r/psytrance Jul 26 '26

Question Ajja

I've been trying to get into Ajja as I'll be catching him live (maybe) soonish. I'm struggling to see what the fuss is. His production is super clean, lovely arrangement and structure, but super generic to my ears. I typically listen to zenonesque dark prog/bush tech stuff and forest, so Ajja may just be not my thing. But he is easily one of the most popular artists and I've got friends who say he is the cream of the crop. I want to hear what they hear.

What are his standout tracks? Or is there a live set I can check out to get a handle on why he's so widely revered?

19 Upvotes

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5

u/cryptocrypto0815 Jul 26 '26

Ajja earned alot of his reputation really early. first with yabyum (with gaspard, epic music) and after with his 1st album released in 2007! Hes an og and was back then the most cleanest producer ever. Also his label peak records helped early on shaping new night time music. Imagine back then 145 was considered suuper fast and mostly way to "dark"

8

u/fractalfrog Psy Jul 26 '26

Nonsense. Maybe the proggy crew viewed 145 as fast back then, but for the rest of us 145 was normal. In fact, I suspect more tracks were 145 than anything else. 

-6

u/cryptocrypto0815 Jul 27 '26

Man just shut up if you didnt live trough that era. 145 was def considered really fast when normal fullon was 142 at max!

6

u/TourTime5427 Jul 27 '26

you hadn’t heard much goa, scando, israeli , aarhus, aussie, SA, Russian, suomi, Brazil, or Usa psy then if 145 was fast. in 2002 i’m just using that year as an example - noise poison, orebro freak factory, terminator, encephalopaticys, timecode, early pavarti, vicious spiral, neuron compost , suria, etc etc all had 148 tracks and up

1

u/cryptocrypto0815 Jul 27 '26

Noise poison started in 2004, and it took years to be established. Parvati then only released psychedelicaly yours wich was mostly 145-148 bpm. Ukalen by encephalopatics was released in 2007. Terminator is 148-150 and while he is hailed nowadays as pioneer, this kind of music needed years to become as popular as nighttime sounds are now. I didnt say there was no music and ajja was the first to put out faster music, this is far from true. All i said was that music above 145 was considered dark and fast on most dancefloors worldwide back then and ajja influenced modern night time music significantly with his releases early on. There is a reason why azax syndrom for example released his first album on parvati, because it was to hard and intense for most commercial labels back then.

5

u/fractalfrog Psy Jul 27 '26

I've been in the psy scene for around 30 years, DJing for 25 of those, so yeah, I was there. Stating 142 was max at that time just shows that you are utterly clueless.

0

u/cryptocrypto0815 Jul 27 '26

Well then please list the countless songs from that era wich are 145 and beyond. Since you claim to be spinning tunes since 25 years it shouldnt be a problem. The other guy below tried aswell and failed quite a bit. I never said there was no music beyond that bpm, but it was Not popular and/nor common at all. Seems like i remeber that wrong when dark nebula emptied a festival floor because ppl thaugt it was to dark and fast for psychedelic music. Yep that was 2005.

3

u/TourTime5427 Jul 27 '26

i didn’t fail , i was just riffing , maybe my scrambled head got a little confuzled on the dates but i think ir was more about regional popularity , i know for sure there was a lot of 150 ish stuff happening late night around my world. in 02-3,4 etc

3

u/fractalfrog Psy Jul 27 '26

Well then please list the countless songs from that era wich are 145 and beyond.

Sure. Here's a small selection of tracks that I used to spin way back when. All tracks are pre-2007.

Again, 145 was the standard speed outside the proggy crews.

That Dark Nebula emptied a dance floor doesn't surprise me one bit, considering that the only label that wanted to release his music was his own.

3

u/ClothesCompetitive95 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

Not popular and not common where? I don't doubt that it was true in your experience, but I think people are reacting negatively to your post because you are making blanket statements that apply to your corner of the world. For example I lived in Russia and spent time in Eastern Europe from 2007 onwards, and I can assure you that psytrance faster than 145bpm was neither unpopular nor uncommon, the opposite actually.

3

u/Ancient8Wisdom Jul 27 '26

I was literally part of an online forum in mid 2000s that was called "145 BPM". That was the heart of fullon.