest for unconditional love, both interpersonally and communally. TRANSCENDENCE IS ABOUT RISING ABOVE EXISTENTIAL ANGST, which translates into the flight of the spirit out of the body. It can be seen as, ESCAPISM FROM THE MUNDANE, seeking nirvana or shunyata, the religious bliss state. Music is the most powerful, emotion catalysing, vibration, artform, we have as spiritual warriors. Frequency and rhythm activates the chemistry in the psychosomatic body/mind. Deep images, sensations and memories are re-ignited. These dance rituals are about the gestalt of the body, releasing regenerative, primitive, psychosexual energies, which we as 'civilised', mind driven, westerners, are convoluted about, with our awkward, retentive, neurotic, social programming. The DANCE CATHEXIS -- a group cathartic psychodrama -- on tribal, techno, beats, offers a potent temenos (sacred space) for reintegration of disconnected parts of the Self., which becomes a therapeutic SONIC HOMEOPATHY of sorts. So tekno tunes are like tinctures, and when we dance to them they activate cellular memory, in our metabolism, like electronic enzymes. Combining this with PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS creates a powerful catabolic, biochemical reaction. Raves and techno trance parties are easily seen, by the outsider, as a DANCE-DRUG-CULT, where the participants are predominently on the drug 'ectasy', and emit a synthetic sensual, fluffy love aura, which often creates a euphoria or autoerotism. But for me, personally, I find when the celebrants are not dosed or contrastingly are on hallucinogens, ( ie: acid, mushrooms, mescaline, dmt), there is a much deeper transpersonal, Gaian-mind-like, resonance in the event, these substances trigger powerful memories in our unconscious. I often get the feeling at a party with people on 'e', speed or amphetamines that they would be just as content to convulse to the sound of a train coming down the tracks.
DJKRUSTY: The modern shamans are MIDWIVES TO A PREGNANT UNIVERSE and are helping to prepare the way for the shift in consciousness which is so sorely needed today. The shift from mechanistic rationalist modes of thought to what has been called a sense of 'PARTICIPATION MISTIQUE ' in life. This is the dance party experience: dancers / artists / organisers are one tribe, one heartbeat, either everyone gets it or nobody gets it. I sense, Ray, that when you do your digital sound alchemy in an event, you impart a direct experience of the infinite, which is the empirical experience held within the dance; The -- IN THE ETERNAL MOMENT OF BLISS -- state. The social, audio and visual sampling of innumerable cultures and timescapes compresses the history and future of civilisation into a single moment, when anything is possible. This then is the power of the Goa realisation.
RAY: I feel that Goa trance is TAPPING INTO A QUANTUM QUICK STEP. This movement in contemporary music mirrors the present transit of Uranus in Aquarius. Which suggests a free, independent, spirit, with mystical, cosmic, consciousness. A promethean quest to awaken spiritual ideals and experiences via technology with a popular, collective, art movement. The hippies, in the 60s, gave us aspects of that, and now it is coming around again on a higher arc of the spiral. Rushkoff defines it as 'A SYNERGISTIC CONGREGATION OF CREATIVE THINKERS bringing the tools of hi-tec and advanced spirituality together.' The foundations of our most deeply held beliefs and myths are being shaken, (Pluto in Sagittarius), with a rebirth and revisioning of ancient spiritual ideas. The dilemma of a fixed, static, traditional religion, is that it struggles to maintain a position in the present which is wholly conditioned by the perceptions of the past. India, the home of religion, has been a sanctuary for dharma bums, mystics, truth seekers, misfits, freaks, druggies, drop-outs, hippies, anarchists, futurists, new agers and a plethora of world travellers, who are seeking to escape the mundane world, questing for a higher experience and answers to to the big picture. India and psychedelic trance-dance is for those who want to shred their egos and embrace something quite numinous (spirit reflecting) and potentially more psychically edifying. This TRIBADELIC TECHNO TRANCE movement was started in the, time-warped, ancient vase of --Goa-- India-- by the SEASONAL NOMADIC JETSET HIPPIES, who are most definitely outside of conventional society. They sustained their unshackled, fringe, bohemian, lifestyle, by smuggling bomm shankar (charus) out of India to the West and Japan and collecting the latest mind-blowing psychedelic dance music. Charis (hash) had been legal in India, up till the mid 70s, and its use by Hindu yogis and sadhus, as a soma, or heightener of the senses, was a part of that culture's tradition, until America put heavy anti-drug pressure on all Asian countries at that time. Goa techno trance actually originated from hard line, electronic body music, groups, like Nitzer Ebb, Front 242, Frontline Assembly, as well as Eurobeat. This international, underground cult, network, of outer space travellers and drug dealers, then brought this music with them, on tape, to Goa, to play at beach and jungle parties that they made, which were non commercial, spontaneous, extremely