It is HIGHLY recommended to listen to the music on this Soundcloud playlist before or while reading this blog.

In my 2nd article of my ‘Spotlight’ series I’ll try to focus on the great combination of trance music especially Psytrance with Tribal music elements. It will be another great opportunity to show you more of the tribal music out there besides the painfully dominant ( and rather boring ) Tribal House genre.

I open my Soundcloud playlist with the genre veterans…

1.Medicine Drum – Taken from their 1997 Album Supernature I picked up Mandragora as this track has a heavy percussion influence.It begins with an African style drumming with the very characteristic African 2 over 3 ( or 3 over 2 ) polyrhythm.Later on joins the characteristic psytrance synth line. A great balance between this 2 elements.

2.Etnoscope – Might & Magic is taken from Etnoscope’s 2nd album Way Over Deadline ( 2010 ).This Swedish trio introduces great sound production & beautiful fusion of tribal drumming with psytance elements. In this track there’s a rather hypnotic line of the the Middle Eastern Darbuka goblet drum with different psytrance melodic lines, effects & vocals.Another tribal trance classic.

3.Percussijan – Velocityraptor.I discovered Percussijan on soundcloud ( like many other great artists I’ve discovered there ! ) & I really like his tribal trance fusion & style. Velocityraptor has a very powerful combination of tribal triplets vibe & live percussion ‘feel’ with electronic analog style parts.

4.Pettra – Pettra is the Middle Eastern psytrance project of the Israeli producer Jonatan Schreiber. From his debut EP I picked up Desert which introduces a beautiful & powerful combination of the middle eastern string instrument Oud , a desert Flute & great Darbuka lines along with classic psytrance hard hitting basslines & other psy FX. Middle Eastern tribal trance gem.

5.Juno Reactor – No need to introduce this psytance classic. From the seminal 1997 album Bible of Dreams this track Conga Fury is a cornerstone in tribal percussion & psytrance  synthesis. With the very powerful Conga\Djembe live playing of the South African ensemble Amampondo Ben Watkins the founder of Juno Reactor created this highly energetic track that remains a classic until this very day. Tribal Trance at its finest.

6.Kuma Nada – Mental Drill Alien. Another one of my Soundcloud discoveries….Full On psychedelic trance with a tribal touch from a promising Argentinian psy producer. Actually what caused this track to enter my playlist is the beautiful conga entrance around  3:10 which adds a great tribal ‘feel’ to this full-on psychedelic track. Salute.

7.Underworld – Born Slippy – I close my tribal trance playlist with this worldwide massive dance floor hit that smashed dance floors for many years around the nineties but especially after the film Trainspotting came out. No need to introduce this mega classic I believe…Not exactly tribal trance  you might say but I think this would be the closest genre reference…Also including elements of techno, dance & spoken word no one can ignore the dominant & extremely powerful & hypnotic drums & percussion parts in this masterpiece. The Extended Version has an amazing tribal part from 5:00 onwards which I personally think is an amazing electronic tribal masterpiece. Name the genre whatever you wish…

In the next SplitBrain electronic tribal spotlight : Industribal ! – Industrial Tribal explored.