Melodic ambience

Ok, also, lass uns mal sehen: Es gibt doch eigentlich mehrere deutsche DJ’s mit Tranceproduktionen. Da wären zum Beispiel Alex M.O.R.P.H., Mirco de Govia, Steven Liquid oder auch Paul van Dyk, dessen Produktionen sich zumindest zum Teil “trancig” anhören. Kann es aber sein, dass Trance in den Berliner Clubs absolut nicht vertreten ist?

Zugegebenermassen kenne ich mich hier in der Szene kaum aus. In der Zeit vor dem Nichtraucherschutzgesetz, dass mich hoffen lässt, dass mittlerweile zumindest einige Clubs qualmfrei sind, habe ich die  Szene hier nicht kennengelernt. Aber gäbe es Läden, in denen Produktionen von Labels wie Enhanced oder Anjunabeats laufen, hätte ich wahrscheinlich schon was davon gehört. Ich glaube, man spielt hier ausschließlich diesen monotonen Techno mit Scheppergeräuschen, Electro, House und RMB.

Aber Trance?  Tips?

Danke.

Certainly one of the outstanding new trance tracks of the recent past has been Redstar’s “Rush”. A melody that everybody can whistle to comes in various good quality remixes and I found it hard to decide, which one to pick. The remix of Karl G is it for me since it builds up very slowly while spheric, almost romantic sounds happening in the back. It all leads to a fantastic break after which the main melody kicks in. I highly recommend this to everybody who is into trance or in particular into uplifting trance.

Its’ that time of the year where I’d like to announce the - in my view of course - best trance tracks of the year. First of all I want to say that especially in most recent times there were a lot of good tracks and after I complained that my favorite label “Anjunabeats” was releasing a lot of mediocre tracks the year before, this time there were a lot of very decent tracks that came out. So, no wonder, that Anjunabeats is represented very well in the list of my favorite tracks.

Basically there were two tracks dominating my personal play list as they are

Maor Levi - Shapes (Oliver Smith Mix)

and

Temple One - Forever Searching (Original Mix)

The remix of Oliver Smith delivered a perfect, euphoric version of a track done by young Israeli Maor Levi. Everything fits, the beat, the scrambled singing as well as the beautiful additional melody kicking in after a while.

British DJ Temple One’s “Forever Searching” lets you float in different spheres. This very romantic trancer is highly addictive.

Besides these tracks I’d like to congratulate Sunny Lax for his remix of Soliquid’s “Music is for rich people” since it comes very close to the legendary “P.U.M.A.”.

Last but not least I want to mention at least some other tracks that were very good. From Scandinavia Finnish Syna “Do you feel” sounded fantastic in the remix of Matti Kotala and Danish DJ Daniel Kandi’s original Mix of “Child” needs to be mentioned too.

So far this trance year has delivered a lot of mediocre tunes for my taste. But maybe it is because I am getting older and becoming more and more picky? Whatever it is, it helps the content of my purse. I want to mention though that two or three outstanding tracks were released so far as they are

From Great Britain:

Temple One “Forever searching” (Original Mix) - Listen (excerpt at the Audiojelly Downloadstore)

From Finland:

Syna “Do you feel?” (Matti Kotala Mix) - Listen (excerpt at the Audiojelly Downloadstore)

What’s new in the trance music sector?

Well, first of all I noticed a lot of “average” new releases from the bigger trance labels. In between the many uninspired mediocre productions a few gems can be found though. First of all, Lange vs. Gareth Emery’s “Another you another me” must have hit almost every available trance dance floor around the world as one of the biggest anthems of recent times. Another german DJ production is huge at the moment too: Duderstadt’s “Smile” won the web vote at “Trance around the world” , Anjunabeat’s web radio show. An interesting aspect of this track: Not the original version but the Duende Dub Mix had the most success so far and the Duende Vocal Mix was released in the online stores after the dub mix was available.

Other than that there is an older production that I like to listen to: Algarve, a swedish DJ released a fantastic track last year called “The longest journey”.

Last but not least I want to mention Vascotia - Avalon. A track whose nice melody goes right into your ear.

A big variety of online shops offering trance music spreads out on the internet. Additionally, trance music internet stations like etn.fm offer fine mixes by well known DJs. The problem for the listener is, that these two sources of music did not interact so far. Many times I listened to a track on a trance radio station and I had the following problems: a) I knew neither artist nor name of the track and b) if I liked it I did not know which store has it or if it is even released so far. The new site for electronic dance music called “Vonyc”, owned by famous german DJ Paul van Dyk is a combination of a radio station and shop. Tracks being played are listed with their full title and - if buyable - you’ll see the adequate “buy track” button lit up.
Very practical in my view.

It seems that every artist who wanted to release her/his track this year did so meanwhile. So, here are my favorite tracks of the year:

1. Arksun - Arisen (Original Mix)

2. Sunny Lax - Puma (Original Mix)

3. DJ Fire - The closest thing to heaven (Trance Mix)

4. Freek Geuze - A sonnet (Redshift Remix)

5. E-Notion - Deep Water (Original Mix)

The lack of regular personal charts in this blog doesn’t mean that this year was a bad year for trance in my view - no, there were lot of good tunes actually. But there were phases when you had to wait a while until something really good was released again. And besides that there were times that I didn’t really listen to music that much at all. Nevertheless, at the moment I do and these are my favorite trance tracks right now:

Something older: Robert Nickson - Close your eyes (Dub Mix)

Something older but this remix was just released in the download shops: Dogzilla - Without you (John O’ Callaghan Mix)

Something new: Kai del Noi - Beyond Doubt (Original Mix)

Finally, someone from Australia successfully kicked Arksun from my favorite tunes no. 1 position.

1. Keith McMurray - There’s enough (Instrumental Mix) [new]
2. DJ Fire - The closest thing to heaven (Trance Mix) [2]
3. Arksun - Arisen (Original Mix) [1]

With such an amazing new track out there its worth releasing a “my favorite tunes at the moment” list again:

1. Arksun - Arisen (Original Mix) [1]

2. DJ Fire - The closest thing to heaven (Trance Mix) [new]

3. Daniel Kandi - Breath (Sunny Lax Remix) [2]

4. Smith & Pledger - White (Original Mix) [3]