Darkpsy Artists 3
Please look below and enjoy our continued list of darkpsy artists. Paulo Alexandro is the name behind the Palex project. Born and raised in Portugal, Paulo was the dj of a small local club where he was first introduced to psychedelic music by some friends who were into the style and began organising parties at the club. He immediately fell in love with the music and within a year had built a home studio and started producing his own music. His influences have come from many forms of electronic music and a special passion for horror movies. His style of darkpsy is fast, hard and dark but with a groove and a pinch of horror. Paper Squad is made up of Boris Alexandrov and Andrey Lookov from Russia. Both fans of the psytrance scene, in 2000 they decided they wanted to create something together and Paper Squad was born. In 2002, due to serious health problems, Boris had to leave the team but in 2005 he returned and the project continued with a new power and a new vision for the psychedelic scene. They are always trying to create something new with a focus on dark morning tunes. With so many different ideas they decided to start producing under a few different names, Paper Squad for the Paper Squad sound, Twisted Epotage for the more morning influenced music and 604FX for the crazy darkpsy orientated night-time music. So far Paper Squad have released 2 full length albums, 2005’s ‘Twisting Minds’, and 2006’s ‘Let’s Twist Again’. Paranoize is a project from Israeli man Alex. Over the last few years Alex has released quite a few tracks on VA albums, released a split album, Deadly Alliance, with Claw and also released his own full length album, In The Lab. His influences he says are drawn from the occurrences of everyday life and, musically speaking, from genres such as heavy and black metal. Parasense, short for Paranoic Sensations, was originally formed by Russian friends Alexey Kurkin and Victor Zolotorenko aka Zolod. Together they released 3 darkpsy albums, Apple (2001), Avangaro (2003) and Past Present Future (2003). The albums were ground breaking, musically speaking, filled with some of the most pumping and insane dancefloor bombs of that time. After those releases Zolod decided he wanted to concentrate on developing his Freaking project while Alex continued writing music under the Parasense name. In mid 2005 the pair reunited but on January 4th 2006 Zolod tragically died in an ‘accident’ in Moscow. Today Alex is still living in Moscow and continues to produce music. He is considered to be one of the best Russian artists circulating on the scene and has a massive fan base spread over the whole world. Right now Alex is busy writing material for a new Parasense album plus tracks for various compilations. Penta is Nikita Tselovalnikov. Originally from Lenningrad in Russia he relocated to California in 1991 and now alters his residence between San Francisco and Portugal. Nikita had an extensive musical upbringing, attending music schools and playing in a great many industrial, rock and punk projects. The Penta project was started in San Francisco in 2000 originally as an amusement for friends though it very quickly became a serious act on the world psytrance scene. The Penta sound, which is borderline darkpsy, has blown up countless trancefloors across the globe with its intense, powerful and innovative composition. As well as a huge number of tracks released on various compilations Penta has also released 3 full length albums, ‘Pentafiles’, ‘Funraiser’ and ‘Horn Please’. The man behind Phobos Azazel is Darko Novevski from Skopje, Macedonia. He was born in 1981 and first discovered psytrance at the age of 15. When he was 20 he met Valentino Trencev (Blisargon Demogorgon) who inspired him to start producing his own music. His style of darkpsy is punishing, with nice fast basslines and deeply layered trippy atmospheres. Polyphonia is Romolo Cheri from Thessaloniki, Greece. He began listening to trance in 1994 and in 2003 he decided to start producing his own sounds. He was blown away by the sheer power of synthesizers and decided he would put his heart and soul into the Polyphonia project which he launched in 2005. He is well respected as a very talented producer with a sound that is constantly evolving and always pushing the boundaries of darkpsy. Pondscum is a project from Luke who comes from Melbourne, Australia. Luke began writing under the Pondscum name around 5 years ago and has since gone from strength to strength. His style of darkpsy is quite unique, very heavy and thoroughly psychedelic. He says he writes music for himself simply because he likes to be inspired to dance round his room to music that really gets under his skin. Luckily for him his music has that same effect on people all over the world, especially on a dancefloor! Zoran Zlatskovski is the man behind the Psychoz project. He had his first