CHAISHOP - Psytrance of Hungary

Psytrance of Hungary

Author: sue_psylife
Date: Nov 18, 2008
Views: 5122

Feel the spirit in magical valleys and in the taste of Palinka...

...meet the hospitable tribe in boat parties and cozy cellar clubs, or spend half of the summer going from lakeside psychedelic weekends to festivals of international rank in Hungary. The biggest psychedelic community of Middle-Eastern Europe keeps the scene abounding more than ever.

Psytrance movement took its first steps back in ‘92 when DJ Oleg came by weird mix tapes from Israel and India, and a year later already threw parties mixing goatrance with acid, breaks and techno. Vibe started to spread across the country but needed its helpers: an Israeli student delivering goatrance vinyls for the rising number of DJs in Budapest, and his fellow countryman, Big who moved to Szeged and organized parties for the amused underground crowd. Psytrance events became weekly frequent from around 2000, and these days Hungary hosts sometimes more parties in a weekend, in fact you might also find more the same day.

During winter and fall there are regular psytrance nights in Budapest even on weekdays, each featuring fullon, progressive or darkpsy residents and international guests too every now and then. Inner city club K2 often hosts these and most of the relevant indoor parties during the year. Other then that, boats on the Danube, underground catacombs, former subway stations or cozy cellar clubs could be places to find the community until sunny weather kicks in and open air season begins late spring.

Lake-side openairs are very much common near Budapest thanks to number of fishing lakes in the area. As for mountains: Bakony hosts its third psychedelic weekend this year with Gataka and Zen Mechanics booked. At the time of writing Atmos is invited for a gig in February, Astral Projection in April and Goa Gil in July. Party listings fill up with international headliners for nearly every weekend usually as we get closer to the dates, check the websites or ask the community at forum.goa.hu.

OZORA Festival takes place fifth time this August with new decoration and the same picture perfect location. Speaking of perfectionism, its organizers are also known of in creating the true hidden paradise of the valley as well as the highest quality line-up, it made Ozora world-famous and remained its trademark (7.000 visitors last year). And not only that, No Mans Land Festival turned more than a few heads with its last edition in 2007 too. The multi-stage festival offers a wide spectrum of psychedelic music again this time at lake Balaton end of July.

Scene is growing but isn’t as fast as the number of teams organizing separately fullon, darkpsy or progressive parties, which make the crowd kind of scattered lately and dancefloors sometimes half-empty. Some of the crews started to co-operate more each other already and pleasing various tastes at once they try to gather the community more often.

Only a few years passed away since Para Halu project placed Hungary to the psytrance producers’ world map and there seem new talents rising from here again. Wooden Monsters are already after their debut-album on Nabi while Psybaba Records goes on releasing new Hungarian darkpsy projects. Adam Hohmann aka Para Halu started Psylife Music and Halu Beats to spread international psychedelic and progressive tunes, including forthcoming "THE FUTURE SOUND OF PARA HALU" album or "BURLESK", decade-long awaited debut full-length of local prog-psy hero Kalumet. Besides the labels, the first Hungarian artist management agency called Human Touch begins its work in 2008 too.