Addicted2Melody's Last.fm Journal

THE PHIL-HARMONIC PODCAST

Sun, 6 Mar 2011 18:10:59 +0000

THE PHIL-HARMONIC PODCAST

Visitors to my profile, old and new, will have noticed that I have had a thing for writing in the past. I still do, if I’m honest. Blogging on last.fm became one of my favourite past times over the course of the last 3 or 4 years, writing about everything from the intricate workings of sellout "techno" super groups to the symbolic iconography and subconscious idealism at the core of trance music. It was therapeutic, it was reaffirming, it was vindicating and, more importantly, it was enjoyable. I would do it all again if the clock was turned back and wouldn’t change a word of any of those very lengthy articles.

But having elected to knock the last.fm journal writing on the head (bar an end of year review journal every December), I had gone back on that and decided that I was going to start an extended journal writing project, charting and reviewing my all time favourite electronic albums.

But by the time I’d got about a 3rd of the way through painstakingly rating these albums, my listening habits were already starting to alter pretty dramatically. Podcasts were taking precedent over albums, and collecting new music for DJing was taking precedent over listening to the vast achieve I already have. The new journal project slid into the background and then was almost forgotten.

Finally getting a 9-5 office job has really moved the goalposts. With more time spent in work, travelling to and from work and more weekends spent away in London seeing old (and dear) friends, I’ve felt myself slowly slipping into that typically British cycle of mind-numbing daily grind, followed by either partying too hard or, even more habitually, doing absolutely f*ck all.

In deciding that my life needs a bit more ‘routine and rigour’, to coin a phrase, one of the things I decided was that it was time to either resurrect the journal project or get serious about DJing. One or the other. Time allows for one. For a number of reasons, I’ve chosen the latter.

Some of you will know that I’ve been sharing mixes on my profile for a while now, but the idea of making a regular and clearly packaged podcast suddenly really appeals to me. Meeting new friend Ben Collier at the end of last year and seeing how well his monthly podcast has done, from relatively humble beginnings, has definitely inspired me. Ben is an amateur DJ like myself – albeit one that has been DJing longer – yet Room 1ne Sessions, because of its impeccable track selection is often as enjoyable as any of the other professionally produced podcasts that I listen to. I’m following up with something similar and hopefully it’ll grow into something as impressive and meaningful.

And feeling like I’ve probably said enough on this website, I think it’s probably time to let the music do the talking. As much as I love writing, music fanatics would much rather listen than read – and if they are going to read, they’d much rather read about new and exciting music than my anthropological, pseudo-philosophical and occasionally self-indulgent meditations. Those musings are still there for people to read, but now it’s time to share in what those musings describe and celebrate.

Well, if you’re still reading this then you’ve made it far enough down the page to see what this is really all about. Fellow last.fm users, this is my new by-weekly podcast – The Phil-Harmonic Podcast.

http://philharmonicpodcast.blogspot.com/

I’ll be presenting each episode in the form of a new blog at blogspot.com, mixes again being uploaded to SoundCloud. I won’t say too much more, because anything else I could say is already outlined in my opening blogspot post. (Don’t be put off by the amount of text in that opening post, by the way – it is the introductory post and future entries will be nothing more than a 200-300 word run down of what’s going on in the latest episode.)

Those of you that have followed my articles over the past few years will know that I’m never short of passion when it comes to music – full of idealism and obsessive about detail. I hope that passion and obsessive drive comes through as much in these podcasts.

Whether you’re sat on a bus, driving to work or lazing by an Ibizan poolside, I invite you to take my music with you. Bookmark my blog, dust off your headphones and join me on this new Phil-Harmonic journey!

The Phil-Harmonic Podcast

All the best,
Phil

Armin van Buuren Andy Moor Paul van Dyk Sander van Doorn Gareth Emery Marcus Schossow Mat Zo Arty Above & Beyond Sean Tyas Greg Downey Ferry Corsten Orjan Nilsen tyDi Dinka Myon & Shane 54 Super8 & Tab Nitrous Oxide Markus Schulz Jochen Miller Lee Haslam Michael Dow Jorn Van Deynhoven Ronski Speed Giuseppe Ottaviani deadmau5 Jordan Suckley Lange Nadia Ali Marcel Woods Marco V Ben Gold Orkidea Binary Finary Alex M.O.R.P.H.Simon Patterson Sasha Paul Oakenfold Guy Mearns Rank 1 Ali Wilson

THAT WAS 2010 - THE YEAR IN CHARTS

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 17:40:29 +0000

THAT WAS 2010 - THE YEAR IN CHARTS

Here we are again. Another 12 months have well and truly disappeared, another 12 months spent soaking up the world of electronic music.

On a personal level it’s been a much better year but, musically, a year where changing circumstance and focus have gradually altered by listening and scrobbling habits. That’s not to say that I’m listening to less music, just taking it in new ways. I’m listening to a lot more music on the move to and from work, so podcasts have become my main way of consuming new music. And with less time available for endlessly searching for new music, finding the best trance music for my DJing has taken priority over hunting for new albums from right across the electronic smorgasbord. In fact, my DJing has come on leaps and bounds this year, thanks in no small part to really making trance my main focus.

So with changes in my listening habits come changes in my obligatory review of the year journal. This year’s journal is a rundown of my favourite 10 albums of the year, and the hard dance, full on psychedelic and electro-house charts have made way for a full 50 track chart of my favourite trance records of 2010.

Let’s kick things off...again with the albums.

-----------------------------------------------------

10. Armin van Buuren – Mirage
[September / Armada]

If the truth be told, 2010 has finally been the year where I have fallen out of the A State Of Trance loop. It’s just not on at a convenient time for me anymore, and the Podcast edition of the programme is barely 20 minutes long. I listened to GDJB a lot towards the start of the year and moved on to TATW, Identity, Tone Diary and the Gareth Emery Podcast as the year progressed.

But as always I sat down to listen to the ASOT Top 20 rundown. Frankly, I was utterly depressed by what I heard. 6 tracks from Mirage plus the original mix of Gaia – Aisha, which again showed the sheer level of brainwashing that is going on amongst Armin’s fanatical followers. It left me thinking, either I’m not following this scene as closely as I think or this annual Armin Van Buuren love-in just isn’t very representative of the year’s trance music anymore. I’ll let you decide which is most true.

Armin’s latest album offering, Mirage, certainly doesn’t boast 6 of the best 20 trance songs of 2010. If it did it would probably be sitting top of this chart and be one of the finest trance albums ever – it ain’t. Let’s get that straight from the kick off. What it is is a good, solid - if slightly patchy – album, which strikes a very precise middle ground between the understated vocal beauty and modest pace of 2008’s Imagine, and the more genuine trance music of the insanely popular Tuvan from 2009. It doesn’t quite feel as holistic and well rounded as Imagine, but by bringing back more of that big room, operatic synth work it feels much more representative of Armin’s sound as a DJ. The likes of Mirage, Orbion and Full Focus are more epic, more like the real ammunition needed to take his DJ sets and, more importantly, his Armin Only show to the next level.

Maybe therein lies Armin’s secret. His fanatical followers selected 7 of his tracks as their absolute favourites of 2010 because those tracks better encapsulated Armin’s formidable, almost mythical persona and made for even more enduring memories of his fantastic DJ sets.

Admittedly, some tracks do let Mirage down. The parts that sound more like Imagine don’t quite come off as impressively as you might expect – in fact, certain parts are downright bland. Other studio album offerings by the likes of Gareth Emery, Lange and Markus Schulz were maybe more consistent overall, but none of them quite replicated Mirage’s more brilliant moments.

Favourite Track: Orbion

9. Ali Wilson – Phenomenon
[November / In Charge Recordings]

Being a fan of UK hard dance music, the name Ali Wilson is not as new to me as it probably is to some other people. Ali is another example of those producers who, having sensed that the UK hard trance scene they fell in love with had become a rapidly sinking ship, have made the jump to trance music. Lee Haslam made the move, as did Guy Mearns. Now Wilson has joined them.

And what is great about these 3 producers, especially considering that they do now fly the flag for the level of talent that existed in hard trance in those by-gone years, is that they have all found unique styles of their own. Haslam’s tracks are big tech monsters, Mearns pushes the big, melodic trancers, while Wilson has introduced a really refreshing concoction of carnival-esque, tribal beats and euphoric, uplifting breakdowns, something that Marco V has taken note of straight away.

Wilson has been a man on form in 2010. Pandora was a massive single back in March, a single that only narrowly missed making my overall Top 50 chart. And he also managed three fantastic remixes for Jochen Miller’s Humanoid, Armin Van Buuren’s Full Focus and Tony De Vit’s classic The Dawn.

Having been getting little tastes of his refreshing new sound all year, the album Phenomenon in November was not one to be missed. This album is from the modern school of Marco V and Sander van Doorn but has its own native, primeval vibe. Tunes that work as well in house sets as they do in trance ones. In fact, they are the kind of ‘bridge’ tracks that likes of Sander and Marco love, allowing them to jump seamlessly from house to trance and back again whilst DJing.

Phenomenon has one track that lets it down: the atrocious, Become One. Seriously, Chris Jones should have quit while he was ahead with Going Wrong. But the rest is excellent and in the shape of Pandora and Absolute this album has a pair of absolute killers on it.

Favourite Track: Absolute

8. Asura – 360
[October / Ultimae Records]

With Ultimae Records you know you’re on safe ground. For consistency of output, you’ll struggle to find a label in electronically produced music that can hold a candle to it. The same goes for Asura. Those who have heard Life² and Lost Eden will know that we are talking about one of Ultimae’s most reliable artists.

Stylistically, Asura has always stood apart from the rest of the ambient pack in that it has always had a slightly biblical or apocalyptic feel to it. Not quite delicate or understated enough to even be called pure ambient or soundscape, and pushing gently towards progressive trance and some kind of dark, melodramatic trip-hop. And only very faintly psychedelic. That could be a very personal observation. That’s how I’ve always view it.

The new album 360 clearly aimed to provide some evolution. By splitting the album into 2 parts - Before and After – Asura was able to provide some more of the old in the first part, while show some versatility in the second. The second part of 360 is softer, more calming and slightly less tinged with that sense of prophetic doom that is such a feature for me on previous albums. Getsemani and Virgin Delight are good examples of how Charles Farewell has favoured a more ambient style but taken away absolutely none of the melancholy or elegance. Both the music and the way each part is named ‘Before’ and ‘After’ do give it a strong classical, film score feel and that works really well.

I absolutely love Asura and actually think the project is generally pretty underrated. But at the same time, his music is as challenging to listen to as it is rewarding. This new record is an 'easier' listen overall.

Favourite Track: Getsemani

7. Riva Starr – If Live Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade
[February / Made To Play]

House music in 2010 seemed to take quite a clear continental tribal feel in 2010. The bass driven electro house end of the market seemed to shrink significantly, while most of the big records seemed to be big on rhythmic Ibizan style drums and quirky, tongue-in-cheek touches. The record that most exemplified that this year was Yolanda Be Cool’s We Speak No Americano, which was played to death absolutely everywhere. But before this style exploded everywhere else, it was London-based, Italian born producer Riva Starr who really started the ball rolling in the February of the year.

If Live Gives You Lemons is typical of Ibizan house music, a very careful blend of rhythmic tech house, drum driven tribal, moments of minimalism and playfully curious sampling of vintage pre-War, jazz and traditional continental music. It was strange hearing this style finally hit the mainstream, even if its arrival proves to be short-lived. BBC Radio One did end up putting I Was Drunk on their daytime playlists, which I suppose is testament to how popular this style became in 2010. However, this was a good 6 months after If Life Gives You Lemons had been released and after We Speak No Americano had already made it huge.

Overall, Riva Starr’s offering was a fun and vibrant example of real house music.

Favourite Track: I Was Drunk

6. Progenitor - Electro bite
[February / Iono Music]

This deep, hypnotic gem courtesy of Greek duo, Progenitor was one of the few progressive psychedelic records I even got around to listening to this year. And I get the feeling that few in the same genre could have topped this all year. The production is solid, the atmosphere immersive and the sense of progression smooth and seamless.

But the magic of this album, particularly on certain tracks like Psychologic, is not where the beats fall, but where they don’t. Their use of gaps and rhythmic spaces is exceptional.

Not much to say about this album other than, it’s a ‘must check out’ for any fans of Vibrasphere, Tegma, Ticon, Day.Din and the like.

Favourite Track: Psychologic

5. Pendulum – Immersion
[May / Warner Music]

The third instalment of Pendulum’s genre smelting, full frontal assault on the public’s senses dropped in 2010 and I was as keen as anyone to know where Pendulum would go next. They were never going to change the formula too much; they have well and truly found their style now. And it’s a style you either adore or despise. It was simply a question of what they were going to add to the mix.

After a couple of listens I was pretty staggered about the number of elements piled into this new album, the sheer amount going on it. On top of the usual mix of drum & bass and rock, there were dubstep and deadmau5-esque house music influences everywhere, some clever use of sounds I’ve previously heard in tech house, progressive and even hard house records, plus the introduction of their first genuine attempt at metal with In Flames. And credit where credit’s due, whatever its faults, and it does have them, Immersion has to be the most comprehensive fusion of electronic and rock music ever produced. Never have so many elements of both genres been so seamless fused together.

But oddly enough, that level of comprehensiveness does not necessarily make it the perfect album, or even Pendulum’s best album in my opinion. In fact, pulling so much together and adding it to the already overflowing electronic melting pot poses its own set of problems. Rob Swire has done a great job fusing all these styles together but it was never going to be the most holistic sounding album given the challenge he set himself. Immersion is an album that gives you much more in terms of variety, diversity and gear changes that keep you on your toes but, compared to Hold Your Colour or In Silico, slightly less in terms of direction, consistency and overall quality.

An excellent album as always from the Aussie trio. However, at the same time, I hope people know what I mean when I say this album is almost more important as a milestone in dance music than it is good.

Favourite Track: Immunize

4. Kino Oko – Colours Hate Themselves
[May / Tribal Vision]

Discovering Kino Oko’s album Alphabetically Divided Highway in 2008 was something of a revelation. As I said at the time, it was by far the most innovative thing I had heard all year. I hadn’t heard anything like it and I haven’t heard an artist copy it since. It was delicate, it was intricate, and it was engaging; lulling, floating and bubbling with a strange fragile energy. Oddly, when I saw Magnuszewski had followed up ADH with the interestingly titled, Colours Hate Themselves, I had mixed feelings. I knew before I even heard it that it would be Alphabetically Divided Highway episode 2 and part of me worried that it would just pick at the debris of its predecessor and never quite scale the same dizzy creative heights.

I was wrong. If anything, Colours Hate Themselves takes this unique melting pot of bleeps and synth lines to the next level. Sounding even more carefully layered, dazzling with melodies that sound even more polished and serving up a mood that is even more engaging. Essentially, it is the melodic upgrade of Alphabetically Divided Highway, an album that shows even more confidence in its own unusual style. And more of an electro edge on some tracks do make it slightly more accessible.

Once again, Kino Oko proves himself to be the EDM artist for the discerning connoisseur, a man with more creative juices than large handfuls of the dance music scene can muster between them.

Favourite Track: Rosalinda

3. Ananda Shake – The World Is Yours
[May / Noga Records]

From an album of delicate subtlety to an album of thundering obviousness; an album pushing the artistic envelope to one that stays firmly in its pigeonhole. This psychedelic trance offering from the mighty Ananda Shake will undoubtedly turn the stomachs of psy purists, but I feel slightly embarrassed to admit that this is exactly, and I mean exactly, how I like my full on psy-trance. Pounding 145 BPM kicks, fizzing basslines, soaring melodies and as many clichéd movie samples as possible.

The thing that has always struck me about Ananda Shake, and it is even more a feature of this album, is that so many of the riffs they come up with seem to have such a weird, logically inevitability about them. You can almost sense the direction of every melodic key change before it happens; you know exactly what’s coming. And that seems to work, because it’s almost as if the melodies couldn’t and shouldn’t be any other way. That steadily rising main hook has a mind of its own and you and it are reading from the same page.

And The World Is Yours delivers what it delivers with a remarkable level of consistency. It’s an album that knows exactly what it’s trying to be and just gets on with it. There’s absolutely nothing pretentious about it; it’s just a good old, full blooded, high intensity cheese fest done with as much production skill as psy-trance can summon.

Favourite Track: Jumper

2. Super8 & Tab – Empire
[September / Anjunabeats]

Above & Beyond’s Anjunabeats is certainly a juggernaut of a dance music label. Yes, it’s had its dips in popularity and output but, for my money, trance’s premier imprint has been back with a vengeance in recent years. And while Paavo, Jono and Tony are the brains and driving force behind it all, they owe plenty to the likes of Super8 & Tab. Aside from Above & Beyond’s own material, they have clearly helped shape Anjuna’s sound over the last 4 or 5 years, both individually and collectively. It’s a sound that for me perfectly encapsulates what it is that draws most people to trance. While DJ Orkidea has for so many years been representing Finish trance music from the edges of the underground, Super8 & Tab, via Anjunabeats, have picked up the baton and brought it into those slightly more mainstream, fashionable echelons.

I think most fans of trance fans were keen to hear this album when it was announced. Tracks like Elektra, Won’t Sleep Tonight and Helsinki Scorchin', as well as Super8’s solo remixes from the earlier days, have made the duo hugely respected within the scene. Maybe not the scene’s hottest DJing property, but production-wise as good as absolutely anybody.

Having listened to it, I’m sure some people will accuse Miika and Janne of softening up. And it does commit what is seen by some as a cardinal trance sin – male vocals. But I think the pair have, in recognising that an artist album poses an entirely different set of situational challenges, shown an impressive level of artistic intelligence. The level of production is as high as ever, the pads and synths are as lush as ever, the overall sound as warm and emotional as ever. But the pace better suits listening outside the sphere of a club and the vocals somehow feel new and unique. The title track, Empire, is typical of the album in terms of how it moves Super8 & Tab into new territory, serving up a completely original vocal backed by a deliciously groovy bassline.

Empire topped the bill in what was Anjunabeats’ finest year since those genre redefining beginnings in the first part of the decade.

Favourite Track: Empire

1 . Carbon Based Lifeforms – Interloper
[May / Ultimae Records]

I think when you’re working within a genre as subtle and as delicate as ambient, getting your music to evolve and grow with each record can be a really difficult challenge. For the listener, spotting that musical change can be a really personal thing, even more personal than it is in other genres of music. With the release of the long awaited Interloper, the CBL trilogy became complete and all of a sudden the progression of the duo’s music suddenly became obvious.

While so much of the music I listen to is a celebration of that great life giver, The Sun, this is a celebration of another of the universe’s great life givers – water. In fact, Carbon Based Lifeforms’ albums are less a celebration a more an exploration; an aquatic voyage. Moreover, it’s such a clear and interconnected contextual journey that, now that this third album has been released, I’m finding it hard to treat and judge these albums separately. They are one album in three parts, a sonic package, a water themed concept album.

Hydroponic Garden is the careful surveying of the untouched lagoon, the insects softly breaking the surface of the water and the post-rain moisture dripping slowly from nearby plant life. World Of Sleepers is a smooth descent beneath the warm water, the floating and weightlessness under the deep blue. What is Interloper? Interloper is the awe-inspiring mist on the pond as you re-emerge triumphantly from the water, cleansed and reborn. The three albums are a musical baptism.

The way each follows on from the last is perfectly deliberate and shows a patience, a craft and an intelligence not often seen anywhere else in music. The fact that this is the latest part in such a groundbreaking, purist musical experience, a part as infinitely indispensible to the overall whole as the previous instalments, alone makes this the best album of the year.