release in 2000 with ‘Jupiter’ which was followed in 2002 with the release of 11 tracks on his self titled debut album and in 2006 came the follow up ‘Spirits Of The Dead’. He has a very unique style with influences from many genres such as psycore, darkpsy, industrial, gothic, experimental, tribal, morning and more. The perfect fusion of these different elements has lead to his music being released on many of the most respected underground darkpsy record labels. Psyfactor is a project from Russian born and raised musician Dimitri Korablin. Dimitri was a big fan of all types of electronic music and was constantly searching for new styles to listen. His quest for ‘the right new music’ stopped when he discovered psytrance. He began producing music in ’95, his first track was a gabber/hardcore track because at the time he was a big fan of the German rave and happy hardcore style. These days though he is drawn more to pure I(ntelligent)D(ance)(M)usic, though it is essential to him that it contains unique patterns and sound movements. His favourite styles are minimal dark ambient and real hard night psytrance. In 2000 he started performing at festivals and parties in Moscow and the surrounding areas. In the same year he also wrote the track 666 which was subsequently released by Inpsyde Media 4 years later (!) in ’04. Since then he has had numerous releases on both darkpsy and ambient compilations and also released the full length albums Evil Inside (darkpsy) and Endless Universe (ambient). Psyshark is the Israeli artist Valentino Jorno. Valentino studied sound engineering at the very well respected school Yoav Gyra in Tel-Aviv, Israel. He completed 1 full year of studying, gained his sound engineering certificate and then continued on for the next year studying software engineering. With his new found knowledge the Psyshark project was born and burst onto the scene in 2006. Since that time he has released many tracks, put together 2 VA albums, made a large number of collaborations with highly respected artists within the scene and released his debut album God vs Satan. Valentino has also launched his own label, Psyshark Recs. Valentino is currently still studying for his diploma whilst always keeping some time set aside for psytrance production, investing a lot of time in creating the best quality tunes possible. * Psyshark died in a motorcycle accident in mid 2008. Our condolences to his friends and family. * Rawar is Helder Amaral from Portugal. At the age of 19 Helder launched himself into the music world as the leader of a heavy metal band in his home town. A few years later however and he developed a need for musical evolution and to other forms of music, mainly dark ambient and experimental electronic styles and he decided to start his own project shortly after, producing dark ambient. After this he got in touch with, and was subsequently invited by, Filipe aka Aggressive Mood to join the Psyence Recs crew and make darkpsy with them. Now Rawar is his solo act, he is also half of the Massive Noise project and he has a further solo project called Dominus. As well as many free tracks given up as promos, Rawar has released one full length album, Psychedelic Inferno, and one EP, Brain Scan. His sound is very hard yet groovy, twisted and trippy and always great quality. SampleBugs is made up of Russian born Igor Kopatsef and Greek born Vrahjo’logloy Giorgos (Joe), both of whom live now in Alexandroupoli, Greece. The pair have quite different musical backgrounds and influences, with Igor previously playing in rock bands and Joe coming from the underground hiphop scene where he was a dj for the act ‘Dead Nation’ for many years. After meeting in Alexandroupoli the duo decided to merge their musical experiences to create a brand new psytrance project and so SampleBugs was born! With their bouncy, trippy productions and wicked sense of humour their music will keep you continually dancing and smiling. The man behind the Sarcophilus Satanicus project is Johan Lehnberg from the city of Gothenburg in Sweden. Although he has not actually been producing seriously for a huge amount of time he has been djing under the name of Mentamid for the past 11 years and has a good understanding of music in general. His sound is relatively minimal - simple but effective high bpm tracks. In addition to this project he has a side project with Altius and Desdemona called Sons Of Satan. Johan and some friends are also behind the party organisation The Devil's Henchmen who amongst other events have been throwing the annual Welcome To Hell parties for the past 2 years. Good quality events mainly focused on the darkest of the dark night time acts but also including djs playing some dark progressive and techtrance etc to keep the nights a little more diverse. There is however a a strict 'No Full-on Allowed' policy as in their opinion there is more than enough