flambouyant, outrageous; and bomm!... the Goa trance --hyperspace-- collective mindset evolved. On top of this, there was a copius supply of acid and other hallucinogens always free at most parties there. After 1989, the party season in India has been intermittent, because of politics, especially related to drugs and the growing popularity of the scene. This once, secret, DANCE-DHARMA-ZONE, became much publicised and the parties more difficult to make and less magical. Goa, the actual place in India, now has become more mythical than actually a free environment for partying, which it once was. With its present commercial, toursit treadmill, commodification, and the attention focused on it, via this music fashion, its now been tamed into a kind of clubby Ibiza, and has lost its raw, out-there, wildness, which the freaks gave it. But at least its in India, which is totally mad, chaotic and surreal, and will maintain some degree of unhinged, unpredictability, as apposed to other Asian tourist traps like Thailand and Bali. India is freak friendly, hardcore and in-your-face. Its more conducive to time travellers and truth seekers than straight tourism. Thats why its a hippie mecca, and will continue to be so. A unique genre of dance music has been spored from this, A CYBORGANIC COUNTER CULTURE OF PSYCHONAUTS, distinct from the mainstream of urban house, hip-hop, rave, acid, techno which was being generated in Europe and America, for clubs and urban venues, with lots of commercial manipulations and hype by music press and labels, just like we are irronically, currently, witnessing in London now, with 'Goa Trance'. DJs and musicians who have experienced the exotic seduction of the Goa vibe, then went back home to the West to do custom made tunes for the occassion and set up labels to promote it, and now it is being packaged as a pop fashion, which inevitably happens to any social art movemet which has some substance. Its amazzing it took this long to become hip, its been going on now, for ten years, but its basic principles are ancient. London is very good at whipping up fashion-fad-fusions with its infectious media, but in reality England, with its justice cimminal laws, is one of the most repressive societies for such events, but this just fuels its underground shadow, offshoot, -- English eccentricity -- which I see as a curiously creative rebellion against a very traditional class society. Lets see where this freaky, flavor of the month implodes too, now, globally. POP ALWAYS REGURGITATES ITSELF. Goa is not about one scene calling the shots, its A UNIVERSAL FREQUENCY FREEWAY. The party scene in Goa, India, had always been very international, which flushed out narrow, parochial attitudes and tastes. Although the quality of psychedelic music being produced in London, has been very prolific and quintessential, of recent, its root 4/4 beat form is grounded in 80s Euro techno. Similarly, If you look back to the 60s, you can see what the British electric guitarists did with American blues music. Its all about innovation, what ever form it takes, and obviously now, the present immense palette of technology offers infinite possibility for psychic, sonic, evolution in this medium. Which is an electronic umbilical chord, that links us all together in one pulsating, DOOFADELIC, trance dance, and offers the possibility to break down psychological, cultural and political boundaries. The vibe in abstract trance music is to do with universal themes, not subjective personality fetish, soapy romanticism or urban frustrations, which has made it rather illusive to market by the music industry corporations, ie: give it a face. Its production and networking has been by a very alternative, grass roots, international, subculture. Now we have a whole new psychedelic wave of computor wizz-kids, who didn't party in the 60s, but many were born then, thus are fully hip to its revolutionary spirit, and are now redefining and reinventing it, with a MIDI MAVERICK, post modern, attitude. I remember, in '86/'87, having to dig around the b-sides of dance records, or their dub versions, to find more spacey, weird, instrumental mixes, to suit our more, off-centre, way-ward, esoteric needs. This thread of meta-music is like a sound track for a journey thru time; past, present and future. There were always too many insipid vocals, and often tracks were too short. So we used to use Sony walkmans--no dats then--to cut up the track, edit it, and stitch it together with various versions to make custom Goa mega mixes for the party. At this time techno musicians had no idea of what was being done to their material and the context it was being played in. The ELECKTRICKERY of the techno shaman's cybertools allows for a kind of SOUND SOURCERY, all of which enhances the capcity to do this sacred work. There is often a thin line dividing and defining the various qualities of doof, techno, acid, trance or whatever you want to call it. Basically it comes down to whatever evokes the spirit to a state of emotive, euphoric, ecstatic, aliveness; but within this there is a potent fertile space for subliminal suggestion. And for me, it is stearing it towards a connection with the UNIVERSAL OMM. The PSYCHIC SONIC HARMONIC that unites us all to the cosmos and creation; a THEOSOPHICAL TRANCE.