Favourite Track: Frog

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TOP 50 TRANCE, PROGRESSIVE AND TECH TRANCE TUNES OF 2010

50. golden coast – Ivory (Scot Project Remix)
[May / High Contrast Nu Breed]
49. Stoneface & Terminal – Don’t Give A F**k (Vocal Mix)
[January / euphonic]
48. Sander van Doorn – Daddyrock
[August / Doorn Records]
47. Super8 & Tab feat. Jan Burton – Mercy (7 Skies Remix)
[July / Anjunabeats]
46. Matthew Dunne – Something Similar, Very Different
[October / Slinky]
45. Shogun – Re-Ignition
[May / Monster Digital]
44. Estiva & Temple One - November Lovely (Temple One Remix)
[February / Enhanced Recordings]
43. Max Graham feat. Neev Kennedy - Sun In The Winter (Alex M.O.R.P.H. Remix)
[March / Coldharbour Recordings]
42. Fabio Stein – Speedster (Original Uprise Mix)
[May / 40 Degrees Records]
41. Gareth Emery feat. Lucy Saunders - Sanctuary (Sean Tyas Remix)
[August / Garuda]
40. Luke Terry - Escape From Antarctica
[February / Unearthed Red]
39. Michael Dow – Grot Bag
[April / Digital Remedy]
38. Mike Foyle presents Statica – Deadly Nightshade (Phynn Remix)
[January / Coldharbour Recordings]
37. Pulser – Broken Universe
[April / Garuda]
36. Oxygen Shadow - Letano (Smart Apes Remix)
[January / Redux Recordings]
35. Armin van Buuren – Orbion
[September / Armada Music]
34. Aruna with Mark Eteson - Let Go
[October / Anjunabeats]
33. Abraham Leoga - Insolution (Craving Remix)
[May / Unearthed Records]
32. MEM – Forza
[October / Reset Records]
31. Jochen Miller – Humanoid
[April / High Contrast Recordings]
30. Heatbeat – Mr. Walrus (XGenix Remix)
[March / Soundpiercing]
29. Robert Burian – Saloon
[July / Forza Music]
28. Tim Preijers presents Sense Of Shiver – Offshore (Arctic Moon Remix)
[March / Enhanced Recordings]
27. Mike Nichol – Tweak
[March / Discover White Label]
26. Diplo vs. Tiësto - C'mon
[September / Mad Decent]
25. Porter Robinson – Say My Name
[August / Massive 808]
24. Mark Sherry feat. Sharone – I Will Find You
[November / Reset Records]
23. BT – Suddenly (Ferry Corsten Remix)
[March / Black Hole Recordings]
22. Velvetine – Safe (Wherever You Are)
[March / Anjunabeats]
21. Cliff Coenraad - Massive (Sunrise 2010 Anthem)
[July / High Contrast Recordings]
20. Sergio Maldonado – Back To Square One
[August / Dub Tech Recordings (Istmo Music)]
19. Sander van Doorn – Renegade (Sean Truby Remix)
[March / Doorn Records]
18. Jochen Miller – Classified
[September / High Contrast Recordings]
17. Above & Beyond & Gareth Emery present OceanLab - On A Good Day (Metropolis)
[October / Anjunabeats]
16. Super8 & Tab – Black Is The New Yellow
[May / Anjunabeats
15. Rafaël Frost – Flashback
[March / Flashover Recordings]
14. Trance Arts - Twisted Tales
[March / Unearthed Red]
13. Space RockerZ – Weather The Storm
[January / In Trance We Trust]
12. SoundLift – On A Mission
[January / Blue Soho Recordings]
11. Ferry Tayle & Static Blue - Trapeze (Daniel Kandi's Emotional Remix)
[March / Enhanced Recordings]
10. Adam Nickey – Altara
[September / Anjunabeats]
9. Suncatcher – Wildflowers
[March / Enhanced Recordings]
8. John Miller – Viper (Trace Traxx Remix)
[May / Good Stuff Recordings]
7. Robbie Buri – Attack
[January / Reset Records]
6. Ben Gold – Sapphire (Trance Mix)
[May / Garuda]

The Top 5
5. Dimension – Queensland (Arctic Moon Remix)
[May / Emphase Recordings]
4. Super8 & Tab feat. Jan Burton – Empire
[September / Anjunabeats]
3. Marcel Woods – Tomorrow
[July / High Contrast Recordings]
2. Armin van Buuren – Full Focus (Ummet Ozcan Remix)
[July / Armada Music]

Phil’s Tune Of 2010
1. tyDi feat. Tania Zygar – Vanilla (Ben Gold Remix)
[July / AVA Recordings]

My end of year mix, containing all of the Top 30 tracks in the above chart, is available on my SoundCloud page – and will be available for stream and download until the end of January. Comments, here or via SoundCloud, welcome as always.

http://soundcloud.com/phil-dickinson

Producer Of The Year 2010:

3. Ali Wilson
2. Ben Gold
1. Super8 & Tab

Superstar DJ Award 2010:

3. Eddie Halliwell
2. Above & Beyond
1. James Zabiela

Label Of The Year 2010:

3. High Contrast Recordings
2. Enhanced Recordings
1. Anjunabeats

Podcast/Radio Show Of The Year 2010:

3. Global DJ Broadcast with Markus Schulz
2. Identity with Sander van Doorn
1. Trance Around The World with Above & Beyond

"One To Watch" for 2011: Arty

-----------------------------------------------------

And there you have it. That was my musical 2010. I'd like to wish you all the best for 2011. Stay safe, stay passionate about music.

THAT WAS 2009 – THE YEAR IN CHARTS

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:52:03 +0000

THAT WAS 2009 – THE YEAR IN CHARTS

2009 draws to a close and yet again my all-embracing, all-inclusive and all-rambling review of the year’s electronic music returns – wordier than ever before... Slightly earlier than I'd planned, but isn't that always the way.

On a personal level, it’s been a strangely disappointing year, so, this year more than ever, it’s been music and DJing keeping me going and giving life its colour. Trance, in particular, has been truly stunning this year, maybe better than it’s been since the “golden era” of 98-01. And that high standard itself has both kept me sane and yet at times driven me to states of embarrassing over-excitement and needless intoxication – something I’m sure most of my fellow trance addicts, Shpongloids and borderline paranoiacs can relate to. Whether this is my prediction that trance would improve in the final years of the decade coming true or just me looking a lot harder I’m not sure, but I’m still convinced trance fans, from both uplifting and techy ends of the spectrum, have been thoroughly spoilt this year. Anyone out there reading this that’s getting into trance for the first time or coming back to it after many years away, believe me, you couldn’t have picked a better year to join/rejoin the party.

And, for me, albums-wise at least, 2009 will be remembered as the year that some real electronic heavyweights stood up, some after years away from the scene, to deliver their latest offerings - a couple of artists even promised 2 albums.... the question is, who delivered and who impressed?

As always, we begin with the albums in reverse order...

-----------------------------------------------------

20. Planisphere – Cyborganic
(April / Green Martian)

Arguably more of an extended EP with a few remixes than a “proper” album, but like his 2007 album, Solarism, Cyborganic was a well-crafted, textured and intelligently delivered progressive trance record, complete with those lush, bright melodies, futuristic touches and flurries of breakbeat – the forgotten middle ground where old progressive meets new progressive.

Favourite Track: Jarresque

19. Mahamudra – Simplicity Of Complexity
(July / Tactic Records)

Sounding strangely reminiscent of Infected Mushroom’s material from the early 2000s, this album from Israeli psytrance trio Mahamudra dared to be that little bit more psychedelic than most full on albums around at the moment. For that reason alone, it stood out. Something to get your body moving and your brain melting.

Favourite Track: Sexy Body Move

18. Between Interval – The Edge of a Fairytale
(April / Spottled Peccary)

Stefan Strand’s 4th album as space-music project, Between Interval, was as graceful, intelligent and engaging as pure ambient gets, and actually much more diverse in approach too - a vast and compelling soundtrack to the void between stars.

Favourite Track: Three Years Ago

17. Richard Durand – Always The Sun
(May / Magik Muzik)

An album which slightly perplexed to begin with – beyond the final 4 tracks or so (Silver Key through to Dr. Gorgo), where was the Richard Durand we remember from the days of Ledged Up, Inside My Brain and Any Time? What I realised pretty quickly was that this is actually a really refreshing and original approach to progressive trance music – rich, melodic and warm, building seamlessly and steadily towards those harder sounds we’ve come to expect from tech trance’s rising star.

Favourite Track: Into Something

16. Cosmic Gate – Sign of The Times
(March / Black Hole Recordings)

Another evolution for German duo, Cosmic Gate – leaving the hard trance of Rhythm & Drums and No More Sleep firmly behind them and taking the moodier tech of Earth Mover in a more progressive/vocal direction, typical of trance’s current trends. A very solid collection of buzzing basslines, simple hooks and plush vocals.

Favourite Track: F.A.V.

15. Day.Din – A Place To Be Real
(February / Spintwist Records)

Hamburg isn’t just home to dance music funsters turned jumpstyle charlatans, Scooter; thankfully, it’s home to some top notch progressive psy as well. In A Place To Be Real, Deniz Aydin delivered some highly atmospheric and textured trance music alongside some funkier, electro-fused numbers.

Favourite Track: Dance With Me

14. Soliquid – Transportation
(March / Baroque Records)

An outstandingly diverse mixture of progressive material from 24 year old David Biczók, containing some really obvious Orbital and Chicane overtones in places. This was a debut album that showed bags of ideas and production flair – this Hungarian really is one to watch in progressive trance music, as he understands his genre down to the very last detail.

Favourite Track: Mosquito

13. Gui Boratto – Take My Breath Away
(March / Kompakt)

Direct from São Paulo, this was an effortless blend of minimal, tech house and chilled moods which had a beautiful balance between shades of darkness and light. Sometimes quite sunny, sometimes moving into the shadows, but consistently calming and restful.

Favourite Track: Ballroom

12. Ovnimoon – Geometric Poetry
(August / Iono Music)

An exceptionally, and I mean exceptionally, deep and cerebral progressive psy record from Chilean, Hector Stuardo. Hypnotic music that just melts into the atmosphere.

Favourite Track: Sacred Earth

11. Phony Orphants – Computer Music
(November / Iboga Records)

A very late entry from my point-of-view, and an album I picked up on by chance when I randomly decided to search on discogs.com for new Iboga releases. And I’m thoroughly glad I did because Iboga have outdone themselves yet again. Carefully straddling that hazy line between straight- down-the-middle progressive and psychedelic progressive, this album is impeccably clean sounding, full of character and incredibly danceable.

Favourite Track: Party Girl

10. Zombie Nation – Zombielicious
(March / UKW)

I feel slightly sorry for Munich-based producer, Florian Senfter. While most artists would be delighted to have had a hit as big as Kernkraft 400, the Dj Gius remix of that track that went on to become such a huge chart hit has criminally overshadowed the rest of his work ever since. Those less familiar with his discography see the name Zombie Nation as a complete and utter one hit wonder. Funnily enough, apparently, it wasn’t even a remix Senfter fully approved of himself. Way back in 2000, as a musically underdeveloped 13 year old, I bought ZN’s first album, Leichenschmaus, simply on the strength of Kernkraft 400. In truth, that first record, produced alongside Emanuel Guenther, was far too weird for any 13 year old to fully appreciate. It really is a twisted, gothic trip, like the soundtrack to some fucked up, and deliberately amusing, vampire B-movie. And it took many years of listening to the delicately freakish rhythms of Abflex User and Rythm Box, endlessly mulling over the absurd lyrics of TV Control and reading the sleeve note’s stories of women queuing up to give zombies blowjobs before I began to grasp what it was ZN was offering as a concept. Psychologically, this went way way deeper than Kernkraft's simple, but very effective, Commodore 64 hook.

Since going it solo, Florian has grown a lot. After producing his finest album, Absorber, which was faintly disturbing but nowhere near as screwed up as Leichenschmaus, at the end of 2006, the project shifted into more “dancefloor-friendly” territory. Still dark, still sinister but something more capable of getting a club crowd moving – the Frankenstein’s monster of electronic music had picked up its glow sticks. But not all of Black Toys grabbed me in the same way the first two albums had.

This year’s release, Zombielicious, is a clear and unmistakable continuation of Black Toys. Techno-fused house music with a freakishly contorted but playful smile – full of stabs, filters and distortions – and, what’s more, even more conducive to the workings of a dancefloor. And, overall, it’s just a higher quality, more consistent record than Black Toys. It borrows more subtly from Absorber than its predecessor and yet, in the shape of tracks like Worth It and Forza, goes for the jugular more. So, for long-term followers like myself, Zombielicious is Florian’s most exciting record for a while and the start of Zombie Nation realising its potential as a more dancefloor orientated project; For newcomers, it’s probably his most accessible record to date.

Favourite Track: Get It

9. Depeche Mode – Sounds Of The Universe
(April / Mute Records Ltd.)

I have a strange relationship with Depeche Mode. For a lot of people they are the pinnacle in electronic music. They were one of the first groups to successfully marry electronic music production with genuine, meaningful song-writing in the traditional sense. But I actually find Depeche Mode a little hit and miss. Their best tracks – let’s say, my favourite 20-30 songs – are incredible, top-of-the-shelf, song writing. Songs I can enjoy again and again and again. The rest of their material, for me, ranges from listenable right through to insipidly forgettable. By the same token, while I can pick out great songs from all their albums, only Violator, Some Great Reward and maybe Construction Time Again really move and shake me from the first to last notes. For that reason, I awaited Sounds Of The Universe more in hope than expectation.

And at first, it did have that hit and miss quality, where half the tracks were amazing and the other half were let down by either weak choruses or disappointing verse parts. But there was something about this record which kept drawing me back and the more I gave it chance the more it revealed itself. And I think that’s the key thing with this album. It’s not an “obvious” album. So, unless the mere sound of Dave Gahan’s voice automatically and instantaneously melts you to your knees, which let’s face it is something reserved for the more fanatical, female echelons of DM’s fan base, then this album was unlikely to have you singing its praises after one listen. But it still contained all of those classic DM trademarks, including that unique sense of rejoicing in cynicism, hidden sadism and confused moral ambivalence which bubbles under the surface - idiosyncrasies that sum up the human condition. And, who knows? Maybe this is the album that will eventually convince me to give some of their older albums more of a chance. Maybe they aren’t so hit and miss after all.

Either way, as I see things now, Sounds Of The Universe was their finest effort since the mighty Violator, an album that will be 20 years old this coming April.... Oh, and I suppose the most puzzling thing about Sounds Of The Universe, something I shouldn’t neglect to mention, was the fact that Ghost didn’t make it onto the main album. How the fuck it only ended up as a bonus track I will never know!

Favourite Track: Wrong

8. Infected Mushroom - Legend Of The Black Shawarma
(September / HOM-Mega Productions)

Dividing opinion is becoming quite a serious habit for Infected Mushroom. And it seems clear it’s something they enjoy doing. Vicious Delicious was a record that struck that divide more definitively than any IM album before it. It was an album I had mixed feelings about, both when it was released and now. A number of tracks hit the pleasure points harder than ever before; a couple of tracks were a tad painful to listen to. And, while it has grown on me massively over the course of the last year or so, I've always felt as if there was some magic IM ingredient missing. Strangely, I still can’t quite put my finger on what that ingredient is.

But, even more strangely, IM’s 2009 offering, Legend Of The Black Shawarma both pushes in stylistic directions that I wouldn’t normally welcome yet, at the same time, actually has that mystery ingredient that was missing from Vicious Delicious. More so than ever before, there are strong metal overtones in Infected Mushroom’s material, overtones which go beyond the heavy use of guitars, and it continues to “mess around’ with the accepted rules of trance music, so much so that it almost isn’t psy-trance anymore. But it’s also surprisingly trippy in places, and in a way that is more intelligent and mature than people give them credit for. In other words, it’s trippy in a way that is in keeping with the rest of the album’s style and, in keeping with a trend they set on IM The Supervisor, the most psychedelic sequences are normally saved for the final 2 minutes or so of tracks. And there are parts of the track Project 100 that almost have something of Juno Reactor about them, while at the same time showing some of IM’s typically playful touches amongst all the satanic guitar riffs. Killing time aside, from about Can’t stop onwards, and even more so from Project 100 onwards, Legend Of The Black Shawarma takes you on more of a journey than Vicious Delicious did. And maybe it’s that combination of tougue-in-cheek playfulness along with that sense of being taken on a psychedelic journey, a psychedelic journey which is of course a million miles away from the kind of psychedelic journey Simon Posford might take you on, that is the main component of the magic that I can’t quite put my finger on in Vicious Delicious.

Many have said it’s getting closer to “pop music”. Well, maybe the lead single Smashing The Opponent, a collaboration with KoЯn front man, Jonathan Davis, is a lot more radio friendly than anything they’ve ever produced, but, despite the added accessibility factor that using metal overtones is always going to give, for me, this record is still far too twisted, humorously fucked up and aggressive to be called “pop music”. Not strictly trance, maybe, but still far too weird to be “pop”.

Favourite Track: Slowly

7. The Qemists – Join The Q
(January / Ninja Tune)

2009 had barely kicked off and Brighton trio, The Qemists, landed sharply and explosively with their debut album, Join The Q. I was already a massive fan of the group’s earlier singles on Ninja Tune, the likes of Stompbox, Iron Shirt and Let There Be Light. I’m always in the market for drum & bass with those big, rocky, Pendulum-esque qualities, so those earlier Qemist singles really wet my appetite. Thinking back, I reckon I must have heard The Qemists were producing an album as early as the summer of 2008, so I’d been digging about on the net looking for information about its release for at least 6 months. But despite the wait, its arrival was still explosive. Admittedly, some tracks like Stompbox, When Ur Lonely and Drop Audio were already very familiar, and it is a disappointingly short album, but still, its high energy fusion of jump up, rock and dancehall really hits the spot.

The comparisons people draw between this album and Pendulum’s In Silico are perfectly fair, yet the fact that it features a number of guest vocalists (rather than just the voice of Rob Swire) and its dancehall/hip-hop moments do separate it from In Silico and give it its own distinctive feel. Strangely, these guys, as far as I can see, haven’t managed to attract the same kind of scorn that seems to follow Pendulum around. Maybe Pendulum hitting the limelight first has taken some of the pressure off. Maybe the touches brought by the likes of Wiley, MC Navigator and, the human drum machine that is, BeardyMan make it an album more in keeping with the “London-centric” mainstream trends in the UK. Maybe, as some have suggested, Join The Q is the “real” drum & bass-rock combo that Pendulum failed in producing with In Silico. Personally, I wouldn’t say Pendulum failed. In fact, I probably slightly prefer In Silico over Join The Q, but only slightly, and I still love the latter’s intensity, vigour and full sound. It was everything I expected and more. And at least we can say, if Pendulum do ever dissolve into “just another rock group”, we’ll still have the boys from Brighton.

Favourite Track: Lost Weekend

6. Push – Global Age
(June / Armada Music)

There was once a time in melodic trance music when it was much more fashionable to be delicate and understated. Nowadays, “uplifting” or “melodic” trance music tends to be fairly loud, brash and upfront, with high tempos, pulsing basslines and kickbacks that hit you between the eyes. I don’t mean that as a criticism at all – I myself am a big fan of the likes of Sean Tyas, Activa and JOC. But there is a sense now that everyone making trance music is doing it in that “clean cut” way, with the same formulas, and by being subtle or just more "housey" putting themselves in the progressive camp or by being harder and more upfront putting themselves in that so-called “uplifting” camp. Very few are pursuing older sounds and creating trance music that is both progressively layered and yet highly melodic throughout.

