A Short Film About Chilling

Seminal film capturing the UK infiltration of the Ibiza club scene before it took off on a massive scale commercially. Many of the DJs/artists featured are experiencing somewhat of a renaissance whilst others have taken their musical journey in other directions. Soundtrack contains some of the classic "Balearic" tunes of all time.

Liquid Crystal Vision - Documentary about Goa Trance

Liquid Crystal Vision (2002) is a 60-minute cult documentary exploring the spiritual and cultural roots of the global Goa trance movement. Directed by Omananda, the film features interviews with pioneers like Raja Ram and Goa Gil, featuring footage from Goa, India, and global parties, highlighting themes of dance as a, "global peace prayer," and personal evolution.

Features insight from key figures, including Goa Gil, Raja Ram, System 7, Youth, Swami, and Alex Grey. Features music by artists such as Shpongle, Irresistible Force, Banco De Gaia, Space Tribe, and Nick Doof and includes scenes from Goa (India), Portugal, Cambodia, Laos, and Burning Man.

The film explores the freedom to dance, the psychedelic experience, and the connection between ancient rituals and modern technology.

(פצצות בדרך לסוף העולם) Psychedelic Zion

"Psychedelic Zion" follows the ups and downs of three rave organizers who operate under the banner "Peace and Love Production." Filmed over the course of two years, director Isri Halpern follows the trio from their first ecstatic parties on the hillsides of the Galilee, into the living rooms of their religious, working-class families, and deep into the fray of their eventual and sometimes violent clashes with the police. In the midst of a public furor, they take their case to the government and the Supreme Court, fighting for the right to live out their psychedelic dreams. Full film in Hebrew with English subtitles.

Music Is My Drug : Psychedelic Trance

A documentary from 1995, and therefore one of the earliest attempts to document the scene that centered on Goa in the 1990s. The first part of the film takes up Japan, the production of synths by the Roland coproration, even visiting the factory and looking at a new model. There is an interview with Organix, The second half of the film focuses on the party scene in India in the early and mid-90s. It takes up the movements between Isreal and India of party people, which was huge when I was in India in the 90s. The thing is, the Isrealis I met were not interested in the politics of the region. In fact they were against the whole bloody thing. But they had no choice. Isreal is a machine that eats its own young. The Trance scene was a higher plane. Here is a window on it.

Spiral Tribe

 Spiral Tribe! [Rare] Exclusive interview that was given to BBC's Dance Energy programme [1991] about the for's and against's regarding the free party scene that was happening at the time! 👈😵‍💫👉 #Spiraltribe #Freeparty23 #Rave #Terratech

The Acid House

Three twisted tales of abuse, drugs, displaced personalities, and insect life by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh.

Shamanarchy in the UK (1992)

 

Part 1

Part 2
This film accompanied the 1992 techno compilation "Shamanarchy in the UK" (see video below) which was produced by Fraser Clark (1943 -2009). Fraser was one of the leaders of the global technogaian movement. As founder and editor of Encyclopaedia Psychedelica International, he outlined his views on entheogens and nature, and was a key advocate of the outdoor rave movement, hosting regular, small, indoor festivals such as those held at his central London clubs, Megatripolis and The Warp.

Clark believed the 1990s were the 1960s upside-down (9 being an upside-down 6). He advocated a new form of hippie—the "Zippie"—who would balance the "techno right brain" with the "hippy left brain", embracing nature, peace and love, as well as technology. In 1989, he and Marcus Pennell organised the first Zippie Picnic on Hampstead Heath in London. Zippie Picnics continue to this day.

Clark staged many pranks, particularly against the government of Margaret Thatcher and then John Major. He opposed the Poll Tax and later Criminal Justice Bill.

Also in 1989, the EPi team were joined by northern graphic designers the Scooby Doobies who brought with them a love of rave culture. This led to the creation of Evolution magazine in 1990, and regular small underground parties which laid the way for the launch of the Megatripolis nightclub in 1993.

Fraser was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2008.

From the archived website of Fraser Clark:

Megatripolis was an innovative, underground London nightclub created by Encyclopaedia Psychedelica editor and founder of the Zippie movement, Fraser Clark, together with a great many others. The club combined New Age ideology with Rave culture to create a vibrant, festival-like atmosphere presenting a wide variety of cross-cultural ideas and experiences. Club nights ran regularly from 1993 until 1996, and from then intermittently until 2001, being the focus of much of the Zippie movement. The club and its related activities also helped to popularize ideas such as cyberculture and the Internet between those years.