full-on at Swedish parties already, especially in Gothenburg. Expect to hear much more from this guy in the future. Savage Scream is a solo darkpsy project from Japanese freak Mizuki (ex Bug Funk). His music is very hard, incorporating sinister atmospheres and creepy melodies for people to freak out to. Apart from his solo projects Mizuki has many collaborative efforts on the go too. This is pure underground psychedelia, you have been warned! The Silent Enemy story began in November 2006 when Hugo Veloso (aka DJ Korey) and Gabriela Padilha (aka DJ Gaby) decided to work together and formed their project which they named Silent Enemy Their main influences come from the sounds of the Amazon, black metal, gothic and epic, twisting the music into a small malevolent tale. Prior to djing, Hugo studied classical guitar for 5 years and also played in black, thrash and gothic metal bands in his city. He considers some of his greatest influences to be bands such as: Immortal, Dimmu Borgir, Cradle Of Filth, After Forever, Epica, Stream Of Passion and Lacuna Coil. Dj Gaby, at the beginning of her career, was already very into the dark psytrance style, playing out acts like Silent Horror, Baphomet Engine, Crying Orc and Polyphonia. Gaby also has a strong musical background having studied classical piano for five years so between them they have a vast library of musical knowledge. Together as Silent Enemy they create epic and gothic tracks filled with powerful emotions and always an underlying malevolence. Silent Horror is Jigar Shah from India, a ‘homemade’ darkpsy producer. Having listened to psytrance for 6 years and following all the changes in the psychedelic scene he began creating his own dark sounds in 2003. Heavily influenced by horror movies and black metal, his style has put him up there with the finest underground producers in the darkpsy scene. After a long delay, his debut album ‘Nemesis’ was released in 2007. The mind behind Skoll is Kenneth Helenius, born in Sweden in ’85 but with Finnish blood. He started producing darkpsy a few years back and has a good knowledge of production. His musical style is heavy and dark with hard kicks, deep moving basslines and especially twisted melodies and sounds. As well as producing music, Kenneth is also half of the Swedish party organisers L.E.K.stuga along with his friend Eva (Psyk@deliska). Together they throw some of the best parties Stockholm has to offer, bringing quality artists such as Xenomorph, Kindzadza, Fungus Funk, Naked Tourist and Wizack Twizack to name a few. Watch out for Skoll’s debut album which will be released in the not too distant future. Skunk Of Satan is Mexican born and raised Emilio Ramos. Emilio has always had a great interest in music. He had his first drum kit at the age of 4, his first guitar at the age of 6 and at 11 joined his first rock band as a guitarist. He was in a grunge band at the age of 13 and between the ages of 12 and 15 he also studied classical guitar. At the age of 14 he was introduced to the world of underground psytrance and other electronic genres. Once ‘bitten’ by the EDM bug he threw the majority of his record collection away and replaced it with all kinds of experimental technological music. His first electronic project, The Hikuri Corporation was started in ’03 with his friend Emmanuel Perez though that particular project was very short-lived, giving way instead to a new project between them called Skunks Of Satan. The pair continued this project together until the end of ’06 when Emmanuel had to leave all of his creative projects due to a complicated work situation, leaving therefore just one Skunk to continue the madness, which he still does to this day. His tunes are experimental madness, full of innovation and differing dark underground styles that constantly drive dancefloors wild with their merciless assaults. Be afraid, be very afraid. Sofia Mantoudi is the lady also known as Sofiax. Born in Athens, Greece in 1979, she began listening to psychedelic trance in 1994. In 1999 she got hold of a computer and then proceeded to destroy it by learning the ins and outs of Cubase!! In 2002 she had a first dj performance alongside Neuromotor and Sam from Acidance recs. In 2004 she visited Goa, India and discovered what she considered to be the best psytrance music on offer, mainly darkpsy. It was also on this trip that she met with famous Goan dj Teo who taught her many new tips and tricks. Since then she has had tracks released on many of the most well respected labels on the psychedelic scene. At the start of 2007 Sofia started her own darkpsy record label which is called Mental Cruelty Records and had its first release, ‘Mental Cruelty’ shortly after. The man behind Somarobotics is Venezuelan born Jorge Romero. A while later he decided to turn his production skills to darkpsy combining his hardware knowledge with his natural musical abilities