I guess in my posts of outstanding trance artists, Joe Garrett  aka “Temple One” was mentioned often enough and there are only a few people out there, whose releases contain such a consistent quality as the ones from Joe.

ButI want to recommend the works of Simon Patterson as well whose tracks are always a pure pleasure to listen to. There are not many DJs out there that create such interesting tracks that consist of floating, heavy beats, progressive elements combined with very melodic breaks and main themes – all of these mixed perfectly and never boring.

You can listen to a lot of tunes (in full length) on his Myspace page. Note especially “Always” – one of the best trance releases last year, “Thump” and the  new track “Miss you” which contains a very nice piano theme.

This was a very good year for trance music. Tons of good releases out there. Germany with its passion for minimal techno (that’s all they obviously only know here)  still widely ignores Trance although some of the big names in Trance dared to come over here and did gigs. So, there is hope.

To create a Top 10 of Trance songs is not very easy due to the abovementioned high number of quality tunes. Anyways, here are my personal favorites :

10. Ankhen & Adrian – Intuition (Sunny Lax Remix)

9. Super8 & Tab feat. Alyna – Delusion (Original Mix)

8. Ramsterdam – Ramsterdam (Jorn van Deynhoven Mix)

7. Paul van Dyk – Nothing but you (Super8 & Tab Remix)

6. Dan Stone  – Fahrenheit (Original Mix)

5. Bartlett & Dyor – Floating beyond (Lange Remix)

4. Temple One – Sahara Nights (Original Mix)

3. Simon Patterson – Always (Original Mix)

2. Oceanlab – I am what I am (Lange Remix)

1. Ferry Tayle & Static Blue – L’Acrobat (Andy Blueman Remix)

At the moment Audiojelly is giving away 50 selected tracks for free if you purchase tracks worth at least 5 euros. Since some tunes were anyways already in the waiting line to be bought by me, I used this offer. So, these are the fresh new trance anthems that I got. Quite an international mix:

From Great Britain – Temple One: Sahara Nights (Original Mix). This was finally a success for Joe at Trance Around the World since it became the webvote winner and being even played again a few times after that.

From The Netherlands – RAM: Ramsterdam (Jorn van Deynhoven Mix). The track was in Audiojelly’s charts for a long time. Fantastic break.

From the USA – Redstar – Stronger than time (Intro Mix). A little bit older track from Redstar. I got notice of it when they played it at Trance.FM

From Romania – Anhken & Adrian: Intuition (Sunny Lax Remix). I admit I didn’t really like the newer productions of Hungarian trance artist Sunny Lax. He changed his style quite a bit. This here is a very good remix though.

Looking back there were a lot of posts in my blog about restaurants and cafés in the recent past. So, time to sit down and write a short little list of the best food and drink places in Berlin that I visited so far. This list is purely biased of course, created by a vegetarian and subject to change from time to time as soon as I find an even better place in a category:

Best vegetarian restaurant: Samadhi

Best cafè: Café & Bar Hilde

Best cakes: Tortenwerkstatt (Sredzkistraße 63, 10405 Berlin), Café Frau Paul (Hans-Otto-Str. 6, 10407 Berlin)

Best burgers and fries: Yellow Sunshine

Best sandwiches: Luigi Zuckermann Traditional Gourmet Deli

Best juices: Eve & Adams

Best noodles: Spreegold (Hufelandstr. 20, 10407 Berlin)

Best american pizza: Fatass Pizza

Best italian pizza: Pizza Nostra (Lychener Str. 2 – 4, 10437 Berlin)

Best burritos: Dolores

Best falafel: El rief (Schönhauser Allee 47, 10437 Berlin)

Best crêpes: Crêperie Bretonne

Best bagels: Bagels & Bialys (Rosenthaler Str. 46 – 48, 10178 Berlin)

Best soups: Suppen Cult

Best hot dogs: Hot Dog World (Kastanienallee 102, 10435 Berlin)