That is why, for me, Push’s Global Age was such a refreshing musical experience. It’s like reliving the “golden era” all over again. Tracks like Back To The Essence, Trance Indicator, Trance-Tastic and, lead single, Interference are so carefully layered and constructed, building towards fantastic high points of euphoria without frenetically racing to get there. Its trance music that is capable of totally filling a room with rich, full and uplifting sound without pounding away frantically for its entire duration. In fact, the track title Back To The Essence pretty much sums this album up. Global Age really does capture something fundamental about “proper” trance music – if there is such a thing – trance music as it was originally conceived. Simple melodic sequences made extraordinarily moving through the complex layering of those sequences. Interestingly, there is actually a Sean Tyas remix of Interference on the album which, if you compare to the rest of Push’s original works, clearly marks the difference between what’s going on in trance today and what trance started out as... But, having said that, because it’s a remix of Interference it’s probably as subtle and as layered as we’ve ever heard from a Tyas remix. All in all, an album that those of us who are old enough to remember listening to trance back in 1998/99 were absolutely crying out for, some of us without even realising it.

Favourite Track: Back To The Essence

5. Yagya – Rigning
(January / Sending Orbs)

Few albums have generated as much hype amongst my last.fm friends and neighbours as this record by Icelandic producer Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson. In electronic circles, everyone seemed to be talking about it. And, as it turned out, with good reason. I must admit, Yagya was a completely new name for me. And looking at Rigning’s bland artwork and strange track titles, counting from one to ten in Icelandic, I was not filled with optimism. But the music itself is truly spell-binding. It reminded me of so many other artists I’ve grown to love over the last few years, like a much more ambient but less dark alternative to Burial, with touches of Boards of Canada, some of Biosphere’s ambient house and even some of Pete Namlook’s material.

Rigning literally means “rain” in Icelandic, and, without doubt, that is the album’s theme. The sound of soft rainfall moves in and out of earshot, mingling with delicate pads and distant pulsating bass. You know that feeling of comfort you get when you are safe inside a warm house and you look outside a window to see a downpour outside, the puddles forming as anoraked figures, made anonymous by their plastic hoods, walk steadily and aimlessly down the weather-beaten coastline. That, for me, is exactly what Rigning is the soundtrack to. And I think it tackles its subject matter in a pleasantly positive way. Although some of the tracks are strangely haunting, it still gives you a bizarre optimism and confidence, a sense that if you were to go out into the rain and become one of those anonymously anoraked rain-walkers you would remain safe, dry and comforted. Us lot in the UK are always talking about the weather and always moaning about the relentless rain we get. After listening to Rigning, I couldn’t help but think, “Bring on the rain.”

Favourite Track: Rigning Sex

4. Marco V – Propaganda v2
(November / In Charge)

The V-man promised 2 albums of new material in 2009 and the original master of tech trance duly delivered. I didn’t see the point of using up 2 spots in this list to chart them both, so I’ve decided to just choose the better of the two. Part 1 of Propaganda impressed me pretty much straight away and the style of that installment, as well as his two recent collaborations with Sander van Doorn, had me convinced that he and Van Doorn were now singing pretty much from the same song sheet. Like Sander’s Supernaturalistic from last year, Part 1 was percussively tight, distinctly groovy and ever so slightly dark. I loved it. But with v2 Marco not only turned up the heat, but gave us a truer reflection of the Big V’s musical world; Ever so slightly less percussively driven, less overtly groovy but even darker, even moodier, even louder, even more of an attack on the senses, loaded with big tech synth lines – raw, aggressive and dancefloor rocking.

Having said that, the differences between parts 1 and 2 shouldn’t be overstated, because overall they aren’t a million miles from each other. They are opposite sides of the same coin, so to speak. But at the same time, specific tracks like How You Feeling? and Fantastic Damage are so much more reminiscent of the classic Marco sets which made the Dutchman such a household name in trance music. Part 2 is just that little bit less like Sander and more like himself. And the fact that Marco has not just thrown out 2 albums of mediocrity studded with the occasional single-worthy gem and instead carefully showcased both sides of his versatile musical persona is testament to his hard work and impeccable standards.

To me, it’s interesting how the likes of Armin van Buuren, Ferry Corsten and Markus Schulz, in particular because of their popular radio shows, stay in the consciousness of trance fans week-in-week-out. Whereas with Marco, he tends to slip off our radar... but when he releases an album as epic as 200V or Propaganda, or whenever we see him DJ, we are instantly reminded that he is as much of a heavyweight as any of the other trance dons. With Propaganda v2, Marco V essentially says, “Don’t worry, guys – The V-man’s still here.”

Favourite Track: How You Feeling?

3. The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die
(February / Take Me To The Hospital)

In electronic music, there hasn’t been a more widely anticipated album... maybe ever. Liam Howlett hadn’t released a record since 2004 and hadn’t produced one alongside MCs Maxim and Keith Flint since 1997. I’m actually one of the few electronic music fans out there that appreciated Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned for what it was; a fresh and different direction for Liam Howlett and an expertly produced electro-fest which gave us “Nu-Rave” sounds before the disgusting phrase had even been coined. But, even the most hardcore Prodigy fans out there had to admit, there was definitely something missing. So, for many it was almost as if this was the first “real” Prodigy album since The Fat of the Land... we had been waiting over 11 years.

And was it worth the wait? Fuck, yes! I won’t be as bold to say this is the best album The Prodigy have ever produced, but it is by far the most intense. It’s more frantic than ever before, more violent than ever before and, for the most part, nosier than ever before. And, for me, it really is a quite deliberate amalgamation of old and new. It’s the early rave synths of Experience meets the aggressive coolness of The Fat of the Land meets the more cutting edge production of Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned. And I think the main reason a small section of breaks fans shunned this new offering was that the only Prodigy record which cannot really be heard on Invaders Must Die is the much cherished and venerated Music For The Jilted Generation. So it wasn’t long before the widely predicted criticism of “too much like Pendulum” got wheeled out. But, I suppose, there was only so much you could have squeezed into this “discographical melting-pot” before it started sounding contrived and disjointed – thankfully, this record is neither of those two things. Personally, the only real criticism I could find for Invaders Must Die was ... well, it’s too short. Minus the bonus tracks, it’s barely 46 minutes long – even shorter than The Qemists’ Join The Q. But it’s a high octane 3 quarters of an hour, 3 quarters of an hour that I struggle to sit still for. Once again, testament to the old adage that good things come to those who wait...and great things come to those who wait even longer.

Favourite Track: Take Me To The Hospital

2. Solar Fields – Movements
(January / Ultimae Records)

In 2007, Swedish producer Magnus Birgersson moved out of his comfort zone and produced one of the most surprising records of that year. Earthshine was very much a progressive trance album, something you don’t necessarily expect from either Magnus or Ultimae Records. But, thankfully, it was a pleasant surprise. It showed the man’s versatility and got some people appreciating a genre they never thought they would. With Movements, however, Birgersson moved back into his comfort zone, back to his blissful brand of epic chillout. And he, once again, showed why he is one of the most important producers in electronic music today; producing what is, for me, his finest piece of work to date. In fact, it’s head and shoulders above anything he’s ever produced, containing all his usual elements and nuisances but with less of the glitch/IDM and a more obvious dose of idyllic melody. Its melodies are so distinctive and so well executed. By Solar Fields standards, it is a relentlessly positive and uplifting collection of tracks. It ebbs and flows more effortlessly, there’s a greater sense of “progression” and, while it’s still deep, it isn’t quite so dark. And, in a way, that sense of “progression” almost feels like the most important and lasting legacy of EarthShine. It’s almost as if EarthShine, while not being everyone’s cup of tea, has really helped Magnus grow as a producer. And I seriously believe that in 5-10 years time we’ll be talking about Movements as one of the finest out-and-out chillout records ever produced (in the same company as Substrata, Dreamtime Return and 76:14), and maybe the finest record ever released on Ultimae… And that’s saying a lot because we all know how life-changing and genre-redefining Carbon Based Lifeforms, Asura and Aes Dana’s releases on Ultimae have been.

Favourite Track: The Road to Nothingness

1. Shpongle – Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland
(November / Twisted Records)

After listening to Solar Fields – Movements for the first couple of times way back in January, I knew straight away that it was going to take one almighty album to beat it to my album of the year slot. And looking at the list of albums due for release that year, I also knew that the only man capable of delivering such an album was Simon Posford of Twisted Records. A fresh trip into the fucked up world of Shpongle had been on the cards for a while and we all knew when it arrived it would be worth its weight in gold.

The thing that struck me about this new album was that it seemed to be an album of extremes. In other words, the album seems to drift quite effortlessly between music that is absolutely the most psychedelic Posford has ever produced and passages of music which aren’t particularly psychedelic at all. Some will say that that is the case with all Shpongle albums, but to me it’s even more evident on this album. And I don’t necessarily mean that as a negative – it actually provides a key element of balance. Because, while glitchy openings like the one in Shpongolese Spoken Here are mind-fuckingly unbelievable, an hour of such intensely psychedelic music could really cause your head to cave in. Posford has continued to push the technological boundaries with Ineffable Mysteries but not pushed them for the sake of pushing them. Shpongle has thus retained its extraordinarily multi-dimensional texture; the juxtaposition of beauty and weirdness, of the subtle and the obvious, of the simple and the complex, of worldliness and otherworldliness. This album also has some surprising shades of Ott and Younger Brother, at least surprising in the sense that these shades have never really fully materialised in Shpongle’s previous records. Yet, as always, Raja’s mesmerising flute solos, those familiar ethnic vocal touches and Posford’s insane manipulation of samples make Ineffable Mysteries as Shponglised as ever. And, of course, there is a new sound that reoccurs briefly in tracks 4 to 6 which can only be described as “the Marching Brass Section of the Elves and Goblins”, which feels oh-so fresh, but is oh-so weird and oh-so Shpongle.

Once again, electronic music production in a different stratosphere, on a different planet. Extraordinary, utterly discombobulating music – music that conveys a universe you can’t even begin to vocalise. Psyshop.com rather aptly described it as being “like separating water from its wetness.” Reality has well and truly been ripped at the seams and we’ve been sucked through the resulting cosmic schism into Shpongleland. If that last sentence sounded like anti-scientific, pseudo-religious nonsense to you then clearly... you are yet to be Shpongled.

Favourite Track: No Turn Un-Stoned

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ALBUMS - THE HONOURABLE MENTIONS

10 albums that deserve a shout... in no particular order:

Marco Torrance – Dreamland Society
(February / Cardamar Music) (Chillout / Downtempo Trance)
John O'Callaghan – Never Fade Away
(May / Armada Music) (Trance / Tech Trance / Chillout)
Marcus Schossow – Outside The Box
(September / Tone Diary Recordings) (Progressive Trance / Tech Trance)
Activa – This World
(October / Discover) (Trance / Chillout)
Blue Pilots Project – Reboot
(August / Klik Records) (Chillout / Lounge)
Bio-Tonic – Music For Animals
(May / Planet B.E.N. Records) (Full-on Psychedelic)
Minoru – Minoru
(January / Iono Music) (Progressive Trance)
Dash Berlin – The New Daylight
(October / Armada Music) (Progressive Trance / Trance)
Union Jack – Pylon Pigs
(September / Platipus) (Progressive Trance / Chillout)
Logistics – Crash Bang Wallop!
(September / Hospital Records) (Drum & Bass / Dupstep)

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TOP 20 TRANCE, PROGRESSIVE AND TECH TRANCE TUNES OF 2009

1. Jochen Miller – Brace Yourself
(August / High Contrast Recordings)
2. Richard Durand – Into Something (Fall Down Mix)
(February / Magik Muzik)
3. Sander van Doorn presents Purple Haze – Bliksem
(July / Doorn Records)
4. Randy Katana – The Hype
(June / Reset Records)
5. Redd Square – Digital Acoustics (Onova Remix)
(August / Monster Tunes)
6. Jan Oostdyk – Out Of The Box
(April / High Contrast Nu Breed)
7. DJ Eco – Lost Angeles (Breakfast Remix)
(February / Lunatique)
8. Gaia – Tuvan
(October / Armind)
9. Marcus Schossow – Kaboom
(July / Tone Diary Recordings)
10. Claudia Cazacu feat. Audrey Gallagher – Freefalling
(June / Armind)
11. Simon Patterson – Thump
(February / Reset Records)
12. Karanda – Karanda (Astuni & Manuel Le Saux Remix)
(September / Inov8 Recordings)
13. Josh Gabriel Presents Winter Kills – Deep Down (Alex M.O.R.P.H. Remix)
(September / Different Pieces)
14. Gareth Emery – Exposure
(May / Garuda)
15. Rex Mundi feat. Susana – Nothing At All
[August / Coldharbour Recordings]
16. Lange vs. Andy Moor – Stadium Four
(September / AVA Recordings)
17. Ron Hagen & Pascal M - Riddles In The Sand
(September / A State Of Trance)
18. Thomas Bronzwaer - Look Ahead
(July / A State Of Trance)
19. Tritonal – Cloudbase (Air Up There Remix)
(June / Levare Recordings)
20. Dr. Willis – What Goes Up (Nick Larson Remix)
(October / Traffic Tunes)

Producer Of The Year 2009:

3. Tritonal
2. Jochen Miller
1. Marco V

Superstar DJ Award 2009:

3. Jordan Suckley
2. Sander van Doorn
1. Armin van Buuren

Label Of The Year 2009: High Contrast Recordings
"One To Watch" for 2010: Jordan Suckley

N.B. - If you’d like a copy of my “That Was 2009” trance mix, which features the 20 tracks charted above plus more of my trance and progressive favourites from this year, don’t hesitate to drop me a message - either in the comments section of this entry or via PM. I would be happy to upload it for people.

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TOP 20 UK HARD DANCE TUNES OF 2009

1. Trevor Dans & The Trance Bunny - Peak Start
(September / Pitch Bend Digital)
2. Sebastien – Implosive State
(October / Electrik Shandy Recordings)
3. John Ridout & Adrenaline Dept. – E-motion
(November / Encoded)
4. david ding – Batter
(February / Electrik Shandy Recordings)
5. Ben Townsend – Bump In The Night
(July / Vicious Circle)
6. Rich Resonate - Cydonia Nights
(March / Toolbox Recordings)
7. LD Concept – Backlash
(January / Inertia Digital)
8. Louis Fernio – Underground
(June / Toolbox Recordings)
9. Rednoise - Shining In The Ecstasy
(March / Experimento Digital)
10. Sambo – Imagination
(April / Electrik Shandy Recordings)
11. ROCKIN RUSS – Warehouse Party
(March / Toolbox Recordings)
12. John Ridout & Ross Self - And The Demons Come (Carl Nicholson's Broader Remix)
(January / Ringleader Interplanetary Productions)
13. Scott Genetik – Hybrid
(October / Pitch Bend Digital)
14. Emilio – Immense
(August / Audio Hedz Recordings)
15. Tom Parr – Ladyboys
(November / AWsum)
16. Sheldon Ives – 4 Letter Word
(July / Impact Recordings)
17. Elements vs. Alex Mac & Zeebra Kid - Harmonise (Iridium Remix)
(April / Encoded)
18. Paul Maddox - Phaserblade
(April / Vicious Circle)
19. LD Concept – Rise Above
(January / Inertia Digital)
20. April & Technikal – Mad Glow
(June / Traffic Records)

Producer Of The Year Award 2009:

3. Rich Resonate
2. Iridium
1. Adrenaline Dept.

Superstar DJ Award 2009:

3. Karim
2. Rodi Style
1. Proteus

Label Of The Year 2009: Electrik Shandy Recordings
"One To Watch" for 2010: Kye Shand

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TOP 20 FULL-ON PSY TUNES OF 2009

1. Bio-Tonic – Disco Boss
(May / Planet B.E.N. Records)
2. Save The Robot – So Real
(March / Farm Records)
3. Infected Mushroom – Slowly
(September / HOM-Mega Productions)
4. Sick Addiction – Cleaning Up The Place
(January / Trance Karma Records)
5. Mahamudra vs. White Noise – Sexy Body Move
(July / Tactic Records)
6. Infected Mushroom – Smashing The Opponent (XI Remix)
(June / HOM-Mega Productions)
7. War – Low Rider (Save The Robot Remix)
(March / Farm Records)
8. Soniq Vision – Outer Universe
(June / Utopia Records)
9. Bio-Tonic – Bufferfly
(May / Planet B.E.N. Records)
10. Perplex vs. Intersys – Switchback
(March / Utopia Records)
11. Bliss - Funksick
(July / Drive Records)
12. Mahamudra – Logitech
(July / Tactic Records)
13. Infected Mushroom – Sa’eed
(September / HOM-Mega Productions)
14. Freaked Frequency – Everything Seems Unreal
(September / Utopia Records)
15. Soniq Vision – MelodiX
(June / Utopia Records)
16. Infected Mushroom – Can’t Stop
(September / HOM-Mega Productions)
17. Sick Addiction – Monkey Business
(January / Trance Karma Records)
18. Future Prophecy – Dracula
(January / Phonokol)
19. Vibe Tribe vs. Protoculture – Electrified
(April / Com.Pact Records)
20. DNA vs. Meital MD – Turn Me Off
(March / Phonokol)

Psy-Trance Compilation of 2009: Genesis

Producer Of The Year 2009: Infected Mushroom
"One To Watch" for 2010: Faders

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TOP 20 ELECTRO-HOUSE TUNES OF 2009

1. X-Press 2 – Lazy (Lazy Rich Remix)
(November / Serious Beats)
2. Electrixx – Tetris
(June / EXX Records)
3. Ultra Flirt - The Time Is Now 2009 (Dany Wild Remix)
(March / Mental Madness)
4. Frederik Olufsen - Ball (Lazy Rich Remix)
(November / Big Fish Recordings)
5. Funk K - Dirty Cash 2009 (Extended Mix)
(March / Digidance)
6. Wolfgang Gartner - Wolfgang's 5th Symphony
(September / Kindergarten)
7. Mike Candys & Jack Holiday - Push The Feeling On (Electro Vectro Remix)
(October / Wombatmusic)
8. Dirty Poilitics - Call Of The Wild (Lazy Rich Remix)
(October / Audio Planet Recordings)
9. Dabruck & Klein feat. Stafford Brothers - Open Up Your Arms
(April / We Play)
10. Paul van Dyk - For An Angel (Spencer & Hill Remix)
(September / New State Recordings)
11. Klaas meets Haddaway – What Is Love 2k9 (Klaas Impact Mix)
(July / Coconut Music)
12. Che DuBois - Freaky To Me (Soundpusher Remix)
(March / Bugeyed Records)
13. Stonewash & Fagault - Hey Lady (Miles Dyson Remix)
(July / Plasmapool)
14. Laurent Wolf - No Stress (Ortega & Gold Remix)
(May / All Around The World)
15. Kurd Maverick - Blue Monday (Vandalism Remix)
(March / Data Records)
16. PH Electro - San Francisco
(November / YAWA Recordings)
17. Rustler – Around The World (Mark Simmons Remix)
(September / Tiger Records)
18. Comiccon - Luvstruck
(January / Zooland Records)
19. Stefy De Cicco feat. Tom Stone - Keep It On (Avangarde)
(July / Move Rec.)
20. Aurum Beats - Square (Electro House Beat Mix)
(March / Sundesire Records)

Producer Of The Year 2009: Lazy Rich
"One To Watch" for 2010: errrr.... Lazy Rich?
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And that was 2009... A truly blinding year for music, particularly for trance. Not necessarily full of surprises, but, more than ever, diverse and full of quality – Well, the New Years’ Resolutions have been made, review journal and mix done.... Bring on 2010!

Merry Christmas one and all....... See you next year!

