CHAISHOP - Southern Comfort

Southern Comfort

Author: sam
Date: Sep 17, 2003
Views: 2566

The Trance Express to the Southern Hemisphere - Trance Travel Guide

Sep 17, 2003 - Text: Sam, Pied Piper Paul, Baz of Psyburbia, DJ Prophet, DJ Brealey, Fergus, Delphi Carstens - Photos: Sam, Mark Luckey, Sally Green

(French Version here!)

While Winter and Clublife begins in the historical trance countries in the northern hemisphere of our planet – summer is starting in new trance breeds like Brasil, South Africa and Australia. What could be better then spending the summer in sunny europe and the winter in hot Brasil – beeing together with likeminded and catching some of the best festivals of our culture!

This article serves as a guide to the southern hemisphere. A snapshot of it’s current trance scenes. An outlook of the coming season!

Creating this article we were trying to get local activists report on their scene to have representive inside-views. The participation was minimal – obviously not much people are interested to spread the word about what’s going on in their country. If you see this different we’d be happy if you want to contribute scene reports to this dynamic and evolving article in Chaishop and Mushroom Online. Please write to sam@chaishop.com.

Argentina	India
Australia	Israel
Bolivia	Mexico
Brasil	New Zealand
Costa Rica	South Africa

Argentina

Having an eletronic music scene for a long time now also trance seems to settle in Argentina. There are occasional parties happening and people starting to produce music. A bigger festival is in the planing for NYE.

Parties:

Dec 31, 2003– Jan 4, 2004: TODOS SOMOS UNO (part II) festival de ano nuevo open air tras las cierras; CORDOBA; Argentina

Links / Contacts:

Australia

Text: Baz of Psyburbia (www.psyburbia.co.uk), Pied Piper Paul

Australia (or just Oz) is an incredibly diverse country with almost every kind of geography and nationality represented somewhere. It is a vast landmass, mostly comprising desert regions With major cities on the coast, except the Capital Canberra & all located in the more fertile and temperate regions. Travellers should find it very easy to have a great time in Oz. The cost of living is low and most people are very friendly and helpful. Be prepared for vast distances – you will need to have a car if you are to attend many outdoor parties. If planning a long stay buy a car then sell it on leaving the country. As by far the cheapest!!

As far as trance is concerned the southern state of Victoria has a culture of huge outdoor events over the summer, November to March, you can enjoy any number of events. Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria which is not a bad place to get started. Most outdoor events will be staged two to three hours drive away. Firstly just because no where or one else I know of does this in the world & their name & ideas are eco friendly & very kool!! I’ll mention Melb based organisation Tranceplant, if in Oz show your support.

The biggest Psy related promoters in Melbourne would be Earthcore. They put on ten or so parties a year with at least two big outdoor Doofs. They celebrate their tenth anniversary this November with a typically huge bill including Hallucinogen. Although claiming to have veered away from ‘psy trance’ and now include many other styles, they still have acts that appeal to lovers of psychadelic culture. Recent headliners have included Juno Reactor and The Orb for example. Earthcore is an experience and every time I’ve been it’s been a special experience. Often taking place in spectacular forests, the sheer size of the event is exhilarating. Be warned you need to bring a range of clothing – it can get cold at nights but be boiling hot in the days (example 47c at Rainbow Serpent on the Saturday this year)

The premier trance specific party is Green Ant’s ‘Rainbow Serpent Festival’ on Australia Day long weekend in January. With two stages the festival provides full bore trance on one, and a more eclectic range of sounds on the other. The visuals are always top notch and with excellent organization of the site, and the whole event. It’s over two hours drive from Melbourne. 2004 will see the likes of Orion doing a live set & also Djing plus their International resident fav’ Pied Piper Paul. They are looking at Deedrah as the main live act.this year with a good pick of local talent plus other Internationals T.B.A

Tribeadelic do a New Year’s party that’s earned an excellent reputation, It caters for someone wanting a complete psychadelic party experience. This year you’ll beable to catch the likes of Silicon Sound, Sesto Sento, C.P.U, Visual Paradox plus the cream of what Oz (a pun 4 those who know) has on offer i.e Mr Peculiar Sun Control Species or say Benza Tribeadelic emphasise a strong commitment to visuals and come highly recommended. There are also many smaller events and it pays to look at www.tempestrecordings.com.au once in a while to. A Global Slowdown party will be happening over summer and will be mentioned on the Tempest site.

The Byron Bay/Lismore region has seen many great parties & has an excellent family like underground scene. None rival the scale of the big Melbourne events but you may want to check out www.demontea.com. New Years has seen it’s biggest partys organised in the past with the likes of Exodus The advantage of Byron is that the weather is just so good and the vibe is very relaxed. Byron is now a mayor Tourist spot so if that’s not your thing you may want to head for the hills. You could see one of its more famous Trance faces Oli Wisdom hiding back there as he lives in that part of the world or be lucky to hear him or one of the talented locals spinning at a Bush-doof. Its sub-tropical so the nature around is lush green, but be prepared to get some rain from say mid or late Dec to March. You may even see a passing pod of Dolphins out in the bay The locals like it underground so you’ll have to do the digging yourselves!!

Sydney is arguably the most ‘fun’ city. It is packed with interesting features and seems to party 24 hours a day, however the music tends to be a lot more mainstream, although there are trance related events. Still it’s worth checking out.. A fairly new crew have started bringing over some great internationals Space tribe, Pied Piper Paul, Bitmonix and putting on some well loved partys & Doofs, over the last year or so their next bash see’s Bamboo Forest & Astrix doing their thing outdoors. They are T-Quest & that date is Sept’ 6th, also in the pipeline for middel of Nov’ 03 is a Wizzy Noise Party so stay tuned When in Sydney a worth while drive is into the Blue Mtns which is just 90km west of the city. or just relax on her many great beaches. Bondi of course being one of them.

Other places parties are being thrown are Brisbane, the North coast (1-2hrs north of syd) Perth & now even up in the tropics in & around Carins (launch place to see the Great Barrier Reef or up Nth to the Daintree Forrest) outdoor partys are been held. If you can commit to a few months there is no doubt that you’ll get some huge party experiences and have a lot to do. The summer weather makes most things a breeze and our exchange rate means that most nationalities find it cheap.