History & Venues

The club first started at The Marquee in Charing Cross Road as a collaboration with Tribal Energy in June 1993 with Terrence McKenna's opening lecture and DJs Nik Sequenci and resident DJ and co founder Jez Turner. A disagreement between the Tribal Energy and Megatripolis crews led to the latter being thrown out of the venue eight weeks later. After a practice run at the Stanstead Tree Party in September 1993 they consolidated into a bigger crew with much bigger ideas. In October 1993, the cathedral-like arches and winding passages of the Heaven nightclub under Charing Cross Station became home to Megatripolis. Heaven was London's original gay-only nightclub, but had run non-gay (known as Pyramid) nights for many years.

The Megatripolis 'Festival in a box' on Thursday nights attracted a diverse patronage from a wide age range, many of whom would not otherwise have considered going clubbing. By early 1994 it had also taken over the adjoining Sound Shaft nightclub and turned it into an ambient space with frequent all-night sets by Mixmaster Morris on the club's fourth separate sound stage. Megatripolis also put on several large parties at Bagley's in Kings Cross and escalated its political agenda by renting an armoured car for the Criminal Justice Bill protest rally in July 1994.

The club ran until New Year 1995 when internal pressures split it apart. It continued with a diminished agenda on an underground basis until October 24th 1996. A UK tour and two shows in Athens took place in spring / summer 1996. A 3-CD album representing the club was released in July 1996 featuring mixes by DJ regulars and completely packaged on paper made entirely from hemp. All production materials owned by the club were distributed amongst it's crew members. At a court case in London in June 1998 brought by Clark remaining rights to the name "megatripolis" were given to Clark. A single Megatripolis event organised by Fraser Clark took place at Heaven in May 2000.

Culture & Events

Megatripolis proved popular, although some reporting of it suggested a dichotomy between an avowed downplay of psychedelic substances and perceptions of substance use by some club-goers. In any event, the club provided a meeting place of like-minded people and served as a platform for social awareness and activism as well as more traditional nightclub fare.

Typical evenings combined lectures and workshops with live musical performances and DJing playing mostly progressive house accompanied by video imagery and live theatre. Visits from speakers such as Allen Ginsberg, Terence McKenna, George Monbiot, Howard Marks and Ram Dass were common, as well as from guest DJs including Colin Dale, Alex Paterson, Paul Oakenfold, Andrew Weatherall and Mr C with resident DJs Marco Arnaldi, Darius, Richard Grey and Nik Sequenci. Atmospheric music combined with sound effects was often played along to films in the "chill-out rooms" set apart from the dance floors.

Further to the club's festival theme, the usual security staff were supplemented by fluorescent jacket-clad "minders"; new-age style stalls occupied the central hallway selling non-alcoholic energy drinks, body jewellery, alternative "small press" comics and magazines (such as the short-lived, but influential Head Magazine), as well as T-shirts and other clothing.

Also notable were early demonstrations of the World Wide Web at a time when most patrons were just beginning to be aware of what was then termed cyberculture, something seen as an important, if not defining, part of the Zippie future. Underground bulletin boards such as London's pHreak hosted live "cyber events" from the club. In what was seen as very progressive at the time, a live video interview with Arthur C Clarke was conducted via satellite from his home in Sri Lanka and Timothy Leary was transmitted via isdn for a video interview direct from his home in the Los Angeles hills into the club (he had been banned by the British government from entering the UK in person). A lecture by His Holiness the Dalai Lama was also broadcast at the club from the Barbican centre.

Environmental issues were an important part of the club's make-up with anti-road protests advertised on its noticeboards, hemp fashion shows, environmental debates and pedal-bike sound-systems playing on a regular basis..

Megatripolis West

An offshoot of the club was started by Fraser Clark and others, in San Francisco in late 1994. It ran for five consecutive weeks before closing.

The sixth and final night of the club was a "launch rave" hosted by Ronin Press for Timothy Leary's book Chaos And Cyber Culture. In true "illegal UK rave" tradition, patrons were given the event's location at a nearby burger joint. Leary jammed and performed jazz skat with famous Bay Area musician Maruga. He was later kidnapped by the Zippie Soundsystem and forced to release a statement condemning the UK Prime Minister John Major and the Criminal Justice Bill, which famously banned outdoor parties with music that included an "emission of a succession of repetitive beats".

