Times Of Privacy In France

Though 2004 didn’t and the future doesn't look bright for the scene in France, the French can prove they are still in the place. A new generation of lovers of psychedelic sound is growing and with it some hope on a brighter future.

One can sadly discover that, even without taking the legal threat of party organization into account, the fan base reduces, and parties as we would like to see them, true raves, are vanishing. The scene is now face to face with this terrible assessment: less and less people come to parties, which leads to great losses for the organizers; party people are bored of this situation; the remaining few organizations lose their motivation and gradually stop their activities. Those facts mainly occur in Paris and its area around.

How does the future look like through the sadness of those facts? Being objective and full of consciousness makes us think the community is about to disappear. How can a community live with only 400 folks? Hardly, for many reasons, mostly because of the lack of opportunities for organizers. Organizing a party in France is now a highly risky job, leading to parties which fall short of trancers' expectations, even artisticly speaking, like booking famous artists ...

Of course the scene will survive, but you will not see anything else than small or private parties. Those kind of parties are important to unify the people, but they cannot attract people outside. Then, how could trance develop itself, just like other electronic music trends in France? Trance, because of its reputation, didn't reach the ashes lately.

While the current state is disappointing, however a paradoxical situation is rising: a new generation is coming. They consist of new associations, like Seventh Sky, Now Here or Neotek for Paris and its area; the Transbutils in Marseilles, Psytawa in Toulouse, Any Gmatik in Nice, and the West, in Le Mans, is also growing.

Actually, as we can see, the scene is going better outside Paris and its near area. You still can find great fans ready to work for our music. Hadra in Grenoble and its area, is one of those important organizations outside Paris we can be proud of, organizing parties everybody does enjoy. Hadra is also about to release a compilation with lots of great artists that played at their parties.

In another field, Sandy Klaus and Guet showed initiative by creating a true trance program on a FM radio, called Vallée FM (Trancevallee@hotmail.com), scheduled every week! Another radio called Triangle FM supports our music with the help of Kilokif.

There is still a lot of work to achieve here in France. Nonetheless, the Day Glo organization still do their best to promote the full-on style, and they prove it again by organizing a Neurobiotics party at the beginning of this year. MP Records had a party in March with Infected Mushroom and Juno Reactor, who did not come to France for a long time. Electro System are still there, and so are, of course, Gaia Concept and TBE, who schedule huge events twice a year, during the techno parade, the 14th of July, or for the new year. Aqua Veda is also to come back in some expected events, after a full year for the Progress Crew in the Triptyque and the Glaz'Art.

Something we can be really proud of is our French touch in music. Some big names are already well known, like Triptych, Altöm, Talamasca, Tetraktys (and the new project Motion), Triskell, Silicon Sound, and more. Here it comes - the new generation! Like Fiction (progressive style), Side-A (prog), Module R (prog.), Phonic Request (psyche), Life Extension (full-on), Shagma (full-on), Skunky Rabbit, Flying Circus (Shagma vs Phonic Request), Crystal Visions, Phatmatix (psyche) and more!

New labels also appeared, like Mahogany rec, Red Cells rec, Mind Control rec and Nabi rec.

It looks like faces are changing, the smiles return, and maybe the future is not that dark after all.