This morning, psytrance keyboardist Josef ‘Bansi’ Quinteros of G.M.S passed away in Amsterdam. Diagnosed with a rare blood cancer a year and a half ago, he battled the illness but kept on making music and performing around the world. This news comes to us with great sadness. His musical legacy’s long-lasting impact will be remembered and stay with us for years to come.
ors of the psytrance thread have taken to his memorandum below, as well as many others on social media.
Instagram and Facebook have also been honoring him.
Born in Barcelona, Spain in 1976, Quinteros has a long history in music. At the age of one and a half, his first musical experience was comically crawling into his father’s bass drum to sleep. By age six, he already attended music school in Amsterdam.
Bansi got his own drum set at seven and a bass at eleven. He played in a band until 17 and played everything, everywhere, at any time. At the time, he hated the late 80’s acid electronic music craze. However, after being introduced to a friend named Riktam, they started their own musical journey.
From 1992-1993, they bounced around from Poona to Goa, where its music scene hooked the pair. In Poona, the trance is much lighter and melodic. They felt this new, cleaner, uplifting style of trance and techno would be theirs. So, they flew back to Amsterdam and starting making music of their own. Growling Mad Scientists (GMS) became their Dutch psychedelic trance alter ego and their fan base has grown since they began. Rest in peace, Bansi.