Leary exerted a powerful influence over the philosophy of the club and the Zippie movement overall. An indication of this can be found in the introduction to his posthumous book The Fugitive Philosopher (Ronin Press, September 2007) written by Fraser Clark. The original title of the piece, published in Clark's online magazine the UP!, was Timothy Leary Was A Saint Who Will Be Remembered & Celebrated Long After Jesus, Mohamed and Elvis Are Forgotten Megatripolis Reunion Benefit for Fraser Clark.

In 2008 Fraser Clark announced that he had inoperable liver cancer and a farewell Megatripolis was held at Heaven on 13 November. He died on 21 January 2009.

How Clubbing Changed the World

A overly produced documentary about the development of club culture, from rave to stage. Has some interesting contributions to make but should not be taken too seriously. For me the real crucible of rave happened in fields and abandoned factories, with little documentation surviving the night/day in question.

DECLASSIFIED The Mutoid Waste Files - 1989 - 1994

DECLASSIFIED: THE MUTOID WASTE FILES The Mutoid Waste Company 1989 - 1994 D 1989/2015 Duration: 91′ Director: Uli Happe Camera: Uli Happe Editor: Uli Happe & Bernd Böhlendorf Producer: Uli Happe Music: Mutoid Waste Company, 7 Kevins, Spiral Tribe, DNTT.

The Mutoid Waste Co. are a group of sculptors, musicians, performance and multidisciplinary artists. As the group’s name suggests, they mutate waste, which then sets as the background for their installations, performances, parties and events. With the use of all types of scrap as their raw material, from industrial to domestic and from huge derelict military machines to small everyday items, they have created a new form of art crossing boundaries of sculpture, mechanical-art, performance, theater and music. Founded in 1984 by the London artists Joe Rush and Robin Cooke, the Mutoids had a significant impact everywhere they worked and performed, from legendary London warehouse raves to the ‘Car Henge’ sculpture in Glastonbury 1987. They went on world tour in 1989 and have been mostly a mobile crew since, traveling and leaving their unmistakable mark around the world, including London, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, Italy, Japan, Australia and more. Being so visually unique, the Mutoids have attracted many photographers and film makers who tried to capture the Mutoid experience on film. None was allowed a deeper entry to their world than the Berlin film maker Uli Happe, whose film shows the most intimate and most spectacular moments of these adventurous times

Human Traffic

Human Traffic a 1999 British-Irish independent film that perfectly captures the essence of the 90s rave culture. Directed by Justin Kerrigan, this cult classic dives into the lives of five friends as they navigate a wild, drug-fueled weekend in Cardiff, Wales. The film brilliantly explores the highs and lows of the club scene, relationships, and the desire to escape the monotony of daily life. Featuring a talented cast, including John Simm and Danny Dyer in his film debut, Human Traffic stands out for its raw portrayal of youth culture and its iconic soundtrack.

Last Hippie Standing (2001)

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Last Hippie Standing (2001) is a 45-minute documentary by the German filmmaker Marcus Robbin about Goa, India. The film compares the 1960s and 1970s hippie era with the situation in 2000.

The film has no commentary and consists of documentation of the ongoing party culture in Goa, as well as private and previously unreleased Super 8 footage from the 1960s and 1970s in Goa, filmed by Cleo Odzer. This material is the only existing contemporary film document of the hippie era in Goa. Furthermore, interviews with hippie veterans like Goa Gil, locals, and the former chief minister of Goa, Francisco Sardinha, describe the clashes that occur between the party culture and Indian conservatism. The last part of the documentary is shot at the Berlin Love Parade, where the protagonists reflect on their own spiritual development and the changes that have occurred since the hippie movement's advent.

The Outback Eclipse Story Psytrance Goa Festival Last Light Films (Full Movie)

The 'Outback Eclipse Story' follows the story of a festival..to celebrate the unique natural phenomenon that is a total solar eclipse. Set deep in the heart of the South Australian outback this feature length documentary details what happens when thousands of global citizens travel to one of the harshest environs on earth to experience a total eclipse and the magic and freedom that surround it. It tells the tale of a pilgrimage, that of a collective people who long to experience the mysterious in an unknown land far from the realms of restrictive socio-cultural communities to a place of freedom where laughter, love, magic and natural phenomenon find a home

Earthdream 2000

 

Europe 1988: Mutoid Waste founder Robin Mutoid conceives a journey across the Australian desert, which will fuse a 'mader than Max' blend of theatre. protest, lifestyle and performance. 12 years later Robin heads to Port Augusta in Australia's far south to see who will answer the call. Those who come will be challenged on every conceivable level on their 20,000km journey, bringing them together as a community and allowing them all to participate in a fascinating study into 'lateral human governance'. Sometimes violent, often humorous and always passionate, this is their story.

