Zenon Records / Zenonesque

[juracid]

Hi @ all.

I am reading in this forum for a while now. Over time I noticed that there is a strong anti movement against the so-called 'steroid trance'. And I fully understand. I myself was introduced to trance music during the legendary Eye Q / MFS / Superstition days, back in the early 90s. During this time, trance music was my drug and I could not stop listening. In my opinion, trance only grown and grown in quality and then - in 1998 - reached its peak for the first time. But todays mainstream scene has nothing to do with the legendary cult times.

So I like to introduce some of my personal key issues of trance music:
My favorite producer 8and DJ) is DJ Dag from Germany (one half of Dance 2 Trance and Peyote). My favorite Uplifting trance track is 2000s 'Fratt Boy' from Afterburn (Agnelli & Nelson side project), my favorite Progressive track is the never-released 'Descent' from Bunker (also from 2000, an Andy Gray & Paul Oakenfold Project) and I am a big fan of Witchcraft - 'Whale' - a 'trancy' Psytrance track from 1996.

So after witnessing the scene for nearly 25 years, I quit listening to modern trance music around 2014/2015 because I personally couldn't follow the paths of Van Buuren Dyk, Corsten or even Oakenfold and Lawrence any longer. Despite growing up with Eye Q and fellow labels, I am also addicted to the Psytrance genre. I started listening to Goa Trance back in 1995 and from there was finally introduced into the then newly-born Psytrance genre in 1998 (again, the legendary and mythical year!). So yes in conclusion, I think that '1998' may be the best year for trance music in general because back then Psytrance, UK/US Progressive and UK-European Uplifting were all great and fresh in their style.

Long read, short story: I discovered ZENON RECORDS around 2015 and it was and is a powerfull experience still to this day. So I searched this forum and found almost nothing about this now legendary underground label which was born back in 2003 and gave the child their name -> Zenonesque. For me this is the only 'real trance sound' nowadays. Please don't get me wrong: I have nothing but huge respect for artists like the ones of Activa, Neptune Project, Coredata, Moshic and - of course - Mr 'Trance' himself: Ricky Smith aka The Digital Blonde, to name only a few. But if there is some music able to bring me into a 'trancy state of mind' my point go to Zenonesque.

Well, I am excited what you think of this kind of music from Zenon Records. I think a good start is their recent released '20 years' compilation ->



So, anybody here in this forum who knows about 'Zenonesque'?! Btw., it is also called 'Bush Prog' sometimes. Would be great to find some 'disicples' too.

Greetings,
juracid

 

[Altair]

Ryanosaurus has been a favourite since my college days. His sound design is incredibly trippy, and lives up to the “psy” part of psytrance a lot more than most of the mainstream folks in that genre.

Highly recommend people check out his albums, especially Yūgen and the glitchy, jazzy downtempo of Conscious Comfort:

 

[erickUO]

I discovered Zenonesque during that period too. To my ears, they sounds like what deep/prog trance could be… until they became glitchy wankfest.

Not really following them nowadays, but Vaeya and Radioactive.cake/Zeitgeist used to by my fav producers.

Vaeya - Man or Machine

Vaeya - Swan Dive

 

[Hensmon]

Surprised Sensient - Galaxians is not in that 20 years compilation. Gotta be one of the best and most popular tracks to come out of that label.

Dont know how I feel about the Zenonesque sound now. I listened to the comp and everything kind of sounds the same, very robotic production, too glitchy at times and lacks the organic and mystic vibe of oldschool goa records. That said, would love to dance and party to it, and would take this type of psy over what is mostly played at the festivals now (its all mostly fun tbh).

This so good though...

 

[Dmoore]

I used to find this Zenonesque stuff on Ectoplazm.com back in the day when I had no clue about any genres, especially psy genres, which seemed to have about 50 different licks. Looks like the site was doing its thing until end of 2018. It used to have heaps of free music to download there, it was almost like a underground internet mecca for all the psy world.