EVENT REVIEW: Zodiac Taurus – The ALL STARS FESTIVAL Pre-Party 02-05-15

A BIG “Thank You” to The Zodiac Collective, Neuromantix, Organic Family Group Promo, Glitch Doctors and Sound Advisors for uniting and teleporting the true essence of psytrance from Goa to Toronto on this gorgeous full moon night. With this event a new benchmark has been set for indoor psytrance gatherings in Toronto.

We reached District 28 at 10:30PM; it’s a huge studio space in the industrial complex in the south-east nook of Toronto, close to the beaches. I was already impressed by the remoteness of the location, away from the hustle bustle of the city. District 28 is a versatile 23,000 square footage of space which is equipped with three large high-end studios; of which two were transformed into distinctively unique worlds aptly called Psyplains and The Stadium for this event.

As we entered the door through the security check I noticed the high ceilings of the building, about 25-30 feet high. The thumping bass from the adjacent door beckoned us as we walked the tiny hallway and entered the room. My jaws dropped at the sight of the Psyplains – a huge room with black lights with walls adorned with trippy psychedelic art by Cesar Ar, while on the decks Rob Eckhardt was spinning some sick dark psy at 150 BPM. That was the moment I knew that dancing here with my arms wide open wouldn’t be a problem, then I braced myself for the night that was to follow.

 I hadn’t even checked out the 2nd room, The Stadium, yet, and I was already blown over by the setting. As tempting as the Psyplains room was to stay in, I couldn’t wait to experience The Stadium as Sound Advisors and Glitch Doctors, audio/visual artists were responsible for the visual trip in there. The organizers were even gracious enough to provide us pilgrims with free snacks and water to keep our physical selves recharged throughout the night.

Although, the first room provided crazy amount of space to dance, The Stadium was relatively smaller. It elevated the visual psychedelia to the next level with a set of 3D cubes hanging from the ceiling on which visualizations were projected all night long. The Stadium too boasted of some psychedelic art which was completely different in style than the art in Psyplains. This room also had a makeshift bar, a truly authentic psytrance bar, which basically is a table with couple of guys standing behind it serving water, pop, beer and liquor; just like on the beaches of Goa.

As I entered The Stadium, Audi Etoffe was just beginning his set. The Stadium probably took longer to set-up considering the amount of effort put into this room functioning the appropriate way, as this was an empty studio prior to becoming The Stadium.

I’ve been listening to Audi play psytrance for a couple of years now, and I have to say this was my personal favorite set I’ve heard him play. The set started with a groovy tempo and he slowly upped the tempo as The Stadium had started to fill in. This was precisely the moment when I realized that it’s going to be heartbreaking for me to leave either of rooms to go to the other because they both were so good.

While Audi was reaching the end of his set I made my way back to Psyplains, where Machine Elf had taken over with high BPM industrial sounds. By this point, quite a crowd had gathered in the Psyplains room and yet there still was ample space for everyone to rave around. Machine Elf stayed true to the essence of the room as he churned out a barrage of dark psychedelic sounds, one on top of another, creating a soundscape that was complicated and yet groovy; as groovy as 160BPM can be.

Around midnight I noticed that Psyplains was losing crowd to The Stadium, so I followed suit to check out why. The short walk between the rooms had become longer as the night progressed, as time was dilating at an hour a minute. As I made my way to The Stadium, there was a queue forming up in the hallway to get in as the relatively smaller room was completely packed while Totemic was playing psydub. Steadily he moved on to more high tempo melodic beats and the vibe on the dance floor was getting a lot more social. It was the music causing it! Those same people were lost in the Psyplains with the high BPM darkpsy earlier.

After hanging out in The Stadium for about an hour or so, I made my way back to Psyplains around 1:30AM to get warmed up for Ghreg On Earth. At that point PlanB was keeping the room warm at 155 BPM with a set packed with forest and tribal sounds while there was insane dance happening on the floor. Ghreg On Earth; the headliner of this auspicious night started to get set up around 2AM, while simultaneously more than half of the strong 200+ psyheads that turned up for the event were marking their space in the Psyplains to let it loose for the next couple of hours.

Ghreg started his set with a bang, dropping a 160 BPM track to open his set and followed it by a variety of dark and haunting soundscapes as the journey of the night was delving into a vortex of psychedelia; auditory and visual. He kept the tempo fairly high throughout his set, surfing between the 150 BPM and 170 BPM mark. Even at this point, when most of the crowd was trekking the Psyplains, space wasn’t an issue to worry about while dancing. “Now, that’s a rave.” I said to myself as I kept vibrating along with my brothers, sisters, and my girlfriend, in unison to the music thumping out of the crystal clear stereo sound system courtesy of Mr. Kaizen.

It was at about 30 minutes remaining in Ghreg’s set when he dropped the tempo to 90-100 BPM as everyone finally had a chance to recharge. In about two minutes, he skyrocketed back to 170 BPM as the whole room started buzzing and moving around in tandem. He kept on getting deeper and deeper into the darker sounds at a very high tempo as Atheria was to take over next on the decks. As the audile shamans greeted each other, the crowd cheered one more time to thank Ghreg for taking us on this adventure and to welcome Atheria to take over the pilot’s seat.

Atheria, in his usual calm mode, started his set in style as he kicked it off at 170-175 BPM, showing no intention of going any lower. I’ve been vibrating to Atheria’s live sets for over a year and I must say, he knows what he’s doing when he stands there quietly creating an ethereal soundscape by flowing smoothly from a track to another. At this point, it was around 5AM. and my company wanted to head out. They were really drained, but I wasnt. If it was not for my girlfriend, I would’ve stayed back until the music stopped.  I realized that I hadn’t been to The Stadium in a while, so I decided to pay one last visit before we said our goodbye to the family on this auspicious night of Buddha Purnima. Buddha Purnima is a full moon night that commemorates the birth, enlightenment (nirvāna), and death (Parinirvāna) of Gautama Buddha.  I was enlightened a bit more this night, for which I’m very thankful to everyone who participated in it with me.

The vibe at this event was the most beautiful I have ever experienced in any indoor psytrance gathering in Toronto. It truly felt like a family, a psyfamily. I also ran into a few friends I had made at The Eclipse Festival 2014 (a biennial 72 hrs of non-stop psychedelic music festival spread over 3 stages, over a weekend on a camping site, somewhere not too far from Montreal). In the last 5 years of attending indoor psytrance gatherings in Toronto, never had I experienced an event so meticulously planned and pulled off even more stylishly with the best of the crowd vibes. When I previewed the event, I knew it was going to be amazing becuase multiple event organizers were teaming up to bring us this memorable night, but now I feel I just fell short of adjectives that could have truly justified how majestically enlightening and deeply satisfying this gathering was.

LINKS:

All Star Festival
Facebook

Ghreg On Earth (Mindfull Records) San Francisco USA
Website
Soundcloud

Jonah K (Permanent Damage Records)
Website
Facebook

MEDICINEMAN (No Man’s Land, CIUT.FM)
Website
SoundCloud

Totemic (Street Ritual/Spectrum)
Soundcloud
Facebook

Nikhil Khedkar – EDM TOR