Full Moon Party - documentary about travellers to Thailand & Ko Phangan parties

"Bangkok 1996 alone at two in the morning bought back that same feeling I had on the first day at school. My mother released my hand and she walked back toward the gate from where we had arrived together at the huge strange building. The night seems to be oily about me with humidity, the airport is a reasonably calm environment with a yellow electric hum reflecting off huge windows all around you. There are uniforms framing many faces, some questions, a stamp, and nobody bothers to check baggage on the way in. Then the final set of doors open and you are standing on the other side, in the black spicy hot box of Asian night and a thousand taxi drivers are yelling at you, someone wants to carry your bag, and you know there is a bus station around here somewhere. But then you learn that the busses stop at midnight, and with safety being in numbers and with my American friend emerging from the crowd, we begin negotiations with a cheerful beetle stained mouth. The taxi takes us to Thanon Koa San, or Khao San Road, the tourist ghetto of Bangkok where all budget backpackers and twisted travellers gather. Fresh off the plane and with suburban stories of kidnap, theft and corruption running in my mind, I insisted upon taking my rucksack inside the taxi, making the journey a cramped one. My face pressed against the dirty glass I watched the scenes of black smoking buses, families on scooters, pedestrians in single file and single light bulb-lit eating places flash by. Pitch black canals crossed by crazy drivers and the gilded flat portraits of the asthmatic looking king everywhere, flashing bursts of radio fly by as our driver takes every opportunity to keep moving in the solid traffic, occasionally mounting the median strip or sidewalk." - from an almost finished novel about the global rave freak scene in the 90s. Another short section published here.

Aldous Huxley, The Gravity of Light

Aldous Huxley: The Gravity Of Light incorporates rare archival footage, computer rendered 3D animation, speculative fictions, and selections from his essays. The film begins by reflecting upon that crucial, prophetic work "Brave New World" (1932, Aldous Huxley) and then moves to a further inquiry into the human ramifications of current technological change. The film also recalls the impact of Huxley's LSD-25 and mescaline experimentations and writings for a generation of youth and examines the utopianistic impulses associated with the Rave scene.

World Traveller Adventures - MISSION TO INDIA

In 1997 three travelling techno sound systems combined to travel overland from Europe to India and back again, staging parties as they went. FACOM (France) OKUPE (France) and TOTAL RESISTANCE (Great Britain) were at the forefront of the European underground free party movement. The three joined up to make raves in Italy in 1997 as an experiment. However the vive between the crews and the parties were so wicked they combined to create something more permanent; SOUND CONSPIRACY. After touring Italy for nearly a year and putting on increasingly successful raves every weekend, the alliance decided to leave western Europe and spread the vibe further, beginning with Bosnia in July 1998. This film is the story of SOUND CONSPIRACY and their journey.

An Illegal Rave (a dance drama)

 

The film consists of a live DJ (Jätten - The Giant https://www.facebook.com/musikfantast) who plays at a illegal rave party where a dark, but also funny, story takes place. In the crowd, a group of actors move around and interact with the party participants. Most people are unaware that the person they are talking to has a microphone and is a character in the movie. So much of what you hear and see is improvised. The cohesive thing is that everyone pretends to be at an underground rave for criminals. A bit like the Boiler Room.

The story is about Sandra who has robbed a jeweler's shop and will flee the country with the loot. Her plan is to find someone with a boat that she can pay for. She tries her luck at an illegal rave, which goes as it goes.

Directed by Samuel Olsson

Producer: Quinn Cordukes

Sound: Niclas Carlén

Production by: JAQ Studios

English and Swedish subtitles available! (click on Settings at the bottom of the video and select language)

WE CALL IT TECHNO! A documentary about Germany’s early Techno scene and culture

Inspired by new sounds, new technologies and the political events of the time, the early 90s sees the emergence of a scene that euphorically celebrates the dawning of a new era.
In Berlin, Frankfurt and many other German cities, activists tinker on a new music and club culture oriented around the coordinates Techno and House.

At Berlin's Love Parade in 1991, different local scenes congregate for the first time. The trend turns into a movement. A German Summer of Love, which changes whole lives overnight and kick-starts careers.

The basic principle of Techno stands for experimenting, crossing borders and DIY. Fans become DJs or party promoters. Labels are founded and record stores open up. The scene grows. An independent microcosm is created. Networks are formed away from established structures. For a moment everything seems possible…

WE CALL IT TECHNO! tells the story of a tempestuous phase in music history, the first time that pop culture was created significantly in Germany.