SO LONG … AND THANKS FOR ALL THE TUNES (2009)

Sat, 3 Oct 2009 11:24:20 +0000

SO LONG … AND THANKS FOR ALL THE TUNES

Now, looking at the title of this journal, you’d be forgiven for thinking that I was on the brink of giving up on last.fm, this being a sort of self-indulgent “suicide note”. That isn’t the case. Like the two journals that precede it, this entry could end up being ever so slightly narcissistic, but it’s not intended as a goodbye. More a series of New Year’s Resolutions, 3 months early – in addition to a few more things I need to get off my chest. Musically speaking, I’ve just reached a personal juncture, a crossroads where a journal doesn’t just feel appropriate, but essential for my sanity. As Depeche Mode put it, it’s a question of time, of how much time a person can afford to invest enriching their own musical life. Music plays an important part in a lot of people’s lives. Many of us here on last.fm are beyond obsessed and last.fm itself further fuels that obsession. But, as I’ll go on to explain, I need to start channeling that obsession a little better. If the last 3 or 4 years have been an Open University course in the world of electronic music, then at this point I have to accept that I have well and truly graduated. It’s time to take what I’ve earned, consolidate and move on. It’s time for a change. But first, one last amble through my musical consciousness… Be warned though, this is not a journal of sunshine and rainbows all the way. In fact, brace yourself for some pretty brutal generalisations and a dose of, to borrow a phrase from George Carlin, “free floating hostility”.

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1.THE STATE OF MAINSTREAM MUSIC
2.IBIZA 2009
3.CLUBBING & ITS FUTURE IN THE UK
4.DOWNLOADING MUSIC & ACHIEVEING MUSICAL KARMA
5.THANK YOU LAST.FM

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1.THE STATE OF MAINSTREAM MUSIC

Art isn't a commodity that you haul in and out ... like dildos
- Dean Learner

Philosophical problem for you… If a manufactured pop band replace all their original members over the course of 11 years, are they still the Sugababes? Answers on a postcard please. May I also draw your attention to the fact that each departing member’s replacement has been that little more attractive than the person they replaced. Of course, the testosterone fueled male in me isn’t complaining, but the music purist does die a little bit inside. Because according to their bio on last.fm, “Sugababes are widely credited as being the UK’s most credible girl group, and their audience spans a huge demographic.” Well, my response to that is, if sampling Right Said Fred and replacing all 3 original band members without changing your name is credible in the world of UK girl groups then what about is not credible in the world of UK girl groups. But that bio is indeed correct. Their passable, if hit-and-miss, pop output is as credible as it gets. This, my friends, is a tantalising glimpse into the world of mainstream music.

Attacking mainstream music is obviously very fashionable these days. But the fashion, or the “sport” if you want, is not normally that of deconstructing what it is that is “abhorrent” about the current mainstream, but simply of bashing certain artists for seemingly joining the ranks of the “sell outs”, for essentially departing their core scene and becoming more popular. In other words, people decide they dislike artist X for being mainstream before they actually decide what it is about the mainstream that is so anti-music. The question people don’t often ask themselves is, is the mainstream against the spirit of music because of the very nature of what it means to be mainstream or are “we” just doing something wrong? Is the mainstream just controlled by the wrong people for the wrong people? More to the point, can it only be controlled by the wrong people?

As I say, some people just don’t like popularity. That’s not the problem I have with the UK mainstream as it is exists now. The problem I have with it is the apparent insincerity and general insipidness that emanate from most parts of it. The institution that most typifies those problems for me is BBC Radio One, the UK’s national, government funded bastion of youth culture. In my current job I often put the radio on to help the hours pass. Being a massive sports fan I tend to listen to TalkSport at home, but at work I can tell that the poor medium wave signal and constant adverts annoy the people I work with. To keep people happy Radio One inevitably goes on. But by the end of the week, hearing the same 10 songs day in day out and listening to Edith Bowman’s rabbiting on about how “awesome” everything and everyone is really starts to take its toll.

To me, Radio One’s daytime playlist is particularly limited in terms of numbers. Currently, their A-List contains 20 tracks. And the vast majority of the tracks you’ll hear on daytime Radio One are from that playlist. And that playlist changes VERY slowly from month to month. Considering how much is going on in the world of music at any given time and given how many great songs from years gone by that could be played, this seems pretty limited to me. Often, even if you hear a song on Radio One that you vaguely like, you can guarantee that they’ll play the record so many times throughout the month that you’ll end up hating it. But I wonder whether the rest of the population is getting bored of the same 10-20 songs day after day. And if they aren’t, why aren’t they? Is the UK population that easily entertained, that bereft of a need for variety or that starved of imagination? Surely, most real music fans need far more musical nutrition than is provided by daytime Radio One. But still people listen.

And what about the music itself? Well, it’s almost as if by blurring the lines between “commercial” and “underground” and making the mainstream “hip”, “sexy” and “indiefied”, the mainstream has sold its soul. Now it’s clichés plucked from every represented genre rolled into one homogenous ball of clichés, a hybrid of super clichés: Indie bands with lead singers that can’t sing and play the same chord over and over again, indie songs with choruses that sound like they were intended for the terraces of football grounds, R’n’B collaborations with whiny “emo” choruses, wall-to-wall autotune and robotic clapping percussion, over-stated but under-produced electro, mockey-cockney singers half rapping about living in “Landan”…

These clichés are all well and good within their own genres but when, for example, David Guetta produces a track with Akon, the clichés from electro, R’n’B and pop music join to create a horrible mess of stereotypes. Middle-class “studenty” music, British and American black music and various types of miscellaneous dance music don’t just stand together but are copying each other. And not in the interests of art, but in the interests of taping into all the available avenues of image and accessibility. Artistic merit is lost in favour of pulling together predictabilities and “ticking the right boxes”. And while BBC Radio One does claim to try and give diversity with its daytime playlist, I still think most of the tracks they select for their playlists conform to a broad formula of fashionable clichés.

I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve said to myself “who buys this shit?” But I now know who buys it. And its not necessarily kids of between about 7-16 anymore. I remember the days when one of the main functions of the mainstream was to get the next generation of genuine music lovers passionate about music from a very early age by spoon-feeding them exceptionally cheesey but annoyingly memorable pop records. Getting kids into music by bombarding them with music videos, lip syncing “live” music shows and hopeless dance routines. That was excusable, almost necessary. But that’s not the primary target audience anymore. The mainstream now attempts to cater for an age demographic that in years gone by would have long since flown the nest and developed its own sense of musical freedom and individuality. We have a new group of music “fans” in this country who, well into their early twenties, male and female, are happy to be spoon-fed the same banal, image conscious bullshit day in day out.

There are two groups who buy this shit: Studenty middle-class indie hipsters who can’t appreciate a record before its coolness has been ratified by Jo Whiley, Zane Lowe or NME, the types that pitch up at music festivals like Glastonbury year in year out more for the kudos of saying they were there than genuine passion for the music that is on show; And, on the other end of the spectrum, airhead “blondes” whose hobbies include dancing provocatively in clubs playing David Guetta, buying overpriced shoes and giving handjobs to complete strangers, the types that follow the “careers” of Katie Price and Peter Andre as if they’re both genuinely talented and important people. And that includes the utter twats who shed crocodile tears for Michael Jackson, people who, until he died, were only interested in his bizarre celebrity private life and not his unique musical talent and now, to continue the soap opera, pretend to mourn him like a family member… We all saw it.

This is the new mainstream 17+ demographic. And I actually think it’s that second group that is most consistently appealed to. Undiluted and sexual charged post-feminist girl power and vomit-inducingly “sensitive” new age men whining about their doomed relationships and about how their “hearts won’t beat again” … the girls love it.

And that’s the difference, for me. The concept of “the mainstream” is not anti-music per se. It’s just that today’s mainstream is full of, and support by, so many people who are either painfully insincere and fickle or just generally dumb when it comes to music. That’s what’s so anti-music, in my opinion. Anti-music in the same way hero-worshipping one or two artists is anti-music.

But what skin is it off my nose? I and most of my closest mates have flown the mainstream nest. So, it’s not me that loses out in all this. Well, maybe just a small amount of short term discomfort whenever I’m forced to listen to Radio One or get dragged into a shit mainstream club. But as I say, my main point is that the mainstream doesn’t have to be shit, it just happens to be shit at the moment, and shit in a way that is that little bit more unpleasant, superficial and, when it wants to be, shamefully sycophantic.

Some people will say what I’ve just written here is pure snobbery. Maybe it is. But music is such a wonderfully self-expressive medium, such an amazing way of defining your own individuality and channeling the energies that make human kind such a unique species. And it pains me to see people whose music taste and methods of consuming music say nothing more about them other than their capacity to be bought and sold by clichés, to be easily entertained and easily molded, and to conform rigidly, without thought or question, to the core values of our consumer, image conscious, celebrity obsessed culture.

2.IBIZA 2009

Those who have read my previous journals, particularly part 3 of my trance journal, will know that Ibiza is a pretty big deal for me. If I’d have had more money and more friends into dance music over the last 5 or 6 years I’m sure I would have been more than twice. But such is life. And, in visiting Ibiza for the second time, I learnt some valuable life lessons this year. Lessons in the management of expectations and the capacity for life to kick you in the balls when you least want it to. I built up Ibiza 2009 so much. I was checking Ibiza-Spotlight daily, planning our clubbing itinerary, turning pub conversation towards it at every opportunity. This was going to be the best two weeks ever… Two weeks off work, Ibiza followed by Global Gathering. The best two weeks ever?… famous last words?

Well, don’t get me wrong, it was a great two weeks with a number of highs. I saw Armin van Buuren and Gareth Emery twice, Sander van Doorn for the fourth time, Above & Beyond for the second time and saw Tiesto play for about 5 hours in the biggest club in the world. And I spent most of those two weeks with some of my best mates in the blissful summer sunshine. But things didn’t quite go to plan. It didn’t match my vastly overblown expectations and could have been so much better. So what was the problem? Ibiza lost its magic?

Well, no. The main problem was something largely out of my control, that being…getting ill. I was already developing a bit of a sore throat on the plane out there but whatever it was I had didn’t fully take hold until the 3rd or 4th day. So I’d managed to enjoy Tiesto and most of Armada with few problems. In fact, Tiesto at Privilege was the finest night of clubbing I’ve ever had. The crowd was enormous, the lights and production were stunning and, after he’d finish throwing out his indie remixes, Tiesto got back to trance basics in a way that I never expected to hear. Hearing the In Search Of Sunrise mix of Delerium – Silence in the biggest club in the world was really special.

But by the Thursday I was really starting to struggle. I missed Cream on the Thursday and Pacha on the Friday, having to make do with trips to the West End dosed up on paracetamol. And without the pain killers I felt seriously rough… Paracetamol…not the drug I was expecting to use to survive the week. So, Tiesto alone had been worth the trip but how could this be best week of my life?

The other problem with this trip was that I was there with a group of mates who, generally-speaking, were looking for a different Ibizan experience to the one I was after. I was the only dedicated trance fan in the group, the only “proper” clubber, the only one interested in the island’s spirituality and mysticism. Most of the lads were after cheap booze, easy birds and cheesey tunes, an attitude typified by their mid-week “Pull A Munter” competition. I was more after proper DJs, serious sunshine and abnormal levels of serotonin. To me, you can go to any holiday resort for booze, birds and cheesey tunes. You go to Ibiza for the best dance music and the beauty of the island. The tackier aspects are the bonus in Ibiza; they’re not the main attraction.

There was definitely a split in the group, and I was in the minority. I knew that as soon as the holiday was booked. But we agreed from the start that there was no reason why we couldn’t split and do different things. For example, only one of the other 7 lads joined me for Armada at Amnesia (part of which was actually broadcast on ASOT Radio as episode 413), while the others went to AATW’s Clubland at Es Paradis. But after getting ill, it was more difficult to justify wandering off on my own (or with one other person) to see whatever it was I wanted to see. I just didn’t have the energy. Without the paracetamol and pints of lager I would have been in bed. So, not quite the trip to clubbing paradise I'd had planned. More a case of a good laugh in the sun with some good mates.

But rather than be angry and overcome with disappointment, on returning I decided to take what had happened on the chin. I figured it would be better just to take some important life lessons out of the situation. However, it wasn’t the lesson of “if it can go wrong, it will go wrong”. That’s not a lesson because you can’t really do anything about it. It felt like more a case of, “the more you want something the more you can’t have it.” Amazing as a place like Ibiza is, you can’t guarantee the attainment of a flawless, timeless experience just by virtue of being there. So, to talk up a place having been there is fair enough, but to talk up an experience, wherever it takes place, before you’ve even had it is more or less pointless. It’s a recipe for disappointment.

And, secondly, if you go to Ibiza choose who you go with carefully. For me, the problem wasn’t who I went with but who I didn’t go with. Going with people who aren’t necessarily passionate about dance music isn’t the end of the world, it isn’t even a problem. But I just needed one or two more real dance music nuts with me, like my old clubbing crew from Uni, to balance out the group and really search out the Ibiza experience I was after.

In a sense, I think it's almost better to be in Ibiza alone than it is to be there with a group of people who predominately aren't into dance music in the same way you are. You either need a good number of people to share and fully appreciate the experiences you crave with, or the total freedom to just go and do your own thing. And Ibiza is obviously an expensive place, now more so than ever. Because of that, I can now see there’s no point in compromising. But, we live and learn. And they’ll be other times, other opportunities. Of that I’m sure. Of that I’ll make sure.

3.CLUBBING & ITS FUTURE IN THE UK

It was left to Global Gathering this year to rescue the clubbing I felt I’d missed out on in Ibiza. And it did go a long way to squashing any post-Ibiza self-pity. On the Friday we raved it up outside in the early evening sunshine, Karim bashing out the hard house, and closed the day seeing Paul van Dyk, complete with live guest vocalist. And on the Saturday we were destroyed by 7 hours of Sander Van Doorn, Above & Beyond and Armin Van Buuren, appearing one after the other. And being at Global with my old clubbing mates from Uni and my two trance loving mates from home did reinforce to me how important it is to find and connect with people who share your passions.

But I did come away from Global with a few negative thoughts as well. The main one being that I think I can see clubbing in the UK being pushed down a route that no longer reflects the idealistic philosophies I talked about in my final trance journal.

The main problem is the lack of MDMA, which is now much harder to get in pure form after a chemical used in its production was banned internationally. Now, some, particularly those who have not read TRANCE CULTURE , will say, “You shouldn’t be taking it anyway” or, “Well, that proves dance music culture is nothing without drug culture.” It’s a bit more complicated than that.

Clubbing will continue regardless, as will people’s passions for trance, house and techno music. But the fact remains that a lot of people in this country, whatever their musical preferences, like getting completely fucked on a regular basis. And if they can’t get proper MDMA, they will turn to other drugs that don’t have the emotionally magnifying effects that bring crowds together and energise them, drugs like ketamine, cocaine and, in a way, even alcohol, which anesthetise and either dull sensory acuity or boost the ego. And this will have to have a negative effect in long run – almost the exact opposite effect of MDMA. I actually think much of the good-will and communalism could be retained in clubbing without MDMA, but a noticeable increase in the use of drugs that dramatically slow down motor skills, promote insularism or encourage further alcohol consumption by their very nature will damage clubbing’s sense of communalism. To me, such drugs can’t and shouldn’t be regarded as substitutes. The sad fact is, in some quarters, they will be.

I was chatting to my mate Rob only a month after Global and we seemed to agree that clubbing’s best years are behind it and that, even though we both wish we’d been born 5-10 years sooner, we’ve both had a decent run at it – that although today’s dance music scene is great, it’s still lost much of the rawness and youthful optimism of its earlier incarnations.

The film Human Traffic, despite its sense of idealism, itself made some interesting, albeit brief comments about the decline of clubbing, about the ways it’s got fetishised and hijacked by people just looking to boost their street cred. But that film was released 10 years ago this summer, and there’s probably been further decline in that time. Certain well-known festivals have got a bit too popular and a bit too corporate; some events are plagued by groups of chavs looking for trouble. Maybe our outlook was unnecessarily pessimistic. Maybe these things come in cycles. We can but hope. All you can do in the meantime is make the most of what’s on offer, which, at the core of it all, is the music. That’s still there and going strong, of course.

A good quality video of Above & Beyond wipping out On A Good Day (followed by Breakfast - Air Guitar) at GG this summer. This isn't my video by the way, so thanks to whoever posted this on youtube.

4.DOWNLOADING MUSIC & ACHIEVEING MUSICAL KARMA

As I said in the introduction, in my own musical life a change has been needed for a while. The amount of time I spend on various music related activities has grown year on year since about the age of 15 or 16. Whether it be chatting to fellow music fans on music forums, tagging up reams and reams of new music or just mindless staring at last.fm, many hours have been wiled away. Maybe it was unnecessary amount of time, maybe it was an obscene amount of time, who’s to say?

But I don’t regret that time spent. Not one bit. That time spent has brought me along way: it’s made me passionate in a way that I can’t imagine not being, educated me, entertained me, broadened my horizons, and even developed my outlooks and perspectives on life. The last 4 or 5 years of my life have been a real musical journey, of searching, discovering, learning, piecing together the various scenes in my head like some great patchwork. And, as sentimental as it may sound, nothing has taught me more about myself over the course of the last half a decade than music.

That’s the amazing thing about music. If you put it in focus enough, if you think about the messages in its universal language, the world of music becomes a little microcosm of life itself. But not just any old life, but life as it should be, life with all the irrelevant and meaningless parts taken out. It’s a bubble of personal idealism and the more you enjoy it, the more you know about it, the more you personalise it, the more unburstable the bubble becomes.

But alongside and inseparable from this personal journey, there has been a sizeable degree of “digital gluttony.” I left for Uni in the summer of 2005 with my 30 gig music collection, an amount of music that some would say was already enough. I sit here today with a music collection of 286 gig, according to iTunes, approximately 120 days of music, including just short of 700 albums. Now these things are all relative. There are people out there with double, even triple that these days. But, given that HDD storage sizes seem to be growing rapidly, where do you draw the line? Can you ever have enough? More importantly, when you’re as OCD about tagging and ordering your music as I am, who has the time?

I think there was a time, maybe 2 or 3 years ago, when collecting music was just pure habit. I knew the avenues for getting it so I just did it. It was like watering a plant and enjoying watching it grow.

But I think, as my tastes started to seriously broaden, the need stopped being expansion for expansions sake. It was actually to fill gaps in my listening; trying to cover various moods and making sure all the bases were covered in the various new sub-genres I was listening to. It wasn’t about quantity anymore; it was about breadth and depth. And, of course, as I took up DJing, the reams of full length 320 kpbs trance and hard dance tracks I’d collected out of habit the years before now served a much more valuable purpose. This was now my digital DJing material.

Of course, a large part of my assembled collection has been illegally downloaded over the years. Maybe that is a dangerous thing to admit in these days of ISP litigation. But my conscience is clear, and I think it has ever right to be. Because, while I’ve picked up a lot of music for free, I’ve still poured a hell of a lot of my own money into the music industry, particularly in recent years through sites like Trackitdown.net. I support artists whenever I can afford to and when I feel the music is worthy enough of being fully supported.

Downloading has produced as many positives as negatives in its time. The internet has without doubt spread electronic music into areas of the world it would have had no chance of reaching previously, building its reputation as the ultimate culture crossing musical medium. And I think there are plenty of artists out there that I would never have had the chance to hear had buying it been the only way to hear it. The problem comes when people take ALL their music illegally and don’t put back into it at all. Artists have to make a living, so, when an artist’s work really moves and shakes us, sometimes they deserve more than a message on their official forum saying, “I thought your album was great!” It’s about give and take.

