Psychedelic Trance is one of the most exciting underground music we..ve seen since the birth of Acidhouse, but unlike many musical styles it has remained underground for over 20 yaers. Through media attention, this music has become known as “Goa Trance”.
20 years down the line, many feel the connection has been overemphasised as this style of music is being played and produced all over the world and many of the artists have never been there.
Johann Bley on the other hand first went to Goa for the 1987/8 season with the atari music computer and has been tne first ever person who was composing psytrance tunes in goa. he is partying there ever since.
Hailing from Hamburg where he grew up in the “red light district”Sankt Pauli” where he was playing football for 8 years in the famous Sankt Pauli football Club,Johann has been involved with music from young age. During and after school he joined anumber of Bands, playing drums for rock-based, electronic groups. Growing up inthe 80..s he joined the Glamrock image and gained recognition in Bands such as “Grosse Freiheit” and “Ledernacken”. He also played live drums for various Bands including “KMFDM” and increasing his profile as a respected artist in Germany.
When Johann first went to Goa, he wasn..t sure what to expect, so took various bits of music equipment with him in case he got bored. As you can imagine, boring is the last thing it was. On Partys back in the days where it was still influenced by 80..s Electronic Music, Johann found vibes and energy he never had before. This inspired him to compile some tunes which where the first urban Goa Tranceproductions and when they happened to to hear they got distributed among the Goa Dj..s.
in 92 Johann went to London and met artists like “Juno Reactor” and youth from Dragonfly. Under the name of “Mandragora” he finished off two of the tracks which had become Goa anthems back in the Party seasons 90 to 93. One of the tunes ( “Wicked Warp” ) was being released on the first Dragonfly Compilation in 1993.
in 98 his first album “Blow Your Mind” has been released including the alltime anthems “Stranded” which caused several Years a stir on Goa Partys all over the world.
Johann produced 4 solo albums and had more than 40 tracks and remixes on several compilations. He also did a lot of Live-Shows for example in Japan, Israel, America and in Germany ( VooV, Antaris…
No release yet.