The Goa Mix by Paul Oakenfold was voted the Number 1 Essential Mix of all time by Radio 1 listeners, but what makes this 1994 mix so timeless?
Super Progressive: Today we’re here to talk about something that happened 26 years ago in 1994, and I have Pete Tong’s preamble from the mix at the ready.
Paul Oakenfold: What did he say?
Super Progressive: Welcome to tonight’s Essential Mix. I’m Pete Tong, and tonight we take you on a bit of a fantastic voyage…
Paul Oakenfold: Thank you Pete Tong.
Super Progressive: Although firmly marked down on the hippie trail since the late sixties, it’s only in the last four years that Goa, in India, has become the place to go each winter if you’re a serious dance music fan in search of those now legendary full-moon beach parties that bring ravers, hedonists, and backpackers from all over Europe. And most of us, like me, won’t be going, so we staged our own full-moon party here at 1FM. We’re all on the guest list, but none of us are going. Standby…
Paul Oakenfold: You memorized those words
Super Progressive: For the mix that was voted the number one Essential Mix of all time by the fans, I felt like it was my responsibility.
Paul Oakenfold: Thank you.
Super Progressive: So I want to start with this. Everybody talks about Ibiza. People talk about places like Mykonos. People talk about places like Tulum. But not a lot of people talk about Goa. So I was wondering if first you can explain the magic of the island to us and what it was like to go there for the first time.
Paul Oakenfold: The difference between the three places that you named and Goa is that Goa is underground. The other three are commercial resorts, commercial destinations, commercial places. I used to go to Tulum a long time ago, and it wasn’t commercial with English, but it was with Italians. But Goa’s just different. Goa is a stretch of beach. Goa is a place where it’s known for psychedelic music, and out of the psychedelic music came the Goa scene, the Goa style. So the parties won’t really start until two or three in the morning. And there were a lot of Israelis, a lot of Indians obviously, and a lot of travelers who knew that it was a destination. There was a route that travelers would go back in that period for dance music. So you’d end up in India and you wouldn’t go realistically for the music in Bombay or Delhi or Mumbai. You would go to Goa and that’s where the real roots of the underground scene was, to put it in some context with the other three places.
Super Progressive: Definitely. And so you kind of touched on the fact that Goa was more psychedelic. So Goa is a place, but it’s also a sound.
Paul Oakenfold: So I’d been to and played in those places that you’ve named many, many years ago. I actually went to Greece before I went to Goa… before I went to Ibiza. I think I went to Athens. For some reason the Greeks were really into electronic music. Well, they invented music. Tulum was probably the nearest thing you would get to Goa back in the day. Goa is completely different now. But it was edgy and exciting. It was, let’s just say, different. Anjuna is a place in Goa where the Goa sound started. So that’s really where all the parties came from and I went there to play. So I went on that trip. Now, I’d been to India before, but never to Goa, and I’d been to Goa many times now, but there was something edgy and spiritual about Goa that I’d never come across anywhere else.
Super Progressive: What were some defining characteristics of the Goa sound?
Paul Oakenfold: The Goa sound is psychedelic trance, which is as we know it today, Psytrance. What I liked and what I was trying to find was the melodic side of it. A lot of it is sounds, speed, and that appealed to me because I’d seen and been in the environment. But what I was trying to source was the melodic side to it. So that’s when I started to find it. And then I started to think about, well, how can I incorporate this in my DJing? Because it inspired me. And then I start to think, well, I’m coming across all this great music, why don’t I start a division of my record label Perfecto Records and call it Fluoro. So that was really the birth of Fluoro.
Super Progressive: For the producers that you featured in the mix, are these producers that you’re meeting by going to Goa? Or are there other people like you coming to Goa and developing the sound?
Paul Oakenfold: No, a lot of the producers that I met, I ended up befriending and signing to my label, one of them being the Man With No Name, who went on to become the biggest artist in that space. He even had crossover records that dented the pop charts in England. He had a Top 40 hit. It was remarkable. And Ian Paul was putting on some of the parties, a dear friend of mine. He would come back to London and we would do parties. So I met a whole new scene of musicians and DJs who I signed to the label. At one time, Perfecto Fluoro was doing better than Perfecto Records.
Super Progressive: I want to talk a little bit about the reason why this mix started as an Essential Mix. Can you talk a little bit about what you and Pete were trying to accomplish by releasing this as an Essential Mix, and on a bigger scale, what Pete was able to accomplish with Essential Mix in terms of bringing new listeners into underground music and broadcasting underground music to a whole new population?
