South African psytrance

South African psytrance (sometimes referred as SA trance or Twilight Psy) is a lighter form of psychedelic trance music that started and is mostly produced in South Africa. Unlike the Russian and German dark psytrance, South African psytrance is more rhythmic with large percussion usage. It is highly influenced by full on and tribal music, but not tribal or erratic enough to be classified as suomisaundi. Though South African Psytrance and suomisaundi may share similar styles, as both being the only psychedelic trance genre to combine tribal beats in its music, the genres are very different. It is not uncommon to see musical groups of dark psytrance musicians with South African psytrance musicians or South African psytrance tracks in psytrance compilation albums, and vice versa. Also, there are artists such as Shift (Chris Hoy from Cape Town, although later leaned more to full on) who combine their music with dark, or releasing tracks along with dark or dark\full on musicians (such as Psychotic Micro). The "South African sound" is not made by South African musicians only, for example the Israeli duo Abomination, the only non-South African musicians signed in the Cape Town based record label Nexus Media.
History
Perhaps the first South African night trance compilation album is Mideranged released in 1999. However it is in the early 2000s when the first wave of South African psytrance musical movement started. Compilations such as Africa In Trance, Alien Safari and Encryption in 2002 established the South African sound and were the first exposure to artists such as Artifakt, Damage, Phyx, Rabdom L, Rinkadink, Shift and Xatrik - who were basically the first wave of South African psytrance, later to influence new musicians in South Africa and the rest of the world.
Scene
Although most of the large psychedelic trance festivals take place in Europe, South Africa, and especially Cape Town, is a hotbed of psychedelic trance parties. There are large outdoor parties every weekend during the Cape Town summer. Some of the prominent people in the scene are Alien Safari and Vortex. Tribes such as Groovy Troopers, The Village, Beartrap, Organik, Red Eye and many others are beginning to offer the Cape Town scene, as well as the rest of South Africa.
Active South African Psytrance musicians
* Dirty Motion
* Rabdom L
* Twisted System
* Slug
* Shift (Chris Hoy)
* Phyx
* Protoculture
* Artifakt
* Frozen Ghost

South African Psytrance Record Labels
* Disasterpeace Records
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