Trance

I wonder if it really lost its critical acceptance?

Then around 1995/96 there was Goa/ Psychedelic Trance exlposion. Quick answer i like the powerful energy of Man With No Name's music in the mid 90s, that had a industrial vibe about it.

Spring 1999 there started to be a big upturn in uplifting trance with big breakdowns. By the Summer of 1999 Trance was a big thing again supported by the likes of Judge Jules and Ibiza.

Now in 2001 a lot of the trance tracks are ghastly watered down euro pop dance that Radio 1 seem to have a strong liking for. Inane lyrics and happy uplifting simple tunes. I dislike like the sugar coated uber production of Ferry Corsten and those horrid marketed euphoria compilation albums.

There is a dreadful pop trance single in the charts at the mo? - something about castles in the sky - that is ghastly and repetitive - lowest common denominator trash that deserves to be played a local the Ritzy niteclub.

(1) That it's cheesy and tacky and goes for the easy l.c.d. euphoric melodies (cf DJ Martian's argument)

(2) That, in its "progressive" form most beloved by clubbers (e.g. the big Oakey/Ferry/Digweed/vanDyk compilations) it's tedious sludge with a *lack* of euphoric highs, mostly just a throbbing repetitive pulse stretched out over hours. (cf Simon Reynolds argument in UnFaves of 2000 I think it was on his website)

Anyway, I sympathize with argument (2) -- the stuff *does* get tedious in large and unanthemic doses -- but not (1) so much, which, sorry Martian, I think is just anti-pop elitism. To me there's something really pleasant and useful about a type of music that provides instantaneous and no-frills thrills, e.g. van Dyk's much- despised "For An Angel" remix -- it's uncomplicated loveliness and what on earth is wrong with that?

Manipulative? Absolutely, but as gareth implied in posing the question, some level of belief and desire to be manipulated is inherent in any pop music. I think maybe I have an easier time accepting the terms of the manipulation because I live in the US and therefore simply don't hear the stuff everywhere.

But the interesting thing about trance is just as it's become totally uncool due to overexposure in the UK and trendier parts of the US, college students have started to pick up on it in a big way due to a relative blitz of media coverage in college publications.

Nowadays friends ask me to recommend some "electronica", I play them Acen, they go "...um... this is interesting... do you have any trance?"

In the UK there are stacks of terrible trance compilations marketed Euphoria, Trance Hits, Ibiza Trance etc - and it is bolloxs big tunes cash ins that no variety with no substance ala Mauro Picotto/Ferry Corsten.

I prefer the deeper tech house sounds of Lee Burridge, Craig Richards, Steve Lawler, Darren Emerson, Matthew Bushwacka, Mr C, Slam, Andy Weatherall and Dave Howells etc.

I have enjoyed Paul Van Dyk and Way Out West take on trance in the recent past, so I am not against trance per se.

my view on trance: naively sincere? i dont think being totally deluded about oneslef makes anything more 'real'. i just think its a bit silly.

trance did its job a few years ago. ie sell records, make money, give loads of people on e feel 'euphoric'..... its nearly dead now though isnt it?

i know that goa shit/'hyprdelic' stuf is still about and has always been and will never die thanks to, well return to the source and, funnily enough the 1000's of devotees in sheffield for one thing, but im talking darude, alice deejay, fragma etc.

'pop-trance'?

well, all the people i know that used to play that sort of thing decided it was 'too cheesy' and started playing hard house.

it's a nice summer evening so if you're not listening to a cool trance mix w/e is my opinion

happened to be next to a venue Christopher Lawrence was playing last weekend, and it was like ... yep, still doing it.

I liked Simon Reynolds' idea of loved-up trance going through a "darkcore" period

this never, ever happened did it?

I'm starting a new guys-with-guitars movement called "trance-fi"

gonna be massive

I liked Simon Reynolds' idea of loved-up trance going through a "darkcore" period

this never, ever happened did it?

I dunno, there were plenty of dark/sad trance going on around 1994: "Lost in Love", "Backtired II", "Redemption", "Straight Up from Heaven", Cosmic Baby's Thinking About Myself album, etc. IIRC, even Paul van Dyk released an EP of melancholy trance back then. Of course it's not the straight equivalent of "darkcore", but it definitely wasn't loved-up either.

