Posts Tagged ‘trance’

Global Experience – Madras & Zanzibar – Trance

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

First heard this track at SW4 played by Sander Van Doorn and it was perfect for the setting.  The track apparently samples a dire punjabi pop song called ‘let the music play’ which goes to show you really can sample anything and come up with a gem.

Global Experience Aka DJ Shah (first name Roger) is a German chap who goes under  a few aliases, and produces decent melodic trance.  He’s also done quite a few remixes.  Depending on your taste you’ll know Shah for different things.  For me it’s Madras & Zanzibar, for others it’s probably the frankly horrific pop stuff like Lift me up, which is perfect evidence of why you need an alias to make credible dance music when you create shit pop to pay the mortgage.

Global Experience is a convenient alias from which to release very slightly ethnically influenced trance.  Madras was part of a double header with another track called Malaysia, which could have been the more popular track but I think Madras is more versatile.

Enough of that, here’s Madras, wonderful chilled trance, works well in a progressive set, peak time trancer or as a bridge between the two.

Zanzibar is in a very similar vein to Madras and you’d never play the two in one set.  Lovely vocal, quite understated breakdown and a good mid-set ‘get em moving’ type of track rather than hands in the air ‘let’s ave it’ trance.

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Deadmau5 feat Kaskade – Move for Me & I Remember – Trance

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Stolen post alert – this is purely nicked from harderfaster.

Move for Me – my preferred of the two tracks. A good mid-set floor filler of a tune.

I remember could be the only track I ever post that makes it into the top 40 while I actually like it (though I’ve just noticed Le Roux is at number 2).

The tune’s being doing the rounds on things like ASOT and in clubs for ages, but gets credible pop work out, though I’m linking to the 8 min version obviously.

Deadmau5 is a rarity in the dance scene.  While not universally popular he does manage to strike a balance between acceptable pop trance, and credibility in the underground club scene and the notoriously precious progressive house world.

Salt Tank – Eugina (Sargasso Sea) – Lost Language – Trance

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

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I’ve often wondered which came first with this track, was it the main release or was it Sargasso Sea?

Starting off with a very long, uplifting intro, this tune builds into quite a banging trancer, which, given the intro, is quite unexpected.

Towards the middle of the track the pace changes in a really cool way going back to it’s most simple melody and basically just playing out for about 1.5 mins, before looping the vocal sample back into a nice beaty out-tro.  Many DJ’s lost patience in the breakdown and mixed out, but it often turned into a bit of train crash.

Chill out Version (Sargasso Sea)

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The perfect post club chill-out track and great little addition on the B side of the original.  This track is a great example of the small though not insignificant Ambient Trance sub-genre of the mid 90′s, other artists in the category included Chicane & Future Sound of London

Crescendo – Are You Out There (Original Mix) – FFRR – House

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

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My mate Jim bought this record before any of us had decks and this tune was certainly one of the catalyists to learning to mix.
The tune opens up with a great intro.  A male vocal and building strings, give way to a female sample and sirens sound before the beat gets going.

The tune did reasonably well but I never really heard it tearing the roof off any clubs, which is a shame because it did have potential.

Underworld – Nuxx/Born Slippy – Junior Boys Own

Friday, April 10th, 2009

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Underworld are the backbone of the UK dance scene and this is by far their most recognised track.

Nuxx is actually a different track to Born Slippy but both appeared on the same release. The difference is noticeable when you listen to the two. Born Slippy with Karl Hyde’s ace vocal was the tune that rocked them to infamy.

Probably the most recognised dance tune ever, but oddly never released on an album. This track was first released in 1995 and hit the national consciousness in the movie Trainspotting, which also featured the excellent track Dark & Long (dark train – to have a post of its own one day)

This track still tears up dancefloors in underground and commerical clubs alike, to really appreciate the track you’ve got to see it live, which I was lucky enough to do during the Beaucoup Fish tour in 1998. They did this track as their encoure and let it build for about four minutes until the crowd were going completely insane and then let the vocal hit.

Everybody’s heard this tune played out a million times but I can distinctly remember hearing it just after midnight at Cream, belted out by Pete Tong in his prime.

I’ve got to be honest, I love Underworld, and could probably dedicate a whole blog of fan-geekiness to them. Beautiful Burnout in particular is an amazing tune which’ll get its own post later.

Since the mighty Darren Emerson left they’ve not done anything that’s blown me away but I’m a great Karl Hyde Fan, who’s done other interesting projects with his Tomato brand.

Sasha and Maria – Be As One – 7PM

Friday, April 10th, 2009

As rare as hens teeth to track down these days, Be As One is for me one of Sasha’s best tracks, some of which have been questionable in my view.  Apart from Airdrawndagger which is excellent, I’ve always thought Sasha’s a better DJ than a producer.  He’s a complete technology whore so to see him live is as much about kit-trainspotting as it is about his sound, which is excellent.  Him and Digweed pioneered technology from the Atari ST computer through to Ableton Live.

I keep promising myself I’ll go and see the two of them play next time they’re in London, however last time I saw Sasha at Fabric, the cool see-and-be-seen crowd pissed me off so much it’s always a bit of a disappointment, why go to a club and not dance?  I don’t get it.
Be As One is a Hacienda influenced track featuring a cool vocal from Maria Naylor who’s still knocking out half decent pop-dance to this day, and is probably one of Sasha’s most commercial sounding tracks.

My favourite dance album of all time, Northern Exposure, will get it’s own post another day.

Armin Van Buuren – Burned with Desire – Ultra Records

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

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First released in 2003 this track was re-released in the 10 years album.  Fantastic vocal rocks dancefloors whenever it’s played, and was the tune of my stag do at Global Gathering last year.

It’s a no nonsense tune with a pretty much first verse, chorus, second verse, chorus structure; the vocal is the breakdown  and had it not captured the imagination this could have been seen as a made-for-radio-pop type tune.  But it just about gets away with being an acceptable cheese fest.  This track remains one of the tunes I’ll play before heading off for a night out to get me in the mood, and I’d love to play it to a packed club just to get everybody singing along.

Planet Perfecto – Bullet In The Gun – Saturday Mix – Perfecto

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

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Perfecto was one of those labels that enjoyed massive success, and then in my view, evaporated up it’s own arse at massive speed. During the Goa Trance (what we call Psy trance these days) Perfecto was knocking out loads of great tunes.

The label hit the mainstream on the back of Oakenfold’s rise to superstardom during the Cream Courtyard era, which I must confess I attended pretty much every week.

Bullet in Your Gun is on the right side of cheesy, cracking build, sing-able vocal.  I played this tune at Alumni a little while ago and it filled the dancefloor.

I’m going to post a few sing-able tunes today, it’s the start of the holidays after all.

Shades of Rhythm – The Sound of Eden – ZTT

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Here we go then.  First post, it’s okay if it’s shit, nobody’s reading it yet so it doesn’t matter.

Shades of Rhythm, the Sound of Eden – first heard this track at Cream, I was about 16, looked 13 and was chuffed to have blagged my way in.  By the time I heard this it was already a retro tune, but it rocked the place.

I had this The Sound of Eden on ZTT (a cracking label btw) 12″ but it’s one of a bag of about 30 tunes that I still kick myself for lending out to a bloke at uni who was never seen again.  It’s one of those tunes that I don’t think I’d bother buying unless I found it on one of the download sites.  Sites like HTFR have it for between £10 – £15,  I’ll leave it thanks.