But my music collection has got to a stage now where it feels more or less complete. In terms of “old music”, every avenue feels covered. And I don’t say that just because my HDD is looking a bit full. To be honest, I think it’s more because I’ve recently added a small folder of rock music into the collection. Just obvious stuff like Muse, Oasis, Blur, R.E.M. etc. Much of it is just pure nostalgia for me and, of course, it’s another musical base covered. And it was adding that rock music which actually created a strange of musical karma in me. As if that was the last real piece in this jigsaw. Yes, me – the self-confessed electronic music nut, trance to the absolute core, given musical karma by rock music… the irony is not lost, believe me. A couple of hundred rock songs in a collection of over 280 gig is indeed outrageously modest, but it is a hole that needed filling and I didn’t realise how much it needed filling until it was actually filled.

There are others things as well though, other milestones. My iPod too now feels pretty much complete, with only 7 gig remaining and with all my playlists as I want them. I’ve also recently finished recompiling and reburning my trance DJing CDs, weeding out tracks that I don’t mix often or of low bitrate. And the final, and most recent thing, was my last.fm subscription running out. All these small milestones, all coming around the same time, and in the wake of the lessons learnt post-Ibiza, made me think, “Yeah, I’m done – It’s time to rethink how I do this.”

And, simply put, the main change will just be reducing the number of scenes I try to keep up with, in terms of new music, keeping my eyes more firmly on trance music. UK hard dance is dying on its arse, electro-house feels like its stagnating and has been hi-jacked by the mainstream, and I have enough psy-trance, minimal, tech house and drum & bass to satisfy my occasional cravings for them. And, of course, no more "old music"... if it's not new, I won't be downloading/buying it.

But even the amount of trance I collect can be reduced now. Instead of trawling Trackitdown and Soulseek on a daily basis, if I use radio shows like A State Of Trance and Global DJ Broadcast on a biweekly basis, making a note of what tunes take my ear, I can concentrate on quality rather than quantity and specifically download the tunes that I want to DJ with. The point is, I don’t need to hear and download everything that is released. I just need to put my ear to the ground, so to speak, once or twice a week. Maybe even only a couple of times a month. And, I suppose, I don’t want to be the kind of DJ, whatever level I end up getting to, that only plays new stuff anyway. There are too many of those kinds of DJs around as it is.

Obviously, the other thing that has caused me to download in huge amounts is last.fm itself. More and more recently I’ve used the site’s radios, particularly the ambient stations. And if the station throws up an amazing piece of music you’ve never heard previously, it’s incredibly tempting to go out and download half that artist’s discography. That’s what last.fm is all about – discovery.

For example, you might leave a message in an artist’s shoutbox, someone will see it and randomly view your profile. They see your charts and decide to leave you a shout recommending an artist. You check out the artist, like them and download most of their material. At that point you might decide to listen to that artist's tag radio station and on that radio station you might hear 2 or 3 artists that absolutely blow you away… Before you know it, you have more or less full discographies of about 5 artists you’d never heard of the month before.

But now, especially since my last.fm subscription has run out, I’m going to try and visit last.fm much less often in future, only checking my profile and charts when I receive an e-mail about a shout or a friend request. I’ll continue scrobbling of course, but I think I’ve had my fill when it comes to using last.fm as a proactive searching and networking tool. And I will continue doing my end of year review journals, but, because I won’t be paying as much attention to certain scenes or collecting new albums on a daily basis, there’s no way they’ll be anything like as comprehensive as they have been previously.

The bottom line is, I have to curtail the amount of time spent searching for, collecting and tagging music and reinvest that time in practicing mixing and actually enjoying the music I’ve already collected. If you want to be a successful DJ, bedroom, semi-pro or professional, you have to invest time in keeping up with the scene and putting together your collection. But there are more efficient ways of doing it than I am now and I think you do get to the point where you’ve acquired enough knowledge of labels and artists to be able to afford to invest fewer hours without it affecting your own standards. And that is a lesson for all wannabe DJs out there – Invest time in expanding your knowledge, but don’t over invest. You need a balance.

Although, all this doesn’t mean I’m no longer open to the recommendations of other last.fm users. In fact, being as I’ll be doing less active searching myself, I’m sure I’m going to come to rely on the recommendations of fellow last.fm users more and more to help me make sure I don’t miss out on the not-to-be-missed new releases. Friend, neighbour or just passerby - do leave recommendations in my shoutbox or inbox if you hear anything you think will blow my socks off, from whatever genre. I’ll more than appreciate that. And I will get back to you eventually, I promise.

5.THANK YOU LAST.FM

Last.fm is such a simple concept. An ambitious project in internet databasing maybe, but a simple concept nonetheless. On the face of it, almost too simple. If you’re a last.fm user and describe what this site is all about to a non-last.fm user, trying and failing miserably to explain to them what a “scrobble” is, the non-last.fm user will probably be thoroughly unimpressed and be left wondering why the hell you’re wasting your time with it. At least that is how I’ve often felt after describing it to people. Why the hell would I want to make a log of all the music I listen to? It’s not until you actually set up a profile, get scrobbling and start having a look around, that you realise how much there is on offer here, how much opportunity there is.

Whoever came up with the concept of last.fm is, in my book, a borderline genius. If utilised properly, it’s the kind of concept that keeps on giving, like a lemon that you can just squeeze and squeeze, the juices just keep on coming. And by utilising it properly, I mean actually using the tag radio stations, the artist links and interacting with fellow users. Unfortunately, not every user does. Last.fm provides the tools you need to be truly proactive and self-motivated in broadening your musical horizons. The charts aren’t there for charts’ sake.

For the most recent and, up until now, most important leg of my own musical voyage, last.fm has been absolutely indispensible. Without it my taste would be far narrower and far less developed than it is today. In fact, I can’t even begin to imagine what I’d be missing out on now if it weren’t for last.fm. So, to whomever it is I should be thankful, I am indeed thankful.

But, as I say, time for a change... Onwards and upwards.

Phil Dickinson - October 2009

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MUSIC ACCORDING TO ME - May 2007

REFLECTIONS - November 2008

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THE TRANCE JOURNAL – PART 3 - TRANCE CULTURE

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:45:00 +0000

THE TRANCE JOURNAL – PART 3
TRANCE CULTURE

As most of us know, all the best things come in threes; Three Musketeers, three Bourne films, and in the old formulaic gag, always 3 men going into the pub, to name but.... three. So I thought it was about time that my trance journal was given a third and, with any luck, final chapter. Up until now, I’ve already tried to sketch an outline, speaking largely in leman’s terms (as a part of the musical “laity” myself), of how it is trance works as a type of music, of what is it people like about the music’s “mechanics”. And in the second part I simply charted my favourite 150 trance tunes of the last 15 or so years, a chart which, looking back in retrospect, I would not change one iota. (Do read parts 1 and 2 if you haven’t already – it’ll make what follows here make much more sense.) So, what now?

Well, the main theme of this, as the title suggests, is the culture: the ethos, the philosophy, the iconography, the rituals, the way of life. It’s is about trance’s, to borrow an increasingly vague media term, mise-en-scène - Not necessarily the music itself, but everything the music and its listeners idealise and celebrate. There is a mantra in trance that goes, “trance isn’t just music; it’s a state of mind.” It’s a horrible cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s got a great deal of truth in it. But very few have attempted to explain what that “state of mind” actually is, what it involves. Every scene has its own culture, its own way of viewing the world. It is those ways of viewing the world that attract us to “our” type of music in the first place. There are two sides to this. Firstly, I think there are some aspects of trance music that deserve being looked at in greater detail and celebrated by trance fans, things that we maybe all know but don’t talk about a lot openly, certain general emotions and ideas that the music aspires to and we revel in. The question at the root of all that, I suppose, is what is it that a trance fan sees in his mind’s eye when he hears his favourite trance record? That, for me, means talking a bit about Ibiza, both my memories of being there in 2005 and what the island reveals about trance music in general. Hopefully, most trance fans will be able to relate to what I say. And, secondly, I feel there are certain aspects of trance’s culture that desperately need qualifying to so-called “outsiders”, there is a projected negativity that leaves the trance scene cloaked in surreptitious mystery and hedonism. That, of course, means discussing frankly the oh-so touchy subject of “illegal substances”. This could be a long one, so go make yourself a cup of tea before we get going... To me, this isn’t worth doing unless we’re going to dig deep.

EMOTIONAL NATURE

The problem is where to begin. The thing that I think is quite unusual about trance is that it presents something of a cultural paradox, quite an odd dichotomy. Trance, being created through computers, is a very technological type of music. As I mentioned in part one, its clean production styles and 4x4 beats make it quite a rational, ordered type of music. It is what some would see as quite “cutting edge”, quite futuristic. That might give the impression that, like our built up, urban worlds, the music produced is cold, robotic and devoid of human emotion. Yet, the images it conjures and tries to encapsulate are, to me, often those of the natural world. You know that feeling of warmth you get when you see a beautiful sunset, a starry sky, billowing clouds, a gapping canyon or an outstretched ocean? These images couldn’t really be any further from the sterile, formulaic world of computers. The names of trance songs, generally speaking, reflect this, I think. Just scrolling through my trance collection in alphabetical order here are just some of the names that jump out at me: Access To Paradise, Adrift In Space, Andromeda Heights, Angel, Arisen, Arctic Globe, Big Sky, Blue Horizon, Bounty Island, Clear Blue Water, Cloudwalking, Dawn, Destination Sunshine, Dewdrops Of Sunlight, Elevation, Eternal Voices, Fallen Tides, Fly Away, God’s Garden, Heaven Scent, Hurricane, Ibiza Sun, Lift, Like A Breeze, Liquid Sweep, Lunar Eclipse, Miracle Of Autumn, Moonshine, Northern Lights, Ocean Drive, Offshore, Orbit, Orion’s Belt, Out Of The Blue, Paradise Now, Pearl River, Rise, Saltwater, Shattered Skies... and so on. The names of many trance projects show a similar trend: Above & Beyond, Airbase, Airwave, Altitude, Aurora, Blue Amazon, Coast 2 Coast, Cold Blue, Cosmic Gate, Digital Nature, Fire & Ice, Flutlicht (which means “flood light” in German), Freefall, Lightscape, Lost Tribe, OceanLab, Plastic Angel, Plummet, Solar Stone, Solid Globe, Static Blue, Sunburst... and so on. There are some emerging themes here: the vastness of space, motion, particularly its speed and vertical direction, the shifting of light, water and seasons, divine apparitions and other heavenly notions and the seemingly never ending passage of time. Some find it quite soppy and sentimental, but the trance scene also seems to show a great deal of interest in human emotions and communal relationships. Again, just some of the track names you might find in any trance collection: Age Of Love, Alliance, Burned With Desire, Carry Me, Close To You, Connected, Don’t Be Afraid, Embrace Me, Eternal Optimism, Let Go, Linking People, Love Comes Again, The Loves We Lost, No One On Earth... and so on. All these ideas, to me, reflect a subconscious fascination with the world around us. Not always in a specifically rational sense, but in a way that appreciates that feeling of wonder and awe that defines the greatest of human experiences.

“...the spirit of child-like, untrammelled curiosity is what we are striving for. Not the anal retentive, rational person, not the ‘i’ll go for anything’, channelling ‘flake’, but an attitude of “we don’t have to look far for miracles because they’re all around us. Everything is astonishing; the universe on its surface is alive with mystery. Well, how do we make our way toward that when we live in a culture, practice a language, embody a philosophy - scientific rationalism - which is entirely designed to suck wonder out of reality, to turn everything into shades of gray, to subvert all hope that lies outside the realm of career accomplishment material possession?” – Terence McKenna

This to some might seem like quite a random quote. What does it have to do with music? But, if you think about, it sums up the general point. As I stated in a previous journal in which I referred to the great Terence McKenna, sometimes reality as experienced "normally” and explained rationally is completely mundane and sterile. And we are encouraged by science not to be surprised by the world around us. The world just works and is as it is. Reality is reality; therefore there is nothing to be surprised about, nothing to awestruck about. As McKenna put it, the more rational we become, the more we try to separate ourselves from nature, the more we fight our animal instinct to be emotional, natural creatures, the more we suck that wonder out of reality. Reason and emotion always seem to be in conflict. Despite its technological roots, there is something deep within trance culture that yearns to forget reason and just let the natural world impress itself on us, not to think, just to feel. Trance fans will often use the word ‘euphoria’. It’s a sort of trance buzz word. But outside music, who else might you hear refer to the concept of euphoria. People who climb to the top of huge mountains? Astronauts looking back at Earth from space? Someone stood in the full gaze of the sun as it dips below the horizon? Again, it’s about the power of nature, viewing things that make you feel like you’re at the centre of something vast and incredible. Essentially, ‘euphoria’ is just another word for awe or wonder, and it’s what trance is all about. And this euphoria isn’t always given a positive, “warm” spin. Darker or more aggressive styles of trance still try to push towards this same emotion. As long as that sense of “mystery” or sense of being overwhelmed by the universe around you remains. Because, let’s face it, Mother Nature can be just as dark and aggressive as she can be beautiful, and that in itself can be fascinating and awe-inspiring.

-Euphoria
A feeling of happiness, confidence, or well-being sometimes exaggerated in pathological states as mania. Origin: 1880–85; < NL < Gk euphoría state of well-being. – dictionary.com

I myself have become increasingly drawn to chillout music over the last few years, particularly pure ambient. To me, there is an important element of parallel, which actually strongly links the two types of music. The celebration of nature and the cosmos is very much the same, the only difference being the approach. The music is deliberately more wistful and contemplative; trance philosophy with the energy and sense of rapid motion taken out. Trance might make you feel like you are flying above or through a canyon at high speed, chillout might make you feel like you’re standing completely still on its highest point, surveying everything around you. Some would call it melancholy, but I think it’s often subtly different to that. Its isolated safety, feeling cleansed. So, there’s more than one way to approach this idea of euphoria. Trance can still be uplifting and emotionally “overwhelming” without being pure “sunshine and rainbows” all of the time.

THE WHITE ISLE

Of all these natural notions that to me form the basis of trance’s iconographical patchwork, there are two that stand out. They are the sun and the sea. Here’s where the island of Ibiza becomes such the big deal. To most trance fans (and house and techno fans for that matter), Ibiza is the Mecca, the Jerusalem. It can’t be forgotten that trance is a brand of party music and Ibiza is essentially a party island. If the truth be told, it is THE party island. It’s both the setting and the atmosphere that make Ibiza such a special place for trance fans, I think. The things that make Ibiza such an important place for trance fans sum up trance as a type of music. There is a sound in trance (and house) called the “Balearic sound”. It’s a sound that celebrates the sun and sea of those islands, again, it’s a sound that links the “party music” of the island and the island’s chillout, and I think it’s a sound that most trance fans have a real soft spot for.

Ibiza is, of course, a Spanish island. Therefore, despite the worldwide invasion every summer, the Spanish culture still plays an important part. It’s a laid back place, where people do what they want, when they want, at their own pace, where it’s too hot to do anything energetic during the day and too alive to be sleeping at night. As with most Mediterranean cultures, everything gets pushed back a good 4 or 5 hours. There’s no rush to eat an evening meal; that might not be done until well after the sun has disappeared beyond the horizon. Throughout the course of the day there is a profound serenity hanging in the air, the lapping of the waves and the warmth of the sun cleansing minds and bodies. And when the sun does finally set an excitement descends onto the streets, a buzz of anticipation. You know that butterflies feeling you used to get as a kid on Christmas Eve? Well, if you’re a fan of trance and you’re walking along San Antonio’s front at about midnight on a summer’s night, a ticket for Cream Amnesia clutched gratefully in your hand, that Christmas Eve feeling returns. Because you know what’s the round the corner- pretty much the pinnacle of trance culture.

My first and (so far) only visit to Ibiza was back in 2005. I and my mates were all 18, some of us had barely turned 18. We were quite naive really and this, being our first “lads holiday”, was like being thrown in at the deep end. This was our first real taste of the freedom that most of us would eventually take for granted in our university years. I don’t think any of us were quite prepared for what we encountered and, because of that, I’m not even sure some of us made the most out of our visit. A number of things did stand out though.

Firstly, the beautiful natural setting of the island is backed by a significant amount of cash. Many of the more upmarket bars and clubs are as plush and as lavish as you can imagine, without totally ruining the “laid back”, traditional vibe that much of the island retains. The famous Sunset Strip is a wonderful clash of classy modernity and Balearic rusticism, a contemporary setting sitting quite comfortably in a natural one. One of my favourites was Coastline Café, which we visited on our first proper night on the island before attending Cream Amnesia. No expense is spared in that place. The sea outstretching in the darkness and the waves still lapping the coast below, you are treated to comfortable surroundings, perfect ambient lighting and a variety of light entertainment - dancers in the mini swimming pools on the main decking, magicians, fire jugglers and, of course, a DJ up in a quaint little DJ booth overlooking the punters below.

But that night we didn’t even see the sunset. In fact, it’s one of my main regrets from that holiday that we only went to the Strip specifically to view the sunset once, and not even as a whole group. Two of my mates, neither of them trance fans might I add, even had the audacity to say, showing their levels of maturity at the time, that going to see the sunset was, and I quote, “gay”. I can’t speak for the other 3 lads who were there to view that sunset with me, but I remember being mesmerised by it. We found a quiet little place, about 5 or 6 bars down from the famous Café Del Mar and drank beers looking out over the water. From what I remember the crowds were pretty big, many of the bars without a spare chair and large numbers of people spread out of the rocky area around the bars, mainly to our left. But despite the large crowds, I don’t remember it being noisy at all. The four of us didn’t really say much, to be honest. We just sat and watched the sun slip slowly away, filling every corner of the visible sky with fiery orange light. And, in retrospect, I have often thought to myself, clearly all those people congregated on the rocks and sat in the bars along the front had not come to Ibiza just to get mashed and dance in darkened rooms. That’s not all it’s about. These displays of natural beauty mean a lot to them too – it relaxes them, it moves them. The sun going down is like a spiritual rebirth, which is later celebrated in the clubs until the sun rises again. This “sun worship” is fused into that “Balearic sound” that I was talking about earlier. If you put on Chicane’s Far From The Maddening Crowds or OceanLab’s more recent Sirens of the Sea and close your eyes you’re back on the Sunset Strip gazing on that ball of fire. I can’t speak for every trance fan, but there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Believe me, it is no coincidence that the greatest party on earth has chosen Ibiza as its home.

“The ocean.. in the Heaven.. It`s all they talk about.. In the sunset... How fucking wonderful it is to watch that big ball of fire melt into the ocean...” – Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

Most of the clubs in Ibiza put those in Britain to shame. In some cases, just the sheer size of the clubs can be overwhelming. Your average super club in this country will, I suppose, comfortably accommodate around 1,500, at a push 2,000, people. Privilege, on the other hand, which must still hold the title of “biggest club in the world”, has a capacity of 10,000. But that knowledge can’t really prepare you for the experience of actually stepping inside Privilege. Again, our visit to Privilege in 2005 was a slight disappointment. We were sold tickets for a lesser known event, roped in by some drinks deals that turned out to be something of a con. The music that night was a really weird jazz/house combo, performed with loads of live instruments and vocalists and rather than really explore our surroundings we spent far too long just sat in one of the many bars drinking the ludicrously expensive drinks. I think that was a combination of our young bodies struggling to last the pace at the holiday’s half way stage and being slightly too immature to appreciate the great musical temple we were sat inside. But even the bar we sat in sort of summed up the fabulous creative extravagance of the island itself. This bar, from what I distantly remember, couldn’t quite make its mind up whether it was indoor or outdoor, quite secluded and dark with greenery everywhere – not your average terrace as you would imagine it; more half garden, half bar. To go from “biggest dancefloor in the world” to isolated garden in one short staircase is in itself a novelty. But the real spectacle of Privilege is its 25 metre dome which hangs high over the dancefloor. It’s pretty much the first thing you notice as you come up through the entrance into the centre of the dancefloor. And you stand there and think, “fuck me!” And they’ve suspended the DJ booth over a huge swimming pool... why? Because they can, that’s why. It is worth going to Privilege just to see interior of the place. And all the other super clubs display a similar eye for the visually impressive and the comfortably luxurious. Es Paradis, for example, with its marble floors and columns, looks like a courtyard from ancient Greece. These are not cheap places to be or get into, but they are worth their weight in gold for how their surroundings can make you feel at ease.