With exclusive interviews and comprehensive, mostly unreleased film and photo archive material from the years 1988-1994!

Incl. Statements from Ata, Cosmic Baby, Mijk van Dijk, Elsa for Toys, Hell, Mike Ink., Jürgen Laarmann, Mark Reeder, Tanith, Triple R, Upstart, Sven Väth, Wolle XDP and many more

“This music had such power that we left everything behind... We felt like a new age was starting and we were the first to notice.” (Upstart, Munich)

“It was like a dance on a vulcano. Like: technology brings us progress, but it’ll also destroy us. On the other hand: who gives a sh!t, first I’ll just dance.” (Wolle XDP, Berlin)

“We did a lot of space studies at the time. It all tended towards psycho-active stimulation with the aim of going up and it all never coming to an end. Actually, we tried the weirdest stuff. (Elsa For Toys, Berlin)

“1989, after the fall of the Wall, when the Techno movement in Berlin grew from one day to the next, we all felt like we could change the world.” (Cosmic Baby, Berlin)

“The Moment of unity was short, it lasted maybe one summer.” (Ralf Niemczyk, Cologne)

“It’s nice to see that many people in this context made it, that Techno and House isn’t just stupifying music connected to drugs.” (Frank Blümel, Berlin)

EVERYBODY IN THE PLACE An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992

Acid house is often portrayed as a movement that came out of the blue, inspired by little more than a handful of London-based DJs discovering ecstasy on a 1987 holiday to Ibiza. In truth, the explosion of acid house and rave in the UK was a reaction to a much wider and deeper set of fault lines in British culture, stretching from the heart of the city to the furthest reaches of the countryside, cutting across previously impregnable boundaries of class, identity and geography.

With Everybody in the Place, the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller upturns popular notions of rave and acid house, situating them at the very centre of the seismic social changes that reshaped 1980s Britain. Rare and unseen archive materials map the journey from protest movements to abandoned warehouse raves, the white heat of industry bleeding into the chaotic release of the dancefloor.

We join an A-level politics class as they discover these stories for the first time, viewing the story of acid house from the perspective of a generation for whom it is already ancient history. We see how rave culture owes as much to the Battle of Orgreave and the underground gay clubs of Chicago as it does to shifts in musical style: not merely a cultural gesture, but the fulcrum for a generational shift in British identity, linking industrial histories and radical action to the wider expanses of a post-industrial future. 

Rave in Aircraft Hanger 1989 (UK the Second Summer of Love)

Aircraft Hanger at Raydon Airfield, Suffolk in September 1989. This was it, the Second Summer of Love (which actually lasted for 2 years - 1988-89). The parties that erupted in a haze of chems and color would burst out from the UK in 1990 and even get as far as Australia -  where I attended my first illegal party in 1993 (along with about 1000 others). That was a three-dayer in the forest north of Sydney. This was a global revolution in the minds of each and every person who lost and found themselves on the dance floor in those early innocent days. But by the mid-90s it was dying fast with big money, drugs and the law moving in from every corner. I got to London in 1997 and attended a series of squat parties that felt like Saturday night in a Mad Max film. It was war by this stage for the free party scene with police and the travellers at each other like dogs. But somewhere way back around 1989 something blossomed that brought a new meaning to being human. Or was it a very very ancient one that peaked its shaved, tattooed and pieced head out from behind time and said "Everything is gonna be OK!"

Rough Track Listing:

Corporation of One - So Where Are You (Hashish Dub)
Latin Rage - Sueno Latino (Extended Remix)
J.D. - Good Vibrations
BCN Orchestra - Quien Tu Te Crees?
Bits & Pieces 89 (R/U/DEF/BOY. Mix)
Looney Tunes Vol 1 - Another Time, Another Place
The Beatmasters - Who's In The House
Shiela - Acid Kiss (Hacienda Mix)
Liaisons-D - Heartbeat
The Centrefield Assignment -  Mi Casa (DJ's Dope Long Mix)
The KLF - 3 AM Eternal (Blue Danube Orbital Mix)
Mickey Oliver - In-Ten-Si-T (Dash Rip Rock mix).

"In the early stages of the Second Summer of Love, the events and parties were often held in empty warehouses and were essentially illegal across the UK. Information about these events travelled by word of mouth (as well as the newly popular mobile phone) between clubbers who were obliged to party incognito."