South African psytrance

South African psytrance (sometimes referred as SA trance or Twilight Psy) is a darker form of psychedelic trance music that started and is mostly produced in South Africa. Unlike the Russian and German dark psytrance, South African psytrance is more rhythmic with large percussion usage. It is melodic and danceable, yet keeps the nasty attitude. It is highly influenced by full on and tribal music, but not tribal or erratic enough to be classified as suomisaundi. Though South African Psytrance and suomisaundi may share similar styles, as both being the only psychedelic trance genre to combine tribal beats in its music, the genres are very different, South African Psytrance is well more dark and harsher, it still leans to european styled trance, while suomisaundi is less polished and more inspired by classic goa trance, also suomisaundi developed in an entirely different place, finnland rather than south africa. 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 versa. 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 large outdoor parties every weekend during the Cape Town summer. South Africa is known for its scenic natural beauty, and many of the venues of outdoor psytrance parties take place in breathtaking secluded locations, far away from the stress and grime of city life. 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, Beartrap, Organik, Red Eye and many others are beginning to offer the Cape Town scene, as well as the rest of South Africa, 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 South Africa, and this is reflected at the festivals. From gothic rockers, to neon-bright electro-kids through to tie-dyed hemp-clad hippies, all types of people can be found enjoying a psychedelic experience under the great African sun. South Africa seems to be the next best thing when it comes to psytrance destinations, and it is not uncommon to see people busting chillums in the middle of the dancefloor.

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

Active South African Psytrance musicians

 * 🇿🇦 Artifakt (Matthew De Nobrega)
 * 🇿🇦 Brethren (Ian and Josef Summs)
 * 🇿🇦 Commercial Hippies (Gareth Tacon & Anton Raubenheimer)
 * 🇿🇦 Deliriant (Shane Renew)
 * 🇿🇦 Frozen Ghost (Barry Wynne)
 * 🇿🇦 Indidginus (Michael Martin - Website)
 * 🇿🇦 Hydraglyph (Andrew Morgan and Mark Ackermann)
 * 🇿🇦 Phyx
 * 🇿🇦 Pitch Hikers (Liam Gibbs and Chris Hoy)
 * 🇿🇦 Protoculture (Nate Raubenheimer)
 * 🇿🇦 Rinkadink (Werner Van Jaarsveld)
 * 🇿🇦 Shift (Chris Hoy)
 * 🇿🇦 Slug (Liam Gibbs)
 * 🇿🇦 Tickets
 * 🇿🇦 Twisted System
 * 🇿🇦 Xatrik (Greg Hamber)
 * 🇿🇦 Zion Linguist (Laurence Sonnenberg)

South African Psytrance Record Labels

 * 🇿🇦 Alien Safari (Official website)
 * 🇿🇦 Groovy Troopers (Official website)
 * 🇿🇦 Nano Records (Official website)
 * 🇿🇦 Nexus Media (Official website)
 * 🇿🇦 Timecode (Official website)