I’m rubbish at genres… can someone enlighten me about the psy prefix … what distinguishes a psy-X tune from a plain X one ?
I get it suggests “psychedelic” but that doesn’t seem to have any bearing on the content that I can tell.
Latest variation I’ve seen is “ethno-psyChill” … what ?
If it has a psy prefix, it usually means the kick will be too loud, there’s too much reverb on the 303 and a bunch of Matrix dialogue all over the place and gigs will be full of trustafarian white kids from Tunbridge Wells with dreadlocks and leather bras.
I don’t think I’d even click play on something labeled “Ethno-Psy-Chill” LOL
It means the music “abuse” delay and reverb effects.
Funnily enough, YouTube seems to think I’m going to like these things and it’s right a fair proportion of the time. I still don’t know what it means though.
As you pointed out to me Psy usually means its trying to be “psychedelic” in some manner (whatever that means, personally I find most electronic music to be somewhat psychedelic). I’d also expect it to be a “hippie” type crowd that is into it. And likely a lot of (and I hate these terms) world music or entho elements.
You know that really long, tedious party scene in whichever Matrix sequel it was?
That’s what all the Psy genres aspire to be.
I likes me some Goa though
Hahaha 
Preach!
X:
Psy-X:
For my taste that is defo the top-shelf of this kinda dance music.
Psy is basically Israel/india influenced trance which generally uses eastern scales and psychedelic sounds and arpeggios.
Psy-chill
Psytrance
Hi-tech is the harder version of psytrance.
You have other genres such as Forest and Glitch, but they basically follow the same structures as hi-tech and psy-chill.
i always thought of ‘full-on’ psytrance as ‘vanilla’ psy, with other sub-styles either side of that
psy chill probably starts with shpongle
Absolutley Nailed it. This definition should be in the dictionary.
I have always failed to find anything psychedelic about any of the ‘psy’ genres.
The older psychedelic music styles though, 13th floor Elevators, HP Lovecraft, Camus, These Trails, May Blitz, Linda Perhacs, Wimple Winch etc, absolutely brilliant, and yes, definitely psychedelic.
Shpongle is totally new to me, thank you.
https://psytranceguide.com should give some perspective and detail on your question, assuming “X” means “T%^#@E”
And for another awesome journey that goes deeper than Shpongle but with the same guys involved, and which was “ethno-psy-chill” before such a genre was a glint in anyones eye:
omg her voice hasn’t changed one bit
dark-psy
chill/glitch
Psytrance
Hi-tech
I think there’s also an LSD component to it. And ideally camper vans. Maybe this is what ties it to older psychedelic music descriptors in the old rock days.
Where does psy-cumbia fit in ? This is one of the variations in my mind when I started the thread.
