South African psytrance

South African night trance (sometimes referred as SA trance or Twilight Psy) is a form of darker psychedelic trance music that started and is produced mostly in South Africa. Unlike the Russian and German dark psytrance, South African psytrance is more rhythmic with large percussion usage, melodic and danceable, yet keeps the nasty-like attitude although it is highly influenced by full on and tribal music. It is not uncommon to see musical groups of dark psytrance musicians with South African psytrance musicians or South African psytrance tracks in dark psytrance compilation albums, and vice verse. Also, there are artists such as Shift (Chris Hoy from Cape Town, although later leaned more to full on) who combine their music with dark, or releasing tracks along with dark or dark\full on musicians (such as Psychotic Micro). The "South African sound" is not made by South African musicians only, for example the Israeli duo Abomination, the only non-South African musicians signed in the Cape Town based record label Nexus Media.

History
Perhaps the first South African night trance compilation album is Mideranged released in 1999. However it is only in the early 2000s when the first wave of South African psytrance musical movement started. Compilations such as Africa In Trance, Alien Safari and Encryption in 2002 established the South African sound and were the first exposure to artists such as Artifakt, Damage, Phyx, Rabdom L, Rinkadink, Shift and Xatrik – who were basically the first wave of South African psytrance, later to influence new musicians in South Africa and the rest of the world.

Scene
Although most of the large psychedelic trance festivals takes place in Europe, South Africa, especially Cape Town, is loaded with psychedelic trance parties. There are big, famous, outdoor, forest and beach parties every weekend during the Cape Town summer. The major players in the scene being Alien Safari and Vortex, but many other top quality production crews all around the Cape are drawing much larger crowds than ever before, tribes such as Groovy Troopers, The Village and many others are beginning to offer the Cape Town scene a lot more when it comes to selection and the diversity of psytrance on offer.

The attendees at the festivals are so diverse. You will find many different cultures all over Cape Town, and this is reflected at the festivals. From gothic rockers, through to leather-clad hippies, all types of people can be found enjoying a psychedelic experience under the great African sun every weekend.

The festivals mainly run from the Friday afternoon through to Sunday sunset, with a large contingent of party-goers only arriving early Sunday morning, catching the cream-of-the-crop on the line up of most parties.

For the latest in South African Trance Events and News, visit www.3am.co.za & www.bomelakiesie.co.za

Active musicians

 * 🇿🇦 Twisted System (Chris Hoyy & Craig Hudson & Ian Summs)
 * 🇿🇦 Brethren (Joseph Summs & Ian Summs)
 * 🇿🇦 Shift (Chris Hoy)
 * 🇿🇦 Pitch Hikers (Chris Hoy & Liam Gibbs)
 * 🇿🇦 Rabdom L (Craig Hudson)
 * 🇿🇦 Tickets (Joseph Summs)
 * 🇿🇦 Phyx (Ian Summs)
 * 🇿🇦 Hydraglyph (Andrew Morgan and Mark Ackermann)
 * 🇿🇦 Protoculture (Nate Raubenheimer)
 * 🇿🇦 Zion Linguist (Laurence Sonnenberg)
 * 🇵🇾 Parana (Warren Hiebner)
 * 🇿🇦 Slug (Liam Gibbs)
 * 🇮🇱 Abomination (Saar Davidov and Eyal Gershon)
 * 🇿🇦 Artifakt (Matthew De Nobrega)
 * 🇿🇦 Broken Toy (James Copeland)
 * 🇿🇦 Corona (Brendon Rod and Magnus Claussen)
 * 🇫🇷 Digital Talk (Julien Fougea and Luc Achintre)
 * 🇨🇦 Kode Six (Francois Bureau & Kalan Bird)
 * 🇨🇦 Splinter (Francois Bureau)
 * 🇿🇦 Frozen Ghost (Barry Wynne)
 * 🇿🇦 Hiyarant (Stuart Vermaak)
 * 🇵🇹 Menog (Daniel Bernardo)
 * 🇫🇷 Phatmatix (Stephane Rault)
 * 🇿🇦 S.W.O.R.N.
 * 🇫🇷 Triskell (Fred Sauvand)
 * 🇿🇦 Xatrik (Greg Hamber)
 * 🇿🇦 Indidginus (Michael Martin)
 * 🇿🇦 Scam (Mark Hartley)
 * 🇿🇦 Chabunk (Gareth Webb)
 * 🇿🇦 Rubix Qube (Kieron Grieve)
 * 🇿🇦 Biorythm (Kieron, Carl & William)
 * 🇮🇳 Ctrl+Alt+Del (Vishaal Turakhia)
 * 🇿🇦 Lost & Found (Gerhard Olivier)
 * 🇿🇦 Headroom (Adam Metcalfe)
 * 🇿🇦 Dirty Motion (Barry Wynne & Stuart Vermaak)

Solo acts

 * Tundra (Andrew Morgan of Hydraglyph)
 * Chesh (Gareth Tacon of Hydrophonic)
 * Kut 'n' Paste (Jaco Konig of CounterCop)

Collaborations

 * Brethren (Ian Summs and Joseph Summs – brothers in real life)
 * Commercial Hippies (Anton Raubenheimerm and Gareth Tacon)
 * Multistate (Gerhard Olivier and Greg Hamber)
 * Pitch Hikers (Chris Hoy and Liam Gibbs – bombast of Beat Hackers)
 * Twisted System (Craig Hudson, Chris Hoy and Ian Summs – audio mastering by Matthew De Nobrega)
 * Dirty Motion (Barry Wynne and Stuart Vermaak)
 * DMMT (Dave Mac and Martin Treurnich)

Live Acts

 * Smugg Juggler Stuart Vermaak Bass Guitar, Dale Byl electronic drums, James Ward Lead Guitar, Gareth Wyatt-mair synth
 * Indidginus

Record labels

 * Afrogalactic Records
 * MMD Records
 * Nano Records
 * Nexus Media
 * Organik Media
 * Sanskara Records
 * Red Eye Productions
 * Timecode Records
 * Vision Records