and creating floor destroying, energy charged and often improvised atmospheres. Jorge’s future plan is to continue improving his productions and further hone his hardware based live sets, embracing his passion for dark, experimental and atmospheric sounds in the hope of delivering more and more high quality full power performances in South America and around the globe. The brain behind the Spirituz project is Spanish man Juan Gabriel Ordoñez Sanchez aka Dj Pacifist (Hypnotica Records), who lives in Stockholm, Sweden. As well as playing all over Sweden he has played at festivals and parties in Belgium, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Finland. As is often the case with talented djs he felt that as his inspiration grew it was time to take the next step and start to produce his own sounds for fun. His style is a mixture between dark, trippy and atmosphereic trance with a hard driving bassline and sometimes a little more pure psychedelic experimental type of trance. He has no interest in being the next 'big thing' or some superstar psytrance disco king, the only goal is to express himself through music and learn as much as possible along the way. From Thessaloniki, Greece, comes Stefanos Gkogkakos aka Stranger. The 28 year old started exploring the sounds that computers can make around 5 years ago after returning from a short holiday in Goa. He makes strong rolling tracks with trippy layered textures and crazy tweaks. As well as releasing his own tracks, Stefanos has also had tracks released on compilations that were written with friends. His debut album Aggressive Manners will be released sometime in 2007. TAS, short for Toxic Anger Syndrome, is a project from Swedish producer Jonas Hellqvist. Jonas first began his first experiments with music production in late 2004. Unlike many producers he doesn’t really have a particular style, the feel of his tracks depend very much on the mood he is in whist creating them. Jonas looks and sees beyond the music, what he really notices are the different sounds within tracks. Interestingly Jonas doesn’t really have a musical background and has never even played an instrument before! He does however have great musical taste and creates amazing darkpsy ambiences in his compositions. Terranoise aka Maxim Galinov was born and raised in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev but moved to Israel at the age of 9. His musical journey started with him playing on his grandmother’s piano and at the very young age of 11 he was exposed to the world of psychedelic trance music. From then on he was consumed by psytrance and now listens only to this form of music. By the age of only 14 he was already producing his own music using Fruity loops and also djing. His music is generally referred to as darkpsy but his own definition of his music is ‘full power and full energy dance floor night and morning music’. He says the key to writing his irresistible pumping tunes is simply picturing himself on the dancefloor and imagining how he would want it to feel. His hard yet groovy debut ‘Terrano Vibrations’ came in 2006. TerraTech is portuguese producer Igor João. In 2001 during a a quest through the different electronic music genres he discovered psytrance and naturally fell in love with it! After this he began mixing, playing with friends for fun at a few private parties. In ’05 he decided he wanted to create his own music and the TerraTech project was born – a twisted high energy night time sound with deep strong basslines and a heavy ambience. Besides the TerraTech project Igor is also part of the TerraTrollz (with Fractroll - Australia) and Freak Volume Warriors (with Spiral – India), both high-tech and deeply dark oriented projects. TerraTech has so far released a few tracks through darkpsy labels such as Dark-Life Recs, 5th Element Recs and Import Exploit Recs to name a few. Watch out for more releases coming soon including an EP to be released through Dark-Life Recs. Aleksandar Najdovski is The Gorgon!! He was born and is still based in Macedonia’s capital city Skopje. Aleksandar took his first steps into the psytrance scene at the tender age of 13. Having drawn inspiration from a great many artists he began making his own music using Fruity Loops then moving over to Logic Pro for a while before finally settling with the Cubase platform which he still uses today. His music is filled with deep pulsating basslines and a massive variety of leads, pads and rhythms. Aleksandar also has a second darkpsy project called Moraks which he is currently working on. Keep your eyes out for The Gorgon’s first full length album which will be released on Shaman Films Records this year. Vegetal is the creation of Swede, Peter Themizian and is a darkpsy project dedicated to aggressive grooves filled with political overtones and commentaries, punchlines of paraody, crazy musical excursions