Best ice cream parlor: Häagen Dasz

In der Rosenthaler Straße gab es mit dem “Bagels & Bialys” schon früher eine gute Alternative zu den üblichen Falafel-Läden die noch spät nachts dem hungrigen Gast etwas anbieten. Vor kurzem nun gesellte sich “Luigi Zuckermann Traditional Gourmet Deli” hinzu (Rosenthaler Straße 67). Rund um die Uhr (!) kann man hier extrem leckere und üppig belegte Feinschmecker-Sandwiches geniessen (gibt’s in 2 Größen, auch die kleinere Version macht schon satt). Ausserdem im Angebot sind Suppen, Salate, appetitlich aussehende Kuchen (Apple Pie, Cheesecake etc- noch nicht getestet), Kaffeespezialitäten, Bier und Softdrinks. Hier besonders erwähnenswert die köstliche, selbstgemachte Lemonade. Insgesamt gesehen bereichert dieser Deli das kulinarische Angebot in Berlin-Mitte.

Here are some highly recommendable new trance tracks:

Simon Patterson – Always (Original Mix).

Already the previously released “thump” was a very decent tune, it was mixed well and had a surprisingly melodic break. “Always” tops it easily though. It belongs to my favorite tracks of 09 so far. Everything fits in this tune.

Thomas Coastline – Love victims (Temple One Remix)

Again, Joe Garrett aka Temple One makes a fantastic remix elevating an already very interesting original track to a hymn.

Paul van Dyk – Forbidden fruit (Giuseppe Ottavani Remix)

There are a few gems on the remix album containing Paul’s classic tunes. This one, “forbidden fruit” was always one of my favorite tracks from PvD. Giuseppe successfully kept the best parts of the track, made it faster and sound even better than the original version.

Paul van Dyk – Nothing but you (Super8 & Tab Remix)

Anjunabeats residents and Finnish DJs Super8 and DJ Tab did a fantastic job here.

Phillip Alpha – Sudden Changes (Original Mix)

At the Anjunabeats forum there was a big discussion about how similar this track sounds compared with Daniek Kandi’s tracks who coproduced this. So what? Yes, sure, it was influenced by him but it has it’s own style as well.

It took ages for this track to be released. I remember first listening to L’acrobat by Ferry Tayle & Static Blue in some of the Trance Around the World shows a long while ago and since then a whole community of enthusiastic fans of this song waited for it to be available at the shops. Now it is out and it is certainly one of the best trance releases in a long while, including one of the best breaks in trance history. Enhanced Recordings is getting better and better in catching up concerning the quality of their releases compared with the Anjunabeats label.

Yes, you are still on the blog “Melodic ambience” The design was changed. When you click onto an entry you will be able to switch on the sidebar at the left side which gives you the menu and its additonal options.

Freshly bought here are some very good new trance tracks:

Oceanlab – I am what I am (Lange remix): While “Lonely girl”  just came out as the next single, this track is available on the remix album. By far the best remix/song on that album. Another quality mix by Lange whose releases are always addictive masterpieces.

Joe Garrett – Afterglow (Temple One Mix): To clear it up – Joe Garrett *is* Temple One. I got no idea why he used his real name for this production, it is in the same style as his other tracks. Maybe because it was released at a different label.

Gareth Emery – Exposure/Metropolis: These tracks came out simultaneously and it is difficult to judge which one of them wins. I’ll give the prize to Metropolis though.

For many of us Trance listeners, Chicane used to be the fundamental artist who not only was one of the creators of this style but whose music, especially his first albums still belong to the best ever released in the electronic music genre. Sadly, Chicane changed his style radically, a lot of releases were basically pretty ordinary  pop music pieces that fit perfectly as background music in grocery stores. Now, there is hope. A remix of an old Sigur Ros song named “Poppiholla”  sounds just fantastic as you can discover when going to Chicane’s home page. The track starts right away.