India's tranceformance boom

From Goa's moonlit beaches to rooftops and raves across India, psytrance is pulsing through the country's veins again

- Harsh Kabra

Moonlit shores of Goa’s Anjuna beach teem with sunburnt seekers in the 1970s.

Runaways, hippies, mystics, dropouts — singed by Western materialism and looking to transcend — mill around handcrafted wooden stages amid a cocktail of incense, hashish and possibility. Soon after tambourines and sitars ignite the mood, basslines from makeshift sound systems and patched-together tape decks come alive. Psychedelic music washes over the land of feni.

Through the night, flowing kurtas, beaded necklaces, mirrored sunglasses and matted dreadlocks pulsate with freedom; their altered states fused by LSD, a powerful drug now banned. Acid rock and proto-electronica stir a generation into spiritual awakening.

Fast-forward 50 years later. Psychedelia is witnessing a resurgence in India — now as psytrance — across theatres from rooftops and neon-lit clubs in metros to raves in valleys, forests and deserts. Curious minds and inked limbs are now mingling with Ableton Live, UV-reactive nano-fabrics, cyberpunk streetwear, LED masks and goggles, AI-driven sound design, precision-engineered subwoofers, and immersive virtual reality experiences. Soaking in synesthetic stews now are techies, 'psychonauts,' artists and urban nomads. The trance may have transformed but its quest to dissolve boundaries hasn't.

Beyond the dancefloor

"Psytrance is pure freedom," says Gurugram-based digital marketer Nidhi Kalra. "With psytrance, I experience music as a journey through my mind," enthuses Prajakta Ganorkar, a designer from Navi Mumbai.

"Psytrance has always had deep roots in India," says Bharat Bindal aka StarLab, one of India's leading psytrance producers signed to Digital Om Productions. "The resurgence is partly due to nostalgia and a growing counterculture that values altered states, connection and escape from mainstream norms."