The Vibe of the Exiles: Aliens, Afropsychedelia and Psyculture

Psychedelic electronic music culture, from Goatrance to psytrance, cultivates a socio-sonic aesthetic infused with the sensibility of exile and expatriate compatriotism. Participants adopt the figure of the alien in transpersonal and utopian projects, repurposing cosmic liminality, space exploration, and abduction narratives from science fiction. This posthumanist pretension resembles Afrofuturist sensibilities, which are identified with, appropriated, and reassembled. The article explores the interface of psyculture and Afrofuturism, focusing on Israeli psychedelic artists and the dance floor as an orgiastic domain where mutant utopias are propagated and alien identities danced into being.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article offers detailed comment on the vibe of the exiles, a socio-sonic aesthetic infused with the sensibility of the exile, of compatriotism in expatriation, a characteristic of psychedelic electronica from Goatrance to psytrance and beyond (i.e. psyculture). The commentary focuses on an emancipatory artifice which sees participants in the psyculture continuum adopt the figure of the alien in transpersonal and utopian projects. Decaled with the cosmic liminality of space exploration, alien encounter and abduction repurposed from science fiction, psychedelic event-culture cultivates posthumanist pretentions resembling Afrofuturist sensibilities that are identified with, appropriated and reassembled by participants. Offering a range of examples, among them Israeli psychedelic artists bent on entering another world, the article explores the interface of psyculture and Afrofuturism. Sharing a theme central to cosmic jazz, funk, rock, dub, electro, hip-hop and techno, from the earliest productions, Israeli and otherwise, Goatrance, assumed an off-world trajectory, and a concomitant celebration of difference, a potent otherness signified by the alien encounter, where contact and abduction become driving narratives for increasingly popular social aesthetics. Exploring the different orbits from which mystics and ecstatics transmit visions of another world, the article, then, focuses on the sociosonic aesthetics of the dance floor, that orgiastic domain in which a multitude of "freedoms" are performed, mutant utopias propagated, and alien identities danced into being.