The island does have a seedier side; that can’t be forgotten. San An’s West End is a cheap and tacky place, a far cry from the semi-rustic luxury of the Sunset Strip. But visiting such a tacky drinking hole is a relative necessity to offset the great expense of exploring the island’s plusher offerings. And after dark, that pre-club sense of anticipation and raw excitement makes it an enjoyable, albeit slightly more drunken and “debauched”, place to be. I’ve often thought that a lot of people my parent’s age must think Ibiza is like some mass violent orgy, like that scene in Pirates Of The Caribbean where Sparrow and Turner arrive on the island of Tortuga and it’s wall-to-wall fighting and fucking. It’s slightly more cultured than that.

Another thing I must mention before I leave this particular topic is that anyone out there that thinks Kevin & Perry Go Large is an accurate portrayal of Ibiza or trance culture is shooting significantly wide of the mark. The idea that Ibiza is the best or the easiest place to get laid, girls being turned away at Amnesia’s doors for being too ugly, the DJ character being the ultimate arrogant twat and the Germans dressed in military uniforms marching around the island are, to me, are all perversions of the real Ibiza. Even the actual scenes from inside Amnesia don’t feel very “real”. It’s a comedy film, so it has to exaggerate certain stereotypes and stereotypes that everyone recognises. The film does, however, have an amazing soundtrack, if that’s any consolation.

I will be returning to the island this coming summer, and being older and wiser, I’m determined to make even more of this next visit. Needless to say, I’ll be going there to sample the surroundings and relax as much as I’ll be going there to “have it large”. In other words, the Café Del Mar part of the holiday means just as much to me as the Amnesia part does.

TRANCE & DRUGS

Computer games don’t affect kids; If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music. - Marcus Brigstocke

I’m under no illusions that the main thing "outsiders" associate with trance is the use of so-called “recreational” drugs. In many people’s eyes, these drugs are not just part of the culture, but the very foundation of the culture. Their “logic” is – the music is repetitive so you must need stimulants to enjoy it, take away the drugs and nobody likes the music anymore. This assumption is, it gives me great pleasure to say, complete pap. It needs to be said clearly at the outset. The vast majority of trance fans love trance for what it is as a type of music, for the ideals and philosophy I’ve already described. The drugs are certainly a part of the culture, without a doubt, but they aren’t the reason people get into trance. Trance isn’t just an excuse to take drugs. But, to be quite honest, I don’t see drugs as sinister part of the trance scene anyway. Used carefully, I think they can actually have a positive influence. The dance scene’s main drug of choice is, of course, ecstasy; there are some very good reasons for that, which I’ll come to.

As a kid I was very anti-drugs, and I think it’s interesting that maturing and pursuing an education has pushed me in the opposite direction. The risks of drugs are preached at school as “probables” and “very likelies”, rather than what they are - worst case scenarios based on people’s recklessness and lack of knowledge. And all illegal substances are presented as being as bad as each other – so cannabis is as dangerous as crack, heroin the same as LSD, MDMA the same as mushrooms. And when you realise that some of what you’ve been told is wrong or exaggerated, you start to wonder, what else could they be wrong about?

Bill Hicks – In his classic stand up performance, Sane Man

And the difficulty is, because these substances are illegal not a lot of medical research is done on them. At least, not enough. A lot of the information we get is hearsay and a mishmash of “friend of a friend” stories. The hard truth is, as much as you can read about them, you can’t really understand drugs until you’ve taken them yourself and that draws a very dubious line down the centre of society. And I’ve discussed this with friends – there is a distinct psychological barrier in people’s minds when it comes to that first time. It doesn’t matter how many people tell you that it won’t, you look at that first pill in your hand and think, “This could fucking kill me.” You do take it and that barrier is completely smashed down.

There is the danger however that a lack of negative experiences on drugs can push you so far the other way that you become complacent. And some do become complacent. I find that people who haven’t taken MDMA (ecstasy) exaggerate the risks to a ridiculously degree, while many that have taken it neglect them so much that they do run the risk of causing long term damage to themselves. As always with human beings, there is an irrational polarisation. I have seen people go a number of ways. One good friend of mine did it for the first time and was absolutely blown away, but has only done it once since and has turned it down on a number of occasions. While another mate of mine uses it completely willy nilly, in social situations that don’t even suit the use of MDMA, sitting at a house party where everyone else is only drinking chewing his own ear off. Everybody’s different and people tend to react in different ways, in ways that reflect their own levels of self-control and temperance. The reality is, you’re much more likely to do yourself lasting damage through recklessly excessive use over a number of years than you are to drop dead on the dancefloor from taking one ecstasy tablet. People who die on the dancefloor from taking MDMA are people who either take way way too much at once or drink insane amounts of water while on it. If you do the former of those two things I tend to have limited sympathy. If you choose to do it at all, and as Hicks says, it’s a personal choice, you have to do it carefully, in controlled amounts and go extended lengths of time of maybe a few months without doing it at all to allow your brain a chance to recover. If you’re sensible about it, it is believed to be relatively harmless.

MDMA basically causes the brain to produce a large amount of a natural brain chemical called serotonin. That feeling of euphoria that I talked about earlier? That is serotonin being released. That high level of serotonin creates a number of feelings and emotions that can reach a level of intensity that has to be experienced to be appreciated. The best way to describe it loosely explains why MDMA is trance’s drug of “choice”. It’s all the wonderment you feel when listening to trance music sober, all the same mental imagery, but put under a magnifying glass. It’s getting to the top of Everest and some more, without even walking up the mountain. And that’s why people do it. There are other reasons, of course. You don’t tend to have memory black outs like you do with excessive drinking, it gives you the energy to last till 6 or 7 in the morning, you don’t have to go to the toilet as often as you would if you were drinking alcohol (which means you don’t have to miss any of your favourite DJ’s set), and, it’ll probably work out cheaper than getting pissed anyway. And what is the positive influence with MDMA? Well, you stand in a pilled up crowd and a pissed up one and you’ll notice the difference. That sense of feeling connected to other people can produce such a buzz in a good crowd. There’s less anger, less pent up frustration and absolutely no will for people to fight each other – just sheer undying love for music and, who knows, maybe even a few strangers. As McKenna says, as much as we love it as a species, alcohol turns most people into “jerks”, whereas, MDMA can turn complete jerks into vaguely loving, emotional people. There will always be exceptions to that rule, and you can still meet people on MDMA who are thoroughly annoying, but that is the exception and not the rule.

The film Human Traffic is an interesting look at clubbing and drug culture. It’s such a textured and honest film that you can pick out an awful lot of “hidden” truths from it, positive and negative. You have to remember that, again, it’s a comedy so you have to take some of it with a pinch of salt. And I think it does stress the hedonism a little too much... and not all the music in the film is trance by any means. But the main positive thing about that film for me is the sense of comradeship and good-will there is between the group of friends. There’s a great scene where Jip rings Moff to tell him that Lulu has decided to go out with them and Moff is visibly uplifted by the news.

"Nice one, bruvvvva!"

These people can’t wait to be in each other’s company and share good times. The idea that these people just want someone to relate to and escape society’s increasing sense of alienation is a constant theme. The only thing they have in life that is of any value is each other. Society typecasts these people as “everything that is wrong with society”, when in reality they are the product of everything that is wrong with society – lack of meaningful emotional interaction, a sterile, loveless, modern existence, being judged for what you attain and not for who you are. Human Traffic is actually a deeply philosophical film, a powerful sociological critique, but it sometimes talks in a language that only clubbers themselves can truly relate to.

Present is gone. Fantasy is a part of reality. And we take the brakes off. We’re thinking clearly, yet not thinking at all. This feels right. We stop trying to control things. Warm rush of chemicals through us. We’re fluctuating. Is this brain damage? We forget all the pain and hurt in life, we wanna go somewhere else. We’re not threatened by people anymore. All our insecurities have evaporated. We’re in the clouds now. Wide open. We’re spacemen, orbiting the earth. The world is beautiful from here, man. We're nympholetics desiring for the unattainable. We risk sanity for moments of temporary enlightenment. So many ideas with so little memory. The last thought killed by the anticipation of the next. We embrace an overwhelming feeling of love. We flow in unison…we're together. I wish this was real. We're on a universal level of togetherness where we are comfortable with everyone. We're in a rhythm, part of the movement, a movement to escape. We wave goodbye. Ultimately, we just want to be happy. Wait. What the fuck was I just talking about? – Jip, Human Traffic

I’ve not taken any psychedelic drugs myself up until now, but having recently gotten into the philosophies of Terence McKenna I’ve read about them with interest. What mainstream culture will find most shocking about Terrence McKenna’s psychedelic philosophy is that he believed psychedelics are not only a positive influence but the only thing that can save our decadent world from crashing and burning in the relatively near future. The following is a little extract from a previous journal which I feel makes just as much sense here:

McKenna was an expert in “psychedelics” and experimented with a variety of highly hallucinogenic substances, such as salvia and DMT. He believed that certain hallucinogenic drugs, in particular the drug psilocybin, had played a significant role in our evolution. He further argued that for the period that such substances remained part of our diet, human beings were more communal, less concerned with possession and status and significantly less driven by their own egos. Such ideas are indeed just theories, but there is no doubt in my mind that McKenna was a talented philosopher, a visionary and a thinker totally unrestrained by popular prejudices. And his use of drugs wasn’t pure hedonism. They fed into a vision and a view of the world that was highly complex and unique. And I think a lot of people will have sympathy for this vision because he, like so many, felt that human beings have taken a wrong turning somewhere in their development – that the ego has taken over, our true place in nature lost.

This is half of a Terence McKenna lecture called Seeking The Stone. It’s not specifically about music, but it’ll make everything I’ve said about McKenna clearer, if you have the time to watch it. Part 2 is available on Google Video.

I’ve heard so much talk, even from my favourite stand up comedian, George Carlin , about how psychedelics open up new windows of perception, about how they can revolutionise your thinking. I’m not sure MDMA falls into exactly the same bracket as psychedelics, just as I’m not sure the philosophy of trance and psychedelic trance can be said to be exactly the same, but I think they fall under a very similar bracket. They both encourage a return to ancient communalism, a “going back to nature” philosophy – even if parts of it are completely subconscious. That, to me, is a positive influence.

Needless to say, if you are one of those many people who go out every weekend and get so drunk they can barely stand up, while at the same time negatively stereotyping users of other drugs as "wasters", "degenerates" and "hippies", you're a hypocritical moron and no less ignorant than the people who go around saying, “You have to be high on drugs to like trance music.” If you use alcohol irresponsibly you have no leg whatsoever to stand on when it comes to judging people who use substances like MDMA.

If you’re just anti-hedonism, well, that poses an entirely different set of questions....

CLUB SAVAGERY AS MODERN PAGANISM

To me clubbing is a microsomal part of the anti-thesis of civilization. I mean, these people.... they are animals, they are disgusting, sweaty, savages prancing around to the dull synthetic beat of whatever shit modern music has thrown up recently. There is something quite pig-like about them, one is reminded upon looking at these neanderthals of the soma fuelled mindlessness of Huxley's dystopian brave new world. And what's worse about these odious cretins is that they have succeeded in persuading popular culture that the nightclub is *the* social medium of our generation. Everything else is secondary, 'oh, lets go out and eat and THEN go to a nightclub'. Barbarians.... Your filthy habits should be punishable by the state. - jim1111

The problem are nightclubs - the place of sexuality, lust, vanity, sin. Nightclubs should be banned. - Hugo0102

These particular quotes appeared in the trance tag shoutbox last year, the second being a positive response to the first, albeit the only positive response that was posted. Normally, I try to ignore such pointless trolling, but some of the sentiments and the sheer levels of exaggeration in jim1111’s initial post intrigued me. Is this really what the term “trance” means to outsiders? Is the perception really that negative? His first sentence is particularly interesting. Clubbing is, apparently, the anti-thesis of civilization. Well, “clubbing”, which is obviously a big part of trance culture, is essentially groups of people getting together to share a common passion, i.e. music, to engage in an activity which is older than so-called “civilization” itself, i.e. dancing. That on its own isn’t really that sinister. In fact, you’d think that was quite a noble concept – bringing people together. And the idea that the only emotions that are indulged when such people do come together in this way are selfish ones is generalised and largely a fabrication of the outsider’s underactive but over rational imaginations.

But we can go deeper than that. This idea of being “civilized” is interesting and goes back to what I was saying about the conflict between reason and emotion earlier on. The language of jim1111 is that of the rational purist, the modern philosophy that all the time encourages us to believe that we become better creatures, higher beings, when we deny our animal instincts, when we separate ourselves from nature. The interpretation given is one that says that “clubbing” is a perversion of the civilisation process, a process that gives us morals and gives our world order. When we go out and let our emotions flow wildly we “lower” ourselves to the position of “animals”, of “savages”, of pigs. Dancing, one of the most overt expression of emotion we have, is reduced to sexual cavorting and even sweating, a perfectly normal bodily function, looked down on. To me, this is all part of the great intellectual myth of our age, a myth that human beings struggle with internally all the time. Whether it be for religious reasons or because of the sense of intellectual superiority that our rationalism feeds us, we seem afraid of the animal in us. But, what we forget is that the animal in us is the nature in us.

So, maybe jim1111 is right. Maybe trance and clubbing are the anti-thesis of civilization. As I’ve already said, there is in trance music that longing to get back to nature, not to think about nature and explain it, just to feel it impress upon us. Maybe when we enter that club and let ourselves go, we go back in time and become like our pagan ancestors, reprojecting the ancient rituals and the hypnotic mysticism of the African drumming that I mention in part 1 – a throwback to the days when our gods were those of our environment. Despite its futuristic sounds and use of technology, there is something strangely primeval about the culture of trance music.

But, to me, none of this is necessarily a bad thing. As Terence McKenna said, there is a need for human beings to retake their place in nature, not to view it from outside and pass judgement on it, but to “feel” part of it - to be part of that "Gaian mind". The progress of history is a constant duelling of the ancient and modern. And it is modernity that makes human beings cold and egotistical - at least, more so than at any point in our evolution. That is not to say that unstrained emotion is the only right and proper ideal for human beings to aspire to. All I am saying is that both the ancient and the modern have their positive and negative aspects. We must make time for both reason and emotion; we must make time for ourselves internally and our communal spirit, our contemplative instincts as well as our celebrative ones. Celebrative euphoria is a righteous enough idea when it’s the euphoria of a mountaineer, or an astronaut, or even just the walker on the untouched sunset beach; why should it be any different for the clubber?

Trance culture is not a “Clockwork Orange” culture; it’s not a nihilistic or anarchistic culture. It pulls away from the mainstream, the established order, without looking to attack it. It doesn’t want to destroy; it just wants to “get away from it all”. “Rave” culture when it first emerged probably was a bit wilder and more reckless, maybe even a bit more resentful of the established order. Old types of “rave” music like breaks and hardcore were more aggressive. But the emergence of trance, particularly the Balearic sound, calmed things down a bit and created a generation who are, to a degree, more “cultured” or, at least, more chilled out. There is an element of hedonism to it, of course, but it’s not a hedonism that is purely narcissistic; if anything it’s noticeably communal and has an undercurrent of appreciation for “higher purposes” and “mysticism” – a hunger to be connected, emotionally “plugged in” to everything around us, including other people.

Denying our animal instincts makes us no more moral and, more importantly, no more happy. Reason has not created utopia. That capacity to "feel" nature, the orgiastic tendencies of our evolutionary past and McKenna's full-blown "religious experience" of altered states of consciousness, all have to play a part in bringing greater happiness to human beings. Music, even music styles as technological as trance music, can be a big part of this rediscovery of the “natural human being” if we think about it in the right way. The individual who thinks like jim1111 is McKenna’s “anal retentive, rational person”, whereas bubbling underneath the whole of trance culture is McKenna’s “spirit of child-like, untrammelled curiosity”.

To me, trance is a wonderfully complex and contradictory brand of music, its culture in particular being an expression of the inner contradictions in the human species that remain ever present. The modern and the ancient conflict a lot in human cultures, the two are usually diametrically opposed. But, in trance music they sit alongside each other, mutually supporting each other. As a culture, I would sum it up as philanthropic pleasure-seeking – which on its surface seems like an oxymoron. Trance fans are a generation of escapists and idealists who have resisted the will of our rational age to squeeze out the emotional and animalistic aspects of our characters – modern yet ancient, synthetic yet natural, artificial yet organic, cultured yet wild, altruistic yet self-aware, rational yet emotional, grounded yet free, rebellious yet peaceful, global yet drawn to certain spiritual homes and, most importantly, at ease with reality.

And I’ll leave you with the immortal words of Matt Darey’s Gamemaster, words that I think all trance fans can relate to...

Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves
Will bring all of you to a new understanding and valuing of life
A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet earth
Like a priceless jewel buried in dark layers of soil and stone
Earth radiates her brilliant beauty into the caverns of space and time
Perhaps you are aware of those who watch over your home
And experience it as a place to visit and play with reality
You are becoming aware of yourself as a gamemaster

Imagine earth restored to her regal beauty
Stately trees seem to brush the deep blue sky
Clouds billow to form majestic peaks
The songs of birds fill the air, creating symphony upon symphony
The goddess is calling for an honouring of what she allows to be created
Through the core mystery of the blood
Those who own your planet are learning ... about love

Some trance links: Above & Beyond, Armin van Buuren, Tiesto, OceanLab, Nitrous Oxide, Jonas Steur, Vibrasphere, John O'Callaghan, Chicane, Signum, Paul van Dyk, Sean Tyas, Marco V, Ferry Corsten, Marcel Woods, Nu NRG, Aly & Fila, Super8, Icone, Ronski Speed, Stoneface & Terminal, David West, Matt Darey, Filo & Peri, DJ Shah, Tilt, Michael Dow, Lange, Solarstone, Orjan, M.I.K.E.

A few random non-trance links: Radiohead, Kings of Leon, The Killers, The Kooks, Coldplay, Kate Nash, Katy Perry, My Chemical Romance, Nickelback, In Flames, Metallica, Cannibal Corpse....

SEEN LIVE

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:02:13 +0000

SEEN LIVE

I thought my About Me section was looking a bit messy and crowded so I've decided to move this part of it into a journal. To be honest, my clubbing exploits are hardly something to be marvelled at, so the front of my profile is probably the wrong place for it. All the acts I've posted are ones that I've seen for at least an hour of at a time.

Apologies in advance for posting what is quite a useless, uninteresting journal. This is purely for my own personal reference.

