Fact: there would be no modern psy-trance and all its subgenres if goa trance had never come along. A whole generation of producers gave dance music one of its most prolific times and we are revisiting it at Boom 2010 with a series of special shows of both retrospective live acts and DJ sets.

Gus Till is one of the most talented producers and DJs to ever be involved  in the trance scene. Part of the Flying Rhino crew, the Australian Gus came from the punk scene, worked both with pop or world music artists and in the 90s he gave a huge contribution to enhance the trance aesthetic.
We chat with him about his gig at Boom and goa trance. Some other artists already confirmed for bringing back the roots of the genre to the present at Boom 2010 are Man With No Name, Green Nuns Of The Revolution and a special live act by Psychopod.

Hi Gus! First of all how is it going with you in Bali these days?
Easy yet busy at the same time – it may be paradise but there’s no time for slacking off!

You’ve been in the music scene since the 80s. In your CV we find that you remixed or worked with names such as Bono, Jamiroquai, The Edge, Todd Terry or Nina Hagen. Who was the best one for you to work with?
Zen Lemonade with my wife of course! (laughs)

There is also collaboration between you and Manu Dibango, one of the most important modern African musicians. What knowledge did you get from working with such a talented musician?
Manu is a great guy – a real living legend. Interestingly, ‘Dibango’ in Cameroon means ‘elephant’ and Manu was very adept at ‘hoovering’ up influences from everyone and everywhere.
It’s important that you leave yourself open and try to hoover up as much knowledge that you can.

Then in the beginning of the 90s we see you involved with goa trance through the UK scene. What was the most exciting thing about that music and that subculture back in those days?
That it was all reasonably new and nobody new exactly what shape the music would be heading in. You could still get totally unpredictable new and creative tracks coming from all quarters and there was a fantastic air of surprise and expectancy with the music being made.
That quality, I’m afraid to say, has been totally lost, but so it goes in all scenes ultimately.

Compared with today, we see that before there were less people doing this type of music but much more diversity. Is that because of a richer musical background of the older generation or is it simply a question of context of that time?
Both parts of your question are true, and all scenes ultimately end as a ‘mono-culture’. There was an incredible burst of creativity in ALL the dance scenes back in the early 90’s – technology had allowed for a whole new spectrum of musical expression and it had become cheaper and more accessible (though nothing like it is today, which is a blessing and a curse). There were no rules per se and people were posing truly creative responses to the question ‘How do I achieve a personal creative statement with these new tools at my disposal’. This was at the same time a massive audience/support network/ subcultures were springing into being everywhere.

But as with everything, that initial creative can only last so long before certain ideas become mimicked and ‘rules and convention’ come into play and you then begin to define these sub cultures by the ideas being recircled within, as opposed to new ideas flowing naturally and inspirationally.
All of a sudden its self-defining – the way you look, the music you listen, etc, etc, and people get into a monoculture, I hate to say.

As for being more musically adept, most definitely as that was the subtext of the day – if you were musically inclined then you would already have built up a significant musical vocabulary of other styles as that’s all you would of had! Not so now where you can grow up totally cocooned in the electronic dance medium that was an option that wasn’t available then.

You were quite involved with the Flying Rhino crew. As a DJ, producer, part of projects such as Bus, Stoop & Fidget or Slinky Wizard. The sound of Flying Rhino was so rich and was one of the zeniths of this genre. What motivated all of you?
We were trying to be creative and give voice to how we heard dance music should be. There was yet to be an established set of criteria that said ‘this is how you must sound… the last kick drum beat must be missing from the end of every 16 bar block and relaced with a little backwards noise… you must use a Nordlead’… I could go on…

You’ll come to Boom to play a retrospective psy-trance DJ set. Which records and/or projects do you consider the most innovative of the trance history so far?
An easy one… Kox Box, X-Dream, Man With No Name, TIP, Atmos, Juno Reactor, Johann, Simon Posford, Metal Spark.

Mate, a final question, what can Boom participants expect from your set at Boom 2010?
A shedload of old Rhino stuff, a healthy dosage of TIP, a dollop of Blue Room, a few arabesques from Dragonfly… I’ll see what I can dig out of the vault!

More Info:
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Discogs

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Gus Till, “Nostromo” (Flying Rhino)

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Man With No Name, “Retox” (Atomic Records)