I assumed older trance fans now > minimal and younger > jumpstyle which i guess is the 'darkcore' he predicted

yeah "darkcore trance" is basically just nu-nrg, hard house, psy-trance etc I would think. You can't really have a "darkcore" based around 4X4 at high bpms because it just turns into another already-existing genre.

Younger psy fans these days dig the "darkpsy" subgenre featuring rolling basslines, BPM in the 150-160 range and lots of random screechy sounds. Really popular in Eastern Europe and South America.

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timely revive - xpost to the slowed down songs thread, here are some pop-trance "classics" at 33 instead of 45 that sound like balearic with-house genderless paeans to agony

http://www.mediafire.com/?7621zqsb775263b

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq_wOhofTIE

i'm not a huge dance music fan, but i'm digging this song ... it's like lindstrom on some screwed up russian knockoff speed

In small deses, Psytranxe is the greatest music ever.

Doses

Quick answer i like the powerful energy of Man With No Name's music in the mid 90s, that had a industrial vibe about it.

as always a dig into the archives and a thread delivers.
I had totally forgotten re there being a "Man With No Name" album.
picked it up in charity shop years ago, and now feeling the urge.
will probably only last 20 mins before I get bored and need to head back to other stuff.
in the meantime its sounding like a great 20 minutes.

the only trance album i ever owned, solid banger.

and the album was/is ?

the man with no name!

the only other trance thing i can recall having on regular rotation was gouryella by gouryella, though i never found the alleged mix that had an extra and even more euphoric hands in the air peak synth line.

Moment Of Truth

ahh.
sorry penny was slow in dropping.
thought you meant something else.
long day.
not sure I have ever listened to the album before.
it's actually a really bloody good insight into the eras excess.
as you say, "solid banger".

xpost.

just checking out more gouryella on spotify \o/ maybe that mythical mix is here.

time for salt tank.
though that's more ambient/melodic/trance.
not so sure I have anything else quite like this 'Man with No Name' album.
I really enjoyed that.

ledge : hoping so for you.

(I don't do spotify .. )

does trance still exist in any major form? save for some of the most poppy forms of it I can't really even remember what it sounds like, or really what made it discernible as it's own genre as opposed to a house/techno blend with big builds and drops. did electrohouse and EDM just take over from it in the 2000s? Will it ever come back?

p4k published this recently https://pitchfork.com/features/article/in-defense-of-trance/

needless to say I am not the person to answer any of those questions dog latin.
but I look forward to what happens next.
(just ordered another salt tank album on cd .. )

xpost.

will just post this for the enlightenment of the unitiated:

https://youtu.be/NEivFBrGESk

a house/techno blend with big builds and drops

are you thinking of prog?

So much trance dna in lots of club/experimental/pop music these days (in a deconstructed and often darker form)

agreed Jordan.
it's like the unspoken secret ingredient.

a friend of my cousin who I have on Facebook adores trance and spends his weekends at events headlined by eg Above & Beyond, it's definitely still out there

a lot of other big names from the late nineties crossover peak such as Mauro Picotto now make really tasteless electrohouse, it's basically the same tricks but 10bpm slower

this Gouryella track is the nuts

Mauro Picotto was mostly a techno producer who had a brief trance period.

Proper trance is still around, championed by guys like John 00 Fleming & all, but it’s been mostly an underground thing since 2005-ish when electro and minimal took over the mainstream clubscene.

this Gouryella track is the nuts

yup.
my kind of trance excess.
think I have some juno reactor that's like that.

yeah I do

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth_(Juno_Reactor_album)

insanely OTT excess.

crap link.
sorry.
juno reactor : labyrinth

i have some traci lords/juno reactor remixes in the archive.
time to dig around as they probably sound bloody brilliant/shit now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvm1odpFgHA
just got this in a NTS newsletter – catchy!
I wonder if this is the type of stuff Eye from Boredoms likes to hear alone at night with his hardcore 7 inches