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The Psytrance Party THE PSYTRANCE PARTY C. DE LEDESMA M.Phil. 2011 THE PSYTRANCE PARTY CHARLES DE LEDESMA A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of East London for the degree of Master of Philosophy August 2011 Abstract In my study, I explore a specific kind of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) event - the psytrance party to highlight the importance of social connectivity and the generation of a modern form of communitas (Turner, 1969, 1982). Since the early 90s psytrance, and a related earlier style, Goa trance, have been understood as hedonist music cultures where participants seek to get into a trance-like state through all night dancing and psychedelic drugs consumption. Authors (Cole and Hannan, 1997; D’Andrea, 2007; Partridge, 2004; St John 2010a and 2010b; Saldanha, 2007) conflate this electronic dance music with spirituality and indigene rituals. In addition, they locate psytrance in a neo-psychedelic countercultural continuum with roots stretching back to the 1960s. Others locate the trance party events, driven by fast, hypnotic, beat-driven, largely instrumental music, as post sub cultural and neo-tribal, representing symbolic resistance to capitalism and neo liberalism. My study is in partial agreement with these readings when applied to genre history, but questions their validity for contemporary practice. The data I collected at and around the 2008 Offworld festival demonstrates that participants found the psytrance experience enjoyable and enriching, despite an apparent lack of overt euphoria, spectacular transgression, or sustained hedonism. I suggest that my work adds to an existing body of literature on psytrance in its exploration of a dance music event as a liminal space, redolent with communitas, but one too which foregrounds mundane features, such as socialising and pleasure. In addition my work contributes to popular music studies and youth cultures research notably when related to field work methods and ethnographic approaches. My inquiry harnesses a variety of fieldwork methods to argue for re-evaluation of the psytrance party. Attention in particular is paid to the event’s many material elements and how they interact. They include site spaces, infrastructure, dancing, or ’chilling’, bodies, DJs, sound systems, organisers and drugs. The study applies concepts developed in cultural anthropology such as communitas, in the new ethnography (Goodall, 1999; Marcus 1998) - reflexive researching and partial insiderness – and, lastly, the ‘vibe’ and the DJ-dancer relationship, which remain fundamental to electronic dance music cultures. The Psytrance Party Contents List of Plates Chapter 1 Challenging the Spectacular in Electronic Dance Music Accounts 1.1 Goa and Psychedelic Trance Development 3 1.2 Situating Psytrance: Widening a Little Culture 5 1.3 Central Concepts and Pystrance Party Findings , 9 1.4 Chapter Overview: a Material Analysis of a Psytrance Party Event 15 Chapter 2 The Psychedelic Trance Party: Literature Review of Scholarly Works 2.1 Psychedelic Trance Studies and the Globalising of Exotica 1 8 2.2 A Spiritualised Ritual? Themes in Psychedelic Trance and Rave 26 Studies 2.3 Bodies, Dance Floors and Drugs: An Analysis of the Late Rave 33 Moment Chapter 3 Insider and Participant Research: Methodology and Methods at the Psytrance Party 3.1 Guaranteeing Communitas 4 0 3.2 The Operationalising of Reflexivity in Psytrance Party Fieldwork 40 3.3 Insider Research at the Psytrance Party 44 3.4 Site and Gatekeepers: Finding the Party and Contact Immersion 4 6 3.5 Negotiating the Psytrance Network: Dancing Bodies to Audio Texts 5 0 3.6 Temporarily Autonomous: From Cereal Field to Psytrance Party 5 6 3.7 I’ll see you at the Chai Tent 70 Chapter 4 ‘It’s just a Tea Shop and we’re having a Laugh’: Social Connectivity at the Psytrance Party 4.1 Exploring the Psytrance Social: Rob, Friends and the Peak Sets 74 4.2 Exploring the Psytrance Social: Rose, Amy and Connectivity 78 4.3 Exploring the Psytrance Social: Promoters, Participants and 82 Opportunities 4.4 Connecting the Lulls: Recreational Drugs and Communitas 87 4.5 Building Community 91 i Chapter 5 Psytrance Information Channels: The DJ-Dancer Conversation 5.1 Good Time DJs and the Solo Dancer 95 5.2 Alex Sense: Greece’s Progressive Trance Haberdasher 9 7 5.3 Liquid Ross: A Visit to ‘Stealthy Fungus’ and Return 10 1 5.4 Beardy and the Whacked Out Crowd: The Closing Act 10 6 5.5 Interludes in the Conversation 112 5.6 Social Connectivity and the DJ-Dancer Dialogue 114 Chapter 6 Psytrance Communitas - Heterogeneity, Cognitive Connections and the Consensual Dance Music Moment 6.1 Reviewing Fieldwork Results 119 6.2 Classifying a Little Culture 123 6.3 Psytrance, Communitas, and Dance Music Research 1 2 5 Bibliography 128 Discography 137 Appendices Appendix A Participant Profiles 138 Appendix B Schedule of Meetings and Interviews 142 Appendix C Psymusic.UK: Music Thread 146 Appendix D Participant Permissions 149 ii List of Plates 1 Crew canteen and Chai Emporium canvas structures 39 2 Solar-powered showers 43 3 Author and DJ Fluid at the chill-out tent 58 4 Merlin cafe and the chill-out 60 5 Assembling the psytrance dome 61 6 The camping zone 63 7 Minimal progressive trance DJ Frechbax 64 8 Live band Orchid Star at the chill-out 65 9 String art by Bjorn in the psytrance dome 66 10 The Travelling Observatory bric a brac stall 69 11 Outside the psytrance tent 73 12 Rob from Cape Town 75 13 Dancers in the psytrance dome 77 14 Rose in her green fairy outfit 78 15 Night-time in the psytrance dome 83 16 Psytrance stage organiser Ben Grant 86 17 String art and dancers during Deviant Species’ set 94 18 The hill and the psytrance dome 95 19 DJ Alex Karanasos 99 20 DJ Liquid Ross 103 21 DJ Beardy 109 22 Alex Sense and Rose in artists camping 115 23 Night activity at the psytrance stage 116 iii Chapter 1 Challenging the Spectacular in Electronic Dance Music Accounts The psy-festival... allows its inhabitants multiple freedoms, including the freedom to join one’s flame to the conflagration, and to hold self-promotions on and off the dance floor. Graham St John (2009a, p.48) Introduction My ethnographically-informed analysis of a psychedelic trance party 1explores the ‘multiple freedoms’ Graham St John (2009a) refers to. Key to my account, however, is the lack of conflagration St John detects, or hopes to find, in this reference to the psychedelic trance mission as it spread from Goa, India, to the wider world. I argue that a certain amount of mythologizing surrounds this kind of cultural practice and that, based on research at one event, more attention should be paid to pleasure and community. My argument - that fun, sociality and connections are highly prized products - calls for a wider examination of such Electronic Dance Music (EDM) events which could lead to a more confident conclusion. My research into one particular event suggests there are grounds for these questions to be asked. The study differs from some academic work (Chan, 1998; Cole and Hannan, 1997; Gore, 1997; Greener and Hollands, 2006; D’Andrea 2007; St John, 2010b; Saldanha, 2007), as I examine in detail the event site and the technologies used, drawing on the experiences and perspectives of around twenty participants over a 14-month period. The fieldwork at the fully-legal, four-day, medium-sized, event, incorporated its lead in and break down too. 2 Fewer than 1000 attended the event which took place at the end of July 2008 in southern England. 3 Research methods were primarily participant 1 Offworld took place from the 31st July to the 3rd August, 2008 at Liddington Warren, Berkshire, UK. 2 Most UK psychedelic trance outdoor events are not properly licensed and tend towards shorter, all- night time frames, but some last for 24 hours or longer. The first legal festival to centrally feature the style was 2004’s Glade Festival (www.gladefestival.com) which is an annual event 3 The following is a list of 2008 UK and Irish festivals featuring psychedelic trance: Glade Festival, July 18-20 Berkshire; Life Festival, July 4-6, Lough Cutra Castle. Gort, Co. Galway, Ireland; 1 observation with repeat promoter, participant and DJ interviewing. Use was made too of a focus group, email dialogues, social media, artefacts, digital photography and reflexive analysis of notes and reflections. As a result of my fieldwork I conclude that social connectivity is paramount for participants. Other authors (D’Andrea 2007; Lambert 2010; Ryan 2010; St John 2010a, 2010b, 2009a, 2004; Schmidt 2010; Sylvan 2005) have drawn attention to this facet of trance culture, but, my findings constitute the first sustained analysis in English of psytrance’s social qualities at one research site. The conclusions to my analysis reveal some surprising areas. Dance moments can be deemed enjoyable and successful when the dance floor is not apparently a magnet for involvement or the music considered of high quality. Elsewhere, I monitor the work of psytrance DJs as they try to invigorate dance floors populated by small numbers and follow the impact of their sonic journeys (Cole and Hannan, 1997) on dancing. A final key subject are the ‘body technologies’ (Rietveld, 1998, p.176) that dancers favour at psytrance events. As consumption of various dance drugs, and occasionally alcohol, is a constantly recurring theme in my study I will now offer Hillegonda Reitveld’s definition (ibid.) which is precise and enveloping enough for application here. Body technologies are devices used to enhance a feeling of ‘other worldliness’ and of escape from daily reality. In this context, I use the world ‘drug’ not to distinguish between what is legal and what is not; rather the word ‘drug’ refers to a substance which affects the user in a physiological manner, with noticeable result’s to the user’s mental state.
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