DJKRUSTY: You certainly capture that with your MASARAY-COSMIC TRANCER - TIME TRAVELLER release, with Masa, on the Psyharmonics label.
RAY: This music is designed for COMMUNING WITH THE STARS, the heavens above, and upper chakras. These compositions celebrate the heroic voyage, dancing to the sound of the first light of dawn, empowering the warrior spirit to rise up and carry the participant into the ether and ascension.
DJKRUSTY: I sense the current pop rave scene isn't where you are projecting your energy, rather you are facilitating a SPIRITUAL RITUAL MAINFRAME.
RAY: I don't want the focus on me, in the environment of a dance party. Essentially the DJ is a channel, for sound morphing the vibe, which creates a force field, or magnetic resonance. The essence of dance music is that it has brought the main event back to the individual rather than focusing on a creative ego on stage or live musicians, as in rock music. Even live techno tweaking musicians, I am dubious about. Laurie Anderson says: 'Watching someone play a keyboard is as interesting as watching someone doing the ironing'. I would much prefer some abstract, symbolic, theatre. Its all to do with personal empowerment via movement, as the frequencies and beats move the air in the space which triggers your emotional body. The lighting and art also tunes and sanctifies the space, preparing the ground for magick to eventuate, rather than formula, commercial, fashion, fictions, with lots of voyeurism and ego jerk-off. I wish to strive for higher consciousness events and music is a powerful catalyser. Esoterically, as the dervish dancers knew, we are able to tap into invisible realms of meaning, to penetrate the true nature of the physical space-time continuum. The electron does behave like a particle, with access to information about the rest of the universe. These parties are like a pluton, neutron, electron dance of pure energy, which flushes out blocked psychic residue.
DJKRUSTY: So what you are suggesting with this quantum quick step is that a kind of PHASE LOCKING is occurring. Whereby the ingredients, the strobe atoms, sonic beams and organic cells are syncopated into linked, chain reaction cycles that promote the creation of a single, interdependent organism, where feedback and affirmation can take place immediately and effectively. Rushkoff defines it as 'a phase locked group of dancers with sound and light, which begins to look like a living, breathing, fractal equation, where each tiny part reflects the nature and shape of the larger one'. The ultimate phase locking occurs in the dance itself, where 10s, 100s, 1000s of like minded people play out the techno tribal ceremony. People learn to communicate with their bodies on psychic hallucinogenic, spiritual (white light) levels, instead of being only dialled into this extremely cerebral, narrow-band-width TV society which dominates the mass mind. At this type of techno event there is no need for people to say anything, but just to bond with everyone around; all defences are down, there is this transpersonal love, you talk about, and an uninhibited, non-judgemental openess. The unification, merging, fusing experience. Unlike the hierarchical, patriarchal, traditional Christian ritual, which is dominated by a priest; techno cyber shamens, such as yourself, open the space as a pagan ritual, free-for-all, that is created by a group of equals, and offers a vehicle to experience one's own BLISS.
RAY: We are META MUTATING GLOBAL INFORMATIONAL BEINGS, there is a metacontinuity in CHAOS MATHS. A dance party is a CHIROS SATORI EXPERIENCE (time outside of regular time), where one can gain a bright-light-bulb-like experience of illumination and understanding. As when the raver or dancer states that s/he feels most alive when they are dancing, and this religious-like ecstasy, offers a healing of our various splits and a reintegration with our instinctual self, through such peak, bliss, experiences, which will permeate thru into all aspects of our life; so it can have a very transformational, life altering, affect. And yes, dance parties have transmuted the role that organised religion once had to lift us onto the sacramental and SUPRAMENTAL PLANE.