Last event attended: Above & Beyond Group Therapy Boat Party, Ibiza (19/08/2011)

Seen DJing

Armin van Buuren X7
Ferry Corsten X6
Eddie Halliwell X5
Paul van Dyk X5
Above & Beyond X5
Sander van Doorn X4
Gareth Emery X4
Tiësto X3
John O'Callaghan X3
Jordan Suckley X3
The Tidy Boys X3
Anne Savage X3
Lisa Lashes X3
Lisa Pin-Up X2
Rob Tissera X2
BK X2
Lee Haslam X2
Marco V X2
Sasha X2
Richard Durand X2
Sean Tyas x2
Mark Eteson X2
Ben Nicky b2b with Joel D X2
Claudia Cazacu X2
Jaytech X2
Markus Schulz X2
Cosmic Gate
tyDi
Jochen Miller
Paul Oakenfold
Rank 1
Solarstone
The Thrillseekers
Marcel Woods
Menno de Jong
Blake Jarrell
Matt Hardwick
Hernan Cattaneo
James Zabiela
Mat Zo
James Grant
Agnelli & Nelson
Greg Downey
Alex M.O.R.P.H.
Signum
Tyler Leigh
Gareth Wyn
Adam Sheridan
Cally & Juice
Amber D
Karim
Paul Maddox
Ed Real
Brain M Vs. MCBunn
Rodi Style b2b with Ben Stevens
Pendulum
Fatboy Slim
Erol Alkan
Boys Noise
Nero

Seen Doing Live PAs

The Edison Factor
K90
Nu NRG
Giuseppe Ottaviani
Lost Witness
The Chemical Brothers
Infected Mushroom
Pendulum X2
Leftfield

Festivals & Clubbing Holidays

IBIZA 2005
Most Memorable Tune: Agnelli & Nelson - Holding Onto Nothing
Best Performace: Marco V at Cream Amnesia

CREAMFIELDS 2007
Most Memorable Tune: Tony De Vit - The Dawn
Best Performace: Above & Beyond

CREAMFIELDS 2008
Most Memorable Tune: Sander van Doorn - Apple (Marcus Schossow Remix)
Best Performance: Eddie Halliwell

IBIZA 2009
Most Memorable Tune: Randy Katana - The Hype
Best Performace: Tiësto at Privilege

GLOBAL GATHERING 2009
Most Memorable Tune: Above & Beyond - Home (Club Mix)
Best Performace: Armin van Buuren

CREAMFIELDS 2010
Most Memorable Tune: Marcel Woods - Tomorrow
Best Performance: James Zabiela

IBIZA 2011
Most Memorable Tune: Markus Schulz & Jochen Miller - Rotunda
Best Performace: Gareth Emery at Space

THAT WAS 2008 – THE YEAR IN CHARTS

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:26:37 +0000

THAT WAS 2008 – THE YEAR IN CHARTS

Well, here we are again. Another busy year in the ever-thriving world of electronic music has just about whizzed us by. And returning once again is my whistle-stop tour of what has been hot in those dizzy 12 months, this time of course with more bells, whistles, awards and “probing” commentary than I provided last year. 2008 has been an excellent year. The overall standard of artist albums has been exceptionally high this year, and, despite the market becoming further saturated in some sub-genres, we have still been treated to some absolutely killer tunes from all corners of the dance music galaxy. Note: these charts are of the best stuff I've heard this year, not just a mindless list of absolutely everything I have even vaguely enjoyed. As I say, there’s been a lot of stuff worth checking out this year, so naturally there are some good albums and tunes missing.

Ok, let's look back. Kicking us off, the best albums of the year...

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TOP 20 ALBUMS OF 2008

20. Above & Beyond presents OceanLab - Sirens of the Sea
(July / Anjunabeats)

One of the summer's most anticipated “trance” albums turned out to be quite a smooth, downtempo affair, a mix of soft, "airy" progressive and stirring Ibizan chillout. Immaculate vocals and production as always from Justine and the boys.

Favourite Track: Sirens of the Sea

19. Insomnia - Rollercoaster
(March / Trancelucent Productions)

Pumping no frills full on, courtesy of Tom Shoval and Orel Shapira. Pure energy filled, electro driven psy-trance.

Favourite Track: Displacement

18. Quivver - Dirty Nails & Vapour Trails
(July / BozBoz)

A refreshingly varied approach from progressive trance's old head, John Graham, who mixed the drum & bassey feel of Chasing A Feeling with the moody electro breaks of What's Not Going On and the pure haunting minimalism of Dancing In Dark Rooms.

Favourite Track: Dancing In Dark Rooms

17. Josh Gabriel - Eight
(October / Different Pieces)

Josh Gabriel, formally one half of Gabriel & Dresden, served up a top notch progressive tech fest ruined only by the fact that the unmixed tracks are faded out at the ends. Infectiously danceable stuff though.

Favourite Track: Azora

16. Morphonix – Off the Grid
(March / Vaporvent Records)

This was my first real experience of the phenomena of psychedelic breaks. I got all excited, thinking this album was showcasing an entirely original genre of its own. Not the case, of course. But this was still a highly impressive effort from San Francisco's Lawrence Hoffman and definitely gets extra brownie points for completely blowing me away on first listen.

Favourite Track: Island Sanctuary

15. Trifonic - Emergence
(February / Trifonic Music LLC)

American newcomers, Trifonic, brothers Brian and Laurence Trifon, crash landed with this top quality downtempo/IDM debut. Brain apparently worked with fellow countryman BT on his incredible 2006 album, This Binary Universe. The influence of that is not hard to see at all.

Favourite Track: Sooner Or Later

14. Perfect Stranger - Free Cloud
(October / Iboga Records)

A stunningly hypnotic collection of progressive goodness from Israeli producer Yuli Fershtat. Part psychedelic progressive, part straight minimal progressive, this was another gem from the consistently amazing Iboga Records.

Favourite Track: Easy

13. Ott – Skylon
(January / Twisted Records)

Twisted Records' only new album release of the year was this "sunny" reggae flavoured psydub effort from Ott. Cool as a summer's breeze.

Favourite Track: Roflcopter

12. Simmonds & Jones - Interpretations
(June / Armada Music)

Better known to trance fans as Chakra, Lustral, Oxygen and Ascension, Simmonds & Jones set out to transform their discography of trance classics into a soothing collection of Balearic chillout tracks. Mission accomplished. This almost couldn't have been done better than it was.

Favourite Track: Home

11. Eat Static - Back to Earth...
(June / Interchill Records)

Merv Pepler, now working on his own, delivered the best psydub/psychill album of the year in Back To Earth, a mesmerizly diverse mixture of sounds which took us as far as the sands of Egypt and the carnival street of latin America. Magnificently glitchy and jazzy in places too.

Favourite Track: Epoch Calypso

10. Sander van Doorn - Supernaturalistic
(February / Doorn Records)

This could well be the "marmite" album of the year - most it seems either love it or hate it. It's also interesting to note that I've seen this album criticised as fervently by fans of minimal and tech house as I've seen it criticised by disappointed fans of melodic trance. I'll have to admit, I was once a bit of a Sander skeptic myself. Two or three years ago I had him down as quite a "hit and miss" producer and when it first emerged onto the scene I thought Grasshopper was a pretty, boring uninspiring track. But, having seen him DJ three times now, it seems I've come full circle. As simple as it is, I've fallen head over heels in love with Sander's style, a style that he is making his own within the trance scene with every release and every DJing gig. What I do specifically like about this album is that, despite always being fairly minimal in style, it does have a wonderful balance between chilled out moods and dancefloor energy. I'm no expert in minimal and tech house, that is for certain, but I thought a lot of the percussion on this album was absolutely perfect, particularly in Apple and Dozer. And, of course, this album has Riff on it, which is pure dancefloor gold. How could you possibly not want to dance your balls off to that tune? Watch out, Sander - if it were scientifically possible, I'd want your babies.

Favourite Track: Riff

9. Kino Oko - Alphabetically Divided Highway
(August / Tribal Vision)

If this chart was solely about innovation then this album would be sitting proudly at the top of the pile. This was nothing like anything I'd ever heard before - an unusual mesh of psydub and progressive with nuggets of IDM, electro, trance and even jazz sprinkled on for good measure, busting with delicate little basslines and sparklingly with bleeping synth-lines. To save the effort of trying to categorise it accurately, it might be tempting to just call it a progressive psychedelic trance album, but tracks like Made In Satisfaction or Body And Mind don't quite flow like trance; they swirl, they reverberate, they float. To me, this album almost sounds like Zombie Nation, Shpongle and Tegma making a wild head-on collision, sending funky psychedelic jazz debris flying all over the road. In terms of creating something new and different, this was definitely electronic music's main achievement of 2008.

Favourite Track: Mother Mature

8. Armin van Buuren - Imagine
(April / Armada Music)

Oh, no. Armin's gone pop? No, not quite. The trance purists will hate me for charting this so high, but fuck it. Now that Armin is sitting top of DJ Mag's DJ poll, like Tiesto was previously, he is there to be shot at. And after producing something here that isn't necessarily "pure" trance from start to finish and something that in many ways reflects the direction that his A State Of Trance radio shows have supposedly gone, the cries of "Armin's gone pop" were bound to follow. But I'm sorry, I have a fairly broad taste, I don't turn my nose up at the first sign of a vocal and therefore I really enjoyed this. It's hardly music to be totally ripping up dancefloors, but if you take it for what it is, a chilled out trance-house crossover for the Ibizan beaches and terraces, then you have to concede it's more than fit for purpose. I think most of the vocals are great on this album, particularly those on In And Out Of Love and Hold On To Me, and the "spirit" of Ibiza seems to sustain itself from the first to the very last minutes. Whether it's better than 76 or Shivers I'm not entirely sure yet, but at least it's something different. Armin may have remixed The Killers this year, but don't panic trance fans, those collaborations with Girls Aloud and Miss Spears are a little way off yet.

Favourite Track: In And Out Of Love

7. Ferry Corsten - Twice In A Blue Moon
(November / Flashover Recordings)

With Right Of Way and L.E.F., the mighty Ferry Corsten had already set the bar incredibly high. I think if you compare Ferry's artist albums to those of the rest of trance's "big 4" - Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto and Paul Van Dyk - Ferry generally seems to deliver that extra something else, at least in terms of delivering a holistic yet varied package of tracks that work as well at home as they do on the dancefloor. And, more so than any of the others, he has found his own sound and more or less stuck with it. But, at the same time, he's managed to cater for quite a broad range of tastes. With Twice In A Blue Moon we are treated to yet more of the same. Same old Ferry, slightly different mood. This album makes stylistic reference to almost all of Ferry's older material - the uplifting trance, the electro trance, the vocal trance, even the dark moody stuff - yet injects an extra element of funky progressiveness in places. Another thing that I thought was excellent about this album was its use of vocals. If there's one criticism you could level at Armin Van Buuren's Imagine it's that it maybe uses vocals to the point of overkill. Ferry uses them much more sparingly and to much greater effect. The vocals themselves in terms of quality are right up there with the best you'll hear on any trance album. In particular, the vocals in Made Of Love, Black Velvet and Feel You are awesome. I would be hard pushed to say that this is better than Right Of Way - Right Of Way is a special album - but it's honestly not a million miles away from it. I certainly think it generally has a more listenable "vibe" or atmosphere than L.E.F.

Favourite Track: Made of Love

6. Quadra - Voice Of Reason
(June / H2O Records)

Having already released 3 albums under his Quadra alias, Ido Liran, one half of Save The Robot, was already a very well-established name in full-on psy-trance. His fantastic bootleg of Gorillaz's Feel Good Inc., LSD Came Falling Down, was one of my favourite psy-trancers of 2007. This album picks up from that in a very obvious way, bootlegging a number of familiar melodies and vocal samples such Wildchild's Renegade Master, Niels van Gogh's Pulverturm, Planet Funk's Chase The Sun and even Tiesto's In My Memory. And I think that sense of familiarity works really well. In terms of overall sound, Voice Of Reason is your typical up-to-the-minute full-on album, with its crisp, punchy basslines, melodic breakdowns and bouncing psychedelic effects. This was by far the best artist album from this specific brand of full-on psy-trance this year, albeit not quite as good as Time Lock’s amazing Prototype 0.1 from last year and not quite the best psy-trance album of the year overall... keep reading for that.

Favourite Track: Pulvertrum 3.0

5. Enigma - Seven Lives Many Faces
(September / Virgin Music Germany)

Now, this is a bit of a strange one. Not the album itself necessarily. The album itself is classic Engima and, as always, extremely relaxing stuff. It's where this album fits into Enigma's overall discography that slightly bemused me. Everything about this album, including its title, had a sort of "final chapter" feel to it. Rather than carry on from where the incredibly subtle and significantly less vocalised A Posteriori left off, Seven Lives Many Faces seemed to bring together Michael Cretu's entire discography, going in all sorts of different but familiar, old directions. You can even hear vocal samples cut from previous albums which are clearly not meant to be carefully hidden away. Now, if this was planned as Cretu's final album as Enigma then a sort of "stylistic review" would have been a fitting way to bring this landmark project to an end after 18 spectacular years. But apparently this isn't Enigma's last album and Cretu is already working on the next one. So... why take Enigma stylistically backwards? A lot of Enigma fans moan about A Posteriori, some say that it was by far Cretu's most disappointing work. I love it, personally, and would have appreciated seeing Enigma continue a little further down that ethereal path, seeing what more could have been made of A Posteriori's wonderfully emotional and delicate feel. But if you put questions of overall artistic direction to one side and judge this newest release on its own merits then there is still a lot to be positive about. Even this album's cheesiest moments are carried off will such aplomb that you have sit back and say to yourself, "fair play to you, Michael." Another high quality record from the king of mainstream meditation. The question is, what next?

Favourite Track: The Same Parents

4. Juno Reactor - Gods & Monsters
(February / Metropolis)

I noticed quite a few Juno fans were disappointed with this, one of the year's first big releases. The last two tracks, which are essentially ballads, did leave a lot of people scratching their heads. But considering how long it had been since Labyrinth was released and considering how much of a free-thinking innovator Ben Watkins is, this was never going to be anything other than surprising. Watkins has never been afraid of throwing together styles and sounds that you wouldn't expect could or even should work together. Labyrinth was proof of that; Gods & Monster is unequivocal proof of that. However, there is something distinctly "Juno Reactor" running through tracks like Inca Steppa, Tanta Pena and City Of The Sinful- that dark, pulsating bass, that epic "world fusion" tribal feel. Even in Las Vegas Future Past you can hear "left overs" from his work on the Matrix soundtracks. But obviously we get a distinctly new take on that familiar sound. In Inca Steppa, for example, "Mexican rasta" is exactly what you get as that familiar Juno Reactor tribal takes on a distinctly Central American feel and melts seamlessly into reggae flavour. Other parts of the album treat us to something entirely different however - Haunting dub, chillout, touches of jazz, metal and, of course, ending on those two ballads. Do the ballads spoil it? Well, the answer is yes and no. Perfect Crime is a well-written song that sometimes even has me passionately singing along, complete with "emo" facial expressions. Whereas, the less said about Pretty Girl the better really. But overall, a sublime effort from Juno which I think might even grow with time. Superbly innovative and, in Inca Steppa, Tanta Pena and City Of The Sinful, has 3 real gems in its hefty locker.

Favourite Track: Inca Steppa

3. Pendulum - In Silico
(May / Warner Music UK Ltd)

As I mused in one of my most recent journals, Pendulum's long-awaited 2nd album wasn't as good as their first. But I never expected it to be. Hold Your Colour was one of those magical albums, an album which contains levels of balance and quality that even the greatest artists around don't just repeat at the drop of a hat. What I hoped Pendulum would do is take some of the key ingredients of Hold Your Colour and build something new, fresh and exciting, to elaborate on the group's familiar formulas to create something different. And that is exactly what they did. For me, In Silico is the perfect balance between familiarity and freshness. Pendulum have evolved without ripping up root and branch. Certain people were always going to be slightly disappointed. By nailing their colours to the mast and deciding to take the project definitively down the root of half-drum & bass-electronic-rock crossover, this Slam plus rock approach, certain stylistic elements of Hold Your Colour were bound to be lost. Hold Your Colour was after all quite a varied affair, whereas In Silico is more single-minded and makes no conscious attempt to "cover all the bases" just in case old fans get disillusioned. I think Pendulum have to be commended for that, for sticking to their guns and doing what they want with their music. Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed with In Silico. Hey, so the days of Another Planet and The Terminal are clearly gone, but large parts of this new offering still had all the energy and power I've come to expect from them, without just being an attempt to copy Hold Your Colour tune for tune. Fuck the snobs; whatever genre you care to call it, whatever its popularity, this is good shit.

Favourite Track: Midnight Runner

2. Orkidea - Metaverse
(March / AVA Recordings)

Armin did very well, Ferry did even better - but unfortunately for them they were both royally owned this year by Finland's finest, Tapio Hakanen, better known to the world of trance as DJ Orkidea, albeit with the help of a few other big name producers such as Andy Moor, Solar Stone and David West. The opening few tracks of this album are so uplifting, particularly the last 2 minutes or so of Free Dreams. YearZero is just sheer quality and always has me turning up my stereo on the 4:26 mark. It combines that uplifting mood with a catchy, driving bassline to produce a near perfect example of what trance music is really all about at the moment. Other parts of the album have a slightly darker, moodier feel however, which provides an important element of balance and variety. Stretching Time, for example, even starts out sounding quite tough, almost psychedelic, while later developing into a lushly melodic affair. And the introductions of Masochrist and Requiem are totally epic, leading into yet more faintly psychedelic but melodic moodiness. And I'm sure many trance purists will delight in the fact this album contains almost no sung vocals, a la Ferry, Armin or DJ Shah. This album didn't require them at all, so you have to give Tapio credit for not being tempted to throw a few in arbitrarily. This is a distinctly different experience to Imagine or Twice In A Blue Moon and almost a million miles away from Sander's Supernaturalistic and, for my money, is the best of the lot.

Favourite Track: YearZero

1. Wizzy Noise - Renaissance
(September / Harmonia Records)

This came like a bolt out of the blue. Wizzy Noise are indeed a highly reputable psy-trance act with a solid and distinctive sound. But likely to produce an album that could comfortably clinch my top album spot for 2008? Certainly not. At least I didn't think so. I honestly never expected the Greek duo to come out sounding this good, especially considering how little they have altered their overall style to achieve it. Wizzy Noise just took that trademark sound that everyone in the psy-trance scene knows them for, gave it a bit more of a melodic edge and took it up a few notches. The interesting thing about this album is that almost every single track on the album starts out sounding like your run-of-the-mill psy-trancer, some of them even start out sounding quite dull. But then each one starts to move up the gears, gear by gear, kick back by kick back. Before you know it you're being bombarded by a wall of sound - a wall of soaring electro melodies and pumping psychedelic basslines. Trance is all about that progression towards a spine-tingling crescendo and this album has those crescendos in abundance. Sea Song turned out to be my psy-trance tune of the year. Anybody that has heard it will understand why. That kick back on the 6 min 30 second mark is a pure "hairs on your neck stand up" moment, every single time.

Favourite Track: Sea Song

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ALBUMS - THE HONOURABLE MENTIONS

10 albums that deserve a shout... in no particular order:

Nicholas Bennison - Tension of Opposites
(November / Propulsion) (Progressive Psychedelic / Progressive / Psychedelic Breaks)
Mirco de Govia - Iconic Path
(April / euphonic) (Chillout / Progressive Trance / Trance)
Tegma - Lo-Fi Adventures
(February / Tribal Vision) (Progressive Trance)
Kularis - Technical Progress
(February / Spintwist Records) (Progressive Psychedelic)
Liquid Soul - Love In Stereo
(August / Iboga Records) (Progressive Psychedelic)
deadmau5 - Random Album Title
(September / Ultra Records) (Progressive Trance / Progressive House)
Aladdin - Void Last Line
(November / Meira Records) (Full-on Psychedelic)
Jaytech - Everything Is OK
(June / Anjunabeats) (Progressive Trance / Chillout)
Ernesto vs. Bastian - Authenticity
(February / High Contrast Recordings) (Trance / Progressive Trance / Tech Trance)
Psysex - Healing
(May / HOM-Mega Productions) (Progressive Psychedelic / Full-on Psychedelic / Psychedelic Breaks)

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TOP 20 TRANCE, PROGRESSIVE AND TECH TRANCE TUNES OF 2008

1. Sander van Doorn – Apple (Marcus Schossow Remix)
(July / Doorn Records)
2. Simon Patterson - Smack
(April / Reset Recordings)
3. Georgia - Ode To '99
(March / Levare Recordings)
4. Mike Foyle - Pandora (The Blizzard Remix)
(May / Armind)
5. B.E.N. vs. Mr. Pit - Superstition
(May / Coldharbour Recordings)
6. Graeme Harrison – Xanthe
(February / Flux Delux)
7. Lee Haslam – Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (OMD)
(May / Digital Remedy)
8. Armin van Buuren - In And Out Of Love (Richard Durand Remix)
(August / Armanda Music)
9. Talla 2XLC vs. Sean Tyas - Heart To Heart (Sean Tyas Remix)
(February / Tetsuo)
10. The Doppler Effect - Beauty Hides in The Deep (John O'Callaghan Remix)
(February / Armind)
11. Orjan Nilsen – La Guitarra
(May / Armind)
12. Rank 1 vs. Jochen Miller - And Then...
(February / High Contrast Recordings)
13. Jochen Miller – Lost Connection
(July / High Contrast Recordings)
14. Onova – Niveus
(April / Total Digital Recordings)
15. Akesson - Sunchaser
(April / Fraction Records)
16. El Cortez - Desert Rose
(April / Intuition Recordings)
17. Oceania – Never Forget (Arctic Moon Remix)
(August / Well Mixed Records)
18. Tom Colontonio - Headless Horseman
(November / Discover Digital)
19.Alex M.O.R.P.H. - Walk The Edge (Alex M.O.R.P.H. B2B Woody Van Eyden Remix)
(May / High Contrast Recordings)
20. Ryan Blair - Tek Drum
(July / Monster Tunes)

Producer Of The Year 2008:

3. Orkidea
2. Simon Patterson
1. Paul Miller

Superstar DJ Award 2008:

3. Paul van Dyk
2. Eddie Halliwell
1. Sander van Doorn

Label Of The Year 2008: High Contrast Recordings
"One To Watch" for 2009: Tom Colontonio

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TOP 20 UK HARD DANCE TUNES OF 2008

1. ng rezonance – Sinners
(September / High Drive Recordings)
2. Technikal presents Helen G – Don’t Stop (Rodi Style Remix)
(August / Technikal Recordings)
3. Kenemy - Sorry For Itself (Emilio Remix)
(August / Presence Hard Trance)
4. Technikal presents Kris Mclachlan - Return To Innocence
(November / Technikal Recordings)
5. Jason Cortez – Set U Free
(June / Tranzlation Whites)
6. Iridium - Give It To Me
(July / Carbon Recordings)
7. Aftershok – Extraordinary
(June / Outbreak Digital)
8. Technikal - Ssst...(Listen)
(October / Tidy)
9. Technikal vs. The Lost Boys - Mass Effect (Iridium Remix)
(May / Technikal Recordings)
10. Paul Glazby – Alien Animal
(August / Vicious Circle)
11. Amber D - Rush On Me
(October / Tidy)
12. Bryn Whiting - 3rd Movement (Iridium Remix)
(November / High Drive Recordings)
13. Paul Maddox meets Technikal - Captive
(September / Tidy)
14. Velos - The Joker
(November / Fireball Recordings)
15. SQ presents Ben Collie - End Of Dayz
(September / Outbreak Digital)
16. Rob Tissera & Quake – Holdin’ On (Rob Tissera & Technikal Remix)
(July / Tidy)
17. Kym Ayres - Guitar Hero
(December / Tidy)
18. Pero - Obsession
(September / Technikal Recordings)
19. Emilio – Sabotage (Iridium Remix)
(February / High Drive Recordings)
20. Scott Genetik – Can’t Stop The Signal
(April / Encoded)

Producer Of The Year Award 2008:

3. Paul Maddox
2. Iridium
1. Technikal

Superstar DJ Award 2008:

3. Paul Maddox
2. The Tidy Boys
1. Rodi Style

Label Of The Year 2008: Technikal Recordings
"One To Watch" for 2009: Emilio

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TOP 20 FULL-ON PSY TUNES OF 2008

1. Wizzy Noise - Sea Song
(September / Harmonia Records)
2. System Nipel & Electra – Game On (Ananda Shake Remix)
(June / Utopia Records)
3. Dynamic – Make Me (Space Cat vs. Dynamic Remix)
(July / H2O Records)
4. Wizzy Noise - Eyes Wide Open
(September / Harmonia Records)
5. Vibe Tribe & Gataka & Electro Sun & Ziki- Tokyo Tel Aviv
(September / Noga Records)
6. Spade - Reaction
(June / Utopia Records)
7. Quadra – Pulverturm 3.0
(June / H2O Records)
8. Insomnia – Displacement
(March / Trancelucent Productions)
9. Aladdin - U Know This
(November / Meira Records)
10. Freedom Fighters – Robotic
(June / Utopia Records)
11. Electro Sun vs. Stereomatic - Bubble Crash
(September / Noga Records)
12. Aquatica feat. Sapir – Angels
(July / Com.Pact Records)
13. Ultravoice vs. Rizo – Keep It Real (Azax Syndrom Remix)
(March / Com.Pact Records)
14. Aladdin - Soul Of A Worm
(November / Meira Records)
15. Quadra – Back Again
(June / H2O Records)
16. Injection – In Su Lin
(August / Phonokol Records)
17. Ferbi Boys – Oggy Monster
(April / Com.Pact Records)
18. Ananda Shake & Phanatic - Phananda
(May / Utopia Records)
19. CPU – Wicked Plastic
(June / Nutek Records)
20. Tactic Mind vs. Unique - Problem
(February / Tactic Records)

Psy-Trance Compilation of 2008: Thank You For Flying Utopia

Producer Of The Year 2008: Wizzy Noise
"One To Watch" for 2009: Stereomatic

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TOP 20 ELECTRO-HOUSE TUNES OF 2008

1. Melleefresh & Deadmau5 - Attention Whore
(October / Play Record)
2. Dave Darell - Children
(June / DBX Records)
3. Sebastien Benett - Extremly Madness
(December / BITRATE RECORDS)
4. Felguk - WashEm & GiveEm Food
(November / plasma.digital)
5. Zoe Badwi - Release Me (TV Rock Edit)
(November / Time Records)
6. Vaca - Move Me 2008
(January / Ministry of Sound Germany)
7. Felguk - Whatever Clever
(September / plasma.digital)
8. Three Drives - Greece 2000 (Chris Reece Remix)
(July / S2 Records)
9. d.kingz - Rescue Me
(August / Clubtronics)
10. JS16 - Lights Go Wild
(Febuary / VIP Recordings)
11. Michael Woods - Natural High (Out Of Office Full Vocal Mix)
(November / Diffused Music)
12. Romain Curtis feat. Awa - I'm A Soldier (Filthy Rich's 'Full Metal Jacket' Remix)
(Febuary / Twist My DJ Records)
13. Toby Emerson - Inappropriate Electro
(November / Bugeyed Records)
14. STEVE FOREST - Freed From Desire (Ortega 2008 Remix)
(July / Jolly Roger (Sound Of Pirates)
15. D'Argento - Come On Over (Chris Reece Remix)
(September / Pinkstar Records)
16. Lazy Rich - Don't Go Back
(November / plasma.digital)
17. Dave Darell - Freeloader (Spencer & Hill Remix)
(December / Tiger Records)
18. Feed Me - The Spell
(November / Mau5trap)
19. Jean Elan - Where's Your Head At? (Klaas Remix)
(July / Cinnamon Flava)
20. Guru Josh Project - Infinity 2008 (Klaas Remix)
(November / Maelstrom Records)

Producer Of The Year 2008: Felguk
"One To Watch" for 2009: Bass Weazal

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Well, there you have it ladies and gents. That was 2008. With the new Prodigy album on its way in March and my trip to the White Isle booked for July, I'm already psyched for the musical year of 2009. Bring it on, I say!

Merry Christmas one and all; Be excellent to each other.

REFLECTIONS (2008)

Sun, 2 Nov 2008 00:34:54 +0000

REFLECTIONS

It is now 21 months since I joined last.fm and 16 months since I wrote my first journal, Music According To Me , which was my attempt at introducing myself, musically speaking. Looking back on it and I’m pleased to say that it has “stood the test of time”, for want of a better phrase, albeit a relatively short period of time. In terms of my general view of music and the development of my taste up until 2007 it is still perfectly accurate and I still hold now most of the opinions I expressed in it. Some of the ideas I talked about were taken up in later journals and fleshed out, elaborated on – for example, what I wrote about “people not getting trance” eventually became a journal which attempted to explain the dynamic of trance in more detail and my criticisms of Scooter in various parts of the article became two quite lengthy journals which went through those criticisms in almost unnecessary detail. But, as you would expect, I’m not the same last.fm user I was 16 months ago. My tastes are gradually and subtly shifting and my listening habits are starting to mould themselves into patterns that clearly exhibit a more “situational” approach to music. With this in mind, I thought it might be time to reflect on some of the things I wrote about back in May 2007 and to add to those reflections some other thoughts that I have mulled over during the last year or so.

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1.ESCAPING SCOOTER SLAVERY
2.REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN TRANCE
3.THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT PENDULUM
4.DJING – HOW HARD IS IT REALLY?
5.LISTENING HABITS AND THE ACCURACY OF SCROBBLING
6.I FEEL… SHPONGLED

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1. ESCAPING SCOOTER SLAVERY

Well, another journal entry and yet more talk of Scooter – I promise you, this is the last time. I know, I know – The Scooter – Q&A was enough, they’re shit now, they’re dead in spirit, get over it. I’d like to think that I have now. But I won’t bore you once again with yet more explanations of “what went wrong for Scooter”. I don’t feel the need. All I wanted to say was that it has only recently fully hit home to me just how obsessed I was about Scooter as a teenager, especially before I got “fully” into hard dance music around 2003/4 and “fully” into the trance scene after Ibiza 2005. I’ve recently been redecorating my room, having a bit of clear out… and you wouldn’t believe the number of old CDs with Scooter burnt on them that I’ve had to chuck out. I also got chance to take down the 3 enormous Scooter posters I’ve had on my bedroom walls for the past 5 years and I couldn’t help thinking to myself as I took them down, “did I really need to buy 3 of these?” Surely, one would have been enough, right?

Needless to say, those posters will not be going back up and taking them down felt almost therapeutic – symbolic of a musical “cleansing” or “healing”. And I really don’t mean that as a slight on Scooter’s music, old or new – but rather as a rejection of musical obsessions. My experiences of falling in and then out of love with Scooter, including my observations of the band and their fans during that time, have made me hate one thing in music above all others – fanaticism. The thing is, it does nobody any good. When large numbers of people become blindly fanatical about an artist, it stifles the artist’s creativity, gives the artist the incentive to concentrate on quantity rather than quality and gives that artist the opportunity to line his/her pockets. And when it comes to the fanatics themselves, more often than not a complete obsession with one artist inevitably leads to a narrowing of musical outlook. In most cases, it’s not that these people intrinsically only like the music produced by that artist, it’s just they seem to naturally restrict themselves. The artist in question becomes “all they need”. Whichever way I look at it, I can only see that as a real shame. These people miss out on so so much. Now, I was by no means the most obsessive Scooter fan the world has ever seen but having “left Scooter behind” and branched out over the last 2 years or so I can see how much other music I was missed out on. Realising that Scooter are a tiny fraction of the good music out there was one of the best things that ever happened to me. An obvious thing to realise, maybe, but not so obvious when you’re 16 years old and all you can think about is “the next Scooter album”.

If you look at the profiles of some Scooter fans here on last.fm (without singling out specific individuals – and I stress, it is some and not all), this narrowness of musical outlook becomes relatively clear. Some have scrobbled 20-25% Scooter, some as much as 30%. For a few people Scooter make up over half of their scrobbles. I’m sorry, but no artist deserves 50% of a person’s scrobbles. If you take into account just how much music is out there, just how many genres and sub-genres, just how many creative minds there are in the world contributing to the constant stream of musical output, no artist could possibly be considered good enough to warrant that amount of listening time. To suggest otherwise, to me, is bordering on the ludicrous.

I’m not saying people should stop listening to Scooter. I’m not even denying a person’s right to believe that Scooter are “the best” if that is what they genuinely believe… but liking a particular artist more than others shouldn’t restrict your enjoyment of the rest of music. If you’re not constantly discovering new things and enjoying a wide variety of artists from a wide variety of musical backgrounds, instead listening to the same 10 CDs over and over again and worshiping certain artists like gods, then I feel sorry for you, I really do. It is an odd sort of musical slavery.

“…He’s losing the battle for wall space, isn’t he?”
It may just be a scene in a comedy series but, exaggerating aside, obsessions, particularly ones over characters in popular culture, are clearly NOT healthy!

2. REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN TRANCE

In my original Music According To Me entry I made the prediction that trance would not only improve in quality as we approach the next decade but that it would also return to being more melodic, going back to the structures and stylings of the so-called “golden era” of 1998-2001. But the latter of those predictions doesn’t appear to be coming true. Progressive styles that venture into electro and house, including tech trance, are still going strong and if anything getting even more popular. Of course, progressive styles of trance music have been around for ages, but this new housier, techier, funkier progressive has a totally new flavour to it. There are fewer and fewer trance DJs playing only pure euphoric trance – the likes of Aly & Fila and John O'Callaghan are, without overemphasising the point, almost a dying breed.

But, to be quite honest, I can feel myself being pulled in by this new “progressive wave”. My username is, of course, a reference to an affinity for melody in music. I was, and always will be, a sucker for a distinctive melodic sequence. Make it sweeping and uplifting and you practically have me by the dangly bits. But it’s not the be all and end all for me anymore. Take a track like Simon Patterson – Bulldozer, or his recent tune Smack, for example. Utterly amazing melodic breakdowns, but the kick backs are rough, techy and funky. In my eyes, there you have a winning combo. And that’s what I’m leaning more towards these days, at least in terms of what I want to hear on a dancefloor. The key word is ‘balance’ – too much of any style can be boring which is why all the big names, Armin van Buuren, Tiesto, Paul van Dyk, Ferry Corsten even Above & Beyond, are playing a mixture of styles. In particular, I recall Ferry Corsten playing a killer set at Creamfields this year which was a distinct mix of “electro-trance” and old melodic stuff like 1998 and Carte Blanche. Above & Beyond opened their set at Creamfields 2007 with what sounded more like electro-house, ending of course with their big melodic tunes like Good For Me and Home.

Boundaries are breaking down and as a result different dancefloors are expected to, and do, embrace each other’s music in the interests of variety. Contrary to my original prediction, I don’t think this is likely to change anytime soon. Rather, I think psy-trance and tech trance will have a big say in how the genre develops. But, the pure melodic stuff has to remain. Melody is an important part of what makes trance what it is. Again, the key is variety. I welcome that variety with open ears.

3. THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT PENDULUM

You’d pretty much have had to be living under a rock for the last year or so not to have noticed the Pendulum juggernaut rolling into town. There’s no doubt their popularity has ballooned since the release of Blood Sugar in the summer of 2007. Everyone knows who they are, and everyone it seems has an opinion about what they are and aren’t. I think Pendulum have become another one of those artists that highlight a lot of issues within music. There’s so much about them that you can debate - hype, popularity, evolution, direction, the combination of different musical styles to name but a handful of those issues. And then of course there is THE big question, the question that people will continue to debate until they are blue in the face – Are Pendulum drum & bass?

I was introduced to Hold Your Colour in the summer of 2005, so not long after the album was actually first released. Previously, I had not been into drum & bass. To be honest, I wasn’t keen on it at all. Hold Your Colour was a real eye-opener. It remains one of my favourite albums from any genre of electronic music. Hold Your Colour didn’t turn me into a full drum & bass head but it eased me into a genre I would have otherwise continued to ignore. I now quite like artists like Matrix and Futurebound, High Contrast, DJ Fresh, The Qemists, Phetsta and Logistics. And I know the difference between liquid funk and jump up, between jungle and dubstep. So I’m not one of those people that heard Blood Sugar in a mainstream club last summer and suddenly started declaring themselves “fans of drum & bass”.

I think it’s fairly obvious to most people that Pendulum’s pre-Hold Your Colour material was definitely drum & bass. The likes of The Spiral, Masochist and Mind’s Eye were certainly less mainstream and generally a bit darker. And good tunes they are too. Hold Your Colour did have a slight mainstream edge, an extra accessibility factor, thanks in particular to the big synth lines in Fasten Your Seatbelts and Slam and some of the vocals. It was more accessible. But at the same time, because of tracks like Another Planet, Through the Loop and The Terminal, it wasn’t totally removed from what had gone before and, overall, the album itself was overwhelmingly drum & bass. The only tracks on that album that weren’t drum & bass were Fasten Your Seatbelts and Out Here, both of which were more breaks. And Slam was that sort of unusual half-drum & bass that Pendulum are now famed for. I say half-drum & bass because the beat in it is, as one last.fm user once wrote in the band’s shoutbox, a sort of “stripped down Amen Break”. Rather than being a complex and carefully programmed collection of kicks, snares and cymbals, Slam’s percussion does sound more like a guy furiously beating a drum kit. And it is that “stripped down Amen Break” that lies at the heart of both Pendulum’s success and at the heart of the drum & bass scene’s backlash against them. And it also explains why Pendulum have been able to become so successful as a live act. But, apart from those few exceptions, Hold Your Colour was all drum & bass, and in my opinion, not even that commercial-sounding, at least nowhere near as commercial as the drum & bass purists would have you believe. And what’s more, it was incredibly well produced.

Now, what has happened to Pendulum since Hold Your Colour is that they have moved more towards that “half-drum & bass” sound, that “stripped Amen break”. That is hardly surprising, for a number of reasons, all of which feed into each other. Firstly, Slam, which was the first of these tracks, sounded different, it had “trademark” quality about it. Having found such a “trademark”, and such a successful one at that, it would have been slightly odd if they had decided not to experiment with that sound and try it again. Secondly, all 3 of Pendulum’s core members are big rock fans. They have repeatedly stated so in interviews. With that in mind, it is hardly surprising that a large amount of their material since Hold Your Colour has taken the Slam concept and tried to combine it with rock music. It’s not about selling out, or going pop, or “turning your back on drum & bass” – this is the organic evolution of a group of artists in accordance with their various musical influences. The main man behind Pendulum, Rob Swire, said it himself in an interview with Kmag:

Q - Why have you moved towards more of a rock sound/ image?
A- "It wasn't really a conscious decision - as we moved away from the "strictly drum and bass" aspect of it all, we just made whatever music we thought sounded good and the rest seemed to follow. To be honest, if anyone ever thought we were D&B to the core they were under the wrong impression... D&B was just one of many genres we were into and I think the new sound and image reflect that.”

People can believe what they like and, ultimately, they will. Only the band themselves truly know whether they are motivated by their own musical whims or by pound notes and the adulation of the masses. I would be the first to criticise Pendulum if I believed they were selling out. But having watched Pendulum evolve since Hold Your Colour, having read what I’ve read about them, I honestly believe that they are just making the music they love, combining musical influences for the love of doing it. I certainly think that if they were going to sell out they wouldn’t have spent 3 years creating In Silico. Why would you spend so long making an album if your “musical heart” wasn’t in it and you didn’t “believe” in the music you were creating?

The thing is with In Silico is that a lot of people interpreted it as a “revolution” rather than an “evolution”. In Silico is indeed in many ways different to Hold Your Colour. It is more rock influenced and it certainly pushes more towards that Slam model of half-drum & bass. It is, because of the rock element, even more accessible than Hold Your Colour was