and a sharp stab at the establishment. The project was started in 2002 and since then Peter has spent a lot of time developing his sound. This is evident as there is a real signature tone to his tracks not least highlighted by the presence of deep growling guitar riffs in many tunes. It is a kind of psychedelic political heavy metal! Vegetal is also half of the well respected night time act, Peacespect, with Kiriyama and a co-founder of Devil’s Mind Records. It all began as a joke in 2007. Alex (DigitalX) and Pascal (Kerberos) decided to combine their Mediterranean hot blood and Western knowledge and create the VOC (Victims Of Coincidence) project. The project was founded with the intention of creating more music for those who feel that psychedelic trance is not just a 'fashion' or style of music but an attitude, a way of living and a feeling. The project simply aims to bring together people who share this passion for the underground psychedelic sound. The Whicked Hayo project, based in Ghent, Belgium has been worked on for the the past 5 years by the duo of Morad Bensaoud and Dan Firoiu and is now very well established. In that time they have appeared on a number of compilations as well as being featured on the Full Moon Festival 2006 dvd. They have also worked with many tribal and darkpsy scenes most well known artists and their innovative and fresh sounding tunes have been particularly well received by lovers of darkpsy. Their consistently incendiary live performances at the majority of the European festivals have earned them a place at the very top of the Belgian darkpsy scene and the pair have found themselves in enormous demand. Their style is very unique combining solid rolling basslines, violent drum kicks, huge and unique breakdowns and bizarre samples which drive dancefloors absolutely insane. Their debut album Soundbreakers is due for release towards the end of 2007 and is sure to be an instant success. White Wizard is Sandy from India. He grew up in the capital city of Delhi but was actually born in the town of Himachal. Since ’98 he has been playing electro house in the city’s nightclubs but at the same time also listening to and playing hard, twisted psytrance. After 8 years experience as a professional dj and producer the future is looking very bright for this talented individual. He is signed to Shivalink Records and is also a member of the Kabrathor Records crew. His name has been flying around the trance scene for quite some time now both as a musician and also as a party organiser. His music is a crossover of twisted night time darkpsy and experimental creations with lots of crazy mixer tweaks thrown in. He has a reputation which precedes him, as an artist capable of turning any dancefloor into a frenzy of energy. Be prepared! The man behind the Wizack Twizack project is Tommy Axelsson from Stockholm, Sweden. Having scrambled his head to psytrance in the late 90’s Tommy realised that the knobs and buttons of synths and sequencers would make the perfect outlet for his mad, mental creativity. The result was the Wizack Twizack project which is a dark psychedelic story-telling mirror that will take you on fantastic trips into the darkest hours and reflects the twisted tribal gatherings which have been occurring in the Swedish forests for years. His album ‘Behind The Trees’ came in 2006. Yata-Garasu is Paul from Belgium. He was born in ’86 and started his psychedelic journey at a very young age, only 7 or 8 years old as he grew up surrounded by Goa music. His djing career began around 2000, playing techno, metal, Daft Punk, hip hop and much more at a local dance café and then went onwards and upwards to the point of being one of the most celebrated darkpsy dj’s in the Belgian underground scene. About 4 years ago Paul came into contact with Fruity Loops and started producing his own music. He set out to create a flowing dark, sometimes fast sometimes faster! Behind every song is a special meaning for him. He then joined Skitzophrenik Lifeforms Records and had his first release with the track Sin which lead on to him being signed by a couple of labels including Psyber Tribe Records. The man behind all of these projects is the highly talented producer/dj Alex from Thessaloniki, Greece. Very well known amongst extreme psychedelic music lovers, the concept behind his music is to take the audience on an intense trip into the darkest corners of the human subconscious in order to gain a better understanding of human nature and fear. Alex’s innovative style has seen him invited to play all over the world and he always receives a great crowd response. His music is redefining the content of psy parties and works best in the darkest night time hours. Alex is also half of the Jibber Jabber project along with Alien Mental. From Darkpsy Artists Back To The Darkpsyde Homepage
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