CHAISHOP - Small Country, Wild Parties

Small Country, Wild Parties - MACEDONIA

The complete story about Trance in Macedonia!

Author: DJ Satellite
Date: Mar 31, 2005
Views: 2404

Macedonia - One of the oldest countries in the world and probably one of the wildest places for parties. Macedonia is a small country with beautiful mountains and clear lakes and rivers, settled on the Balkans, surrounded by Greece on the south, Bulgaria on the east, Albania on the west and Serbia and Montenegro on the north.

Until 10 years ago it was a part of the former Yugoslavia (that’s way you might find our country under the name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). The capital of the country is Skopje, a place full of historical sights, crazy drivers, cheep booze and excellent nightlife. If you’re more into sightseeing you can’t miss Ohrid, the ancient town on the shore of the Ohrid Lake (protected by UNESCO). The people here are friendly, outgoing, talkative and always prepared to give a helping hand. No matter where are you from or what color you are, there will be no problem if you are in need of something. On the end we have to mention our kitchen and our traditional food – you have to try it!

The trance scene in Macedonia exists from 1995. The DJ Bushava Azbuka brought the Goa Trance sound from London. Small parties were organized in small cafes and were completely underground. Slowly it developed and by the end of 1998 there were few organizations that started to promote big parties with DJ’s from all over the world, organizations like “Family of Light”, “Trance Experience”, “Trancemittion”, “Culta”. Slowly trance in Macedonia turned from underground to Mainstream music. It had big commercials on the national TV and on the biggest radio stations. That was due to the big expansion of the scene. Big names like S.U.N. Project, Astral Projection, Atmos and James Monro started coming to Macedonia. That is why Macedonia is one of the few places in the world where Psy trance was more popular than any other electronic music. That was until 2 years ago when techno entered on a large door in Macedonia and than the popularity of trance fell down. One year ago, the Macedonian government created a law that ordered every club to work until 3 a.m. That almost destroyed the whole electronic scene in Macedonia. But that didn’t stop us. Parties are still organized from 11 p.m. until 3 a.m. and a huge amount of people is visiting those parties. The number of party promoters was reduced to just a few, but the number of young and talented DJ’s grew.

The biggest promoters are: “Love, Peace, Sun & Smile”- the biggest and the most popular promoters, booking artist like Talamasca, Astrix, Nomad, Skazi, Dimitri Nakov, Wizzy Noise, James Monroe, host 3 parties a month; “Positive Vibes” - more underground and less commercial, making small parties for 150 to 200 people, booking artists like Dark Soho, Miraculix, Neuromotor… and the boys from the label “Glowing Flame”.

There are many DJ’s here at the moment. Full-On style: Bushava Azbuka (Love, Peace, Sun & Smile, 8 years of DJ-ing and the best Macedonian DJ), Satellite (Love, Peace, Sun & Smile), Dreamweb (Waves of Sound), Marko (Glowing Flame rec.). Psychedelic style: Montezuma and Paradox (Positive Vibes), Vaserman (Alpha Dimension). Progressive style: Navigator, George, Loon Moon, X-treme (Trancemittion crew), Vanja (Culta).

There is only one Macedonian Label: Glowing Flame records owned by DJ Marko who works in London.