Paul Oakenfold: Well, in my opinion, what Pete and the Essential Mix are and was, because it still goes, I know it’s nowhere near as popular as it used to be, but it was a landmark. The team at Radio One, they came together, with Pete at the helm, and they introduced and showcased DJs from around the world. And the Essential Mix at that time became very popular. They would do live shows from Ibiza, a lot in the UK, Creamfields, Homelands, Gatecrasher, these kinds of places. So that concept is amazing. I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to introduce new talent from our world. They then came to me and said, because at that time I was just traveling everywhere, I was coming off a tour and they were like, well, when you do your next tour, we’d like the Essential Mix to be a part of it. And I was like, okay, well what does that mean? And they said, well choose a location, record the set, and we will broadcast it. So I was like, well, anywhere? And they went, yeah, anywhere you want to go. So I’m like, okay. So I set off to Cuba at the time when there were no turntables there and we had to smuggle them in. I was in Shanghai twenty years ago when they didn’t even really have electronic music. This was all when it was pure underground. I also had big shows like Homelands and other big, big festival shows. But the Goa Mix was a concept that didn’t sit comfortably for me. It was a piece that needed to live on its own. It didn’t fit with the other shows. And here’s why. Those 12 shows, one a month, was based around me playing live, and was based around me playing a sound that worked wherever I was, and you had to adapt in those times. The Goa Mix is built around a totally underground sound that no one had heard. I hadn’t heard of it, and I was working in the bloody music business. I hadn’t heard of it until I went to Goa. So I knew I was onto something extremely new, and I was ahead of the curve, but I didn’t know if two hours of psychedelic trance, unless it’s got melody and something to grab on, would be too hard to digest unless you’re on drugs. That’s why everyone takes drugs when they listen to it, mainly acid. So I’m like, okay, so how am I going to introduce this to a new audience, but also take these key moments within the mix and put them into my DJ set that I can play at a later date? So now bringing that into dialogue and film, because I’m a fan of film, because I scored movies, because I knew the emotion and soul and feelings that I got by listening to score. I thought it could work. It just felt that it could sit comfortably alongside this crazy fucking sound that no one’s ever heard. I could just bring it back into line and soften it out just for the palette of people who were into electronic music, but never heard this before. And then I thought, well, maybe I should add some dialogue to give it depth. So there’s a couple of songs in there that have dialogue. There’s a couple of more trancier songs. There’s words like “The DJ eases a Spliff,” right? That’s just words. But it felt right because even with that moment, everyone’s stoned on their own acid in Goa. So I needed to respect that and show that element by putting those words in.
Super Progressive: It sounds like you’re really experimenting with dialogue and film scores in terms of bringing that into the mix. Did these ideas happen at the same time? Or were you waiting for this Goa Mix to experiment with this?
Paul Oakenfold: That’s a good question because I was waiting. I knew I could find music that would work with score, but it needed to have balance. And I don’t think the Goa Mix would’ve been so popular unless I really pushed it out there. I mean, people were coming up to me saying, where did you get this music from? What is this? Remember they didn’t even know the movie scores. There wasn’t a lot of people I knew who were fans of film, but I was, so I sourced the music and did the research. So I already found my favorite music from film and there’s some really uncommercial music within that mix. Most of it is built around something that’s not commercial at all.
Super Progressive: One of the most important things for DJs is to always bring new music to the table. But what you’re dealing with is all of cinema, because no one had pulled these cinematic moments into a mix before. So you almost had your pick of the litter in terms of doing something new?
Paul Oakenfold: It was. Looking back, it was a combination of things that came together at the right time. I was leaning more towards film. I was sourcing film, hence why I live here in Los Angeles. And for 17 years writing for movies, there was always a passion and love that I was trying to figure out inside me. I found the same thing inspired me with Goa. I felt it could work if I could figure out the arrangement, the structure, and the key. I knew I could take you on a journey because that’s really what every DJ does or should do. And I knew that if I arranged it right, I knew I could take you on that journey and connect with you. So it was a few reworks. It was a few approaches. Did I know that it was going to do that well? No, of course not. But I’m surprised that after all this time, we’re still talking about it.
Super Progressive: Another part of the mix that when we were listening to your commentary we found interesting was that you enlisted a traditional trance opening to this set. Now at that time in 1994, was that already established as the traditional opening or is this just something that you created for this mix?
Paul Oakenfold: No, that whole thing is common now. To open a set with no drums and to do the big intro…It wasn’t common then. None of it was common. Back then a DJ would just put their head down and wouldn’t engage with the crowd. I got a lot of stick for that actually because I was touring with U2 and I learned so much from them. I saw the performance aspect of it. I respected that. I realized prior to theGoa Mix that with my shows I needed to step them up and for it to be more than just me turning up with my head down and doing what you do. So that was a big change. As I said earlier, there were a lot of things that came together and worked.
Super Progressive: So you kind of said it earlier that you can’t believe you’re here sitting 26 years later talking about the Goa Mix. And I had mentioned that it was voted the number one essential mix by the fans. So I’m guessing that means something. Why do you think the mix and what you did with the mix is so timeless?
Paul Oakenfold: That’s a good question. I mean, look, did I ever think that we would get a silver award? I think we came second to Beethoven. Then UCLA and their music department analyzed it, and they broke it down to the next two, three generations, later and studied it. And that was quite a big moment for me because in music programs and places like that, when they study music, they look into it a step deeper than you actually set out to make it. So I actually took some things from that and I was like, okay, well, I put my heart and soul into that. There was a lot of time and effort and energy and it just connected. And sometimes in music, that’s how music works, and it’s the best feeling in the world when people come up to you and talk to you and say, you put a smile on their face and for the music that you make and play. But did I know it was going to work? Of course not. No one does. But for me, all you can do with your hand on your heart is try your hardest and see what happens.
Super Progressive: I just want to thank you for taking the time to speak with us and teach us about this mix. I know a lot of your dedicated fans, but also new fans are going to be really excited to check this out.
Paul Oakenfold: I hope that the new fans enjoy it for what it is, but the secret with the Goa Mix is you’ve just got to keep listening to it. The more you listen to it, the more you are going to find hidden treasures in there. You’re going to find a melodic line. You’re going to find a moment where you’re like, wow, I like that. What movie is it from? And then you’re like, that’s from Blade Runner, that’s from Dracula. These are big Hollywood movies. You’ll find moments in that mix that you may want you to go and explore the roots of where these tracks come from.
Super Progressive: Yeah, it’s exciting and I think that’s how we’re going to spend our night tonight, re-listening to it with all this new information. Thanks man. This was really awesome.
