If anyones observed the progression of the trance scene from its embryonic days on the shores of Goa to the consumeristic hedonism of present-day raves, you can bet your house on Goa Gil. Credited with instituting the sub-genre of Goa Trance, the 65-year-old musician and deejay flew into India as a disillusioned teenager, booking a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Delhi via Amsterdam, and headed straight for the hills.Later in the 80s,Gil helped pioneer a form of DJing using cassette tape edits of electronic body music and early techno brought by European tourists to India. Goa Gil (Gilbert Levey) is an American-born musician, DJ, remixer and party organizer. He is one of the founders of the goa trance and psytrance movement in electronic dance music.Gil was born in 1951 and grew up in San Francisco, California. He witnessed the birth of the hippie movement and acid rock. Feeling that the San Francisco musical scene was falling apart, he took off in 1969, going first to Amsterdam and then to India, settling in Goa. Here he discovered the sadhus wandering holy men living off the forest, covering themselves with ash, and drinking the elixir of the gods. Soon, Gil himself became a Sadhu, Baba Mangalanand, under the Guru, Mahant Nirmalanand Saraswati. The mix of outdoor electronic dance parties with Eastern mystical and spiritual overtones came to define the aesthetic of the psytrance movement. For Gil, dance is an active form of meditation and the use of trance music is a way to redefine the ancient tribal ritual for the 21st century.During the 1990s, the aesthetic of the Goa trance movement spread by way of European and Israeli backpackers who attended parties in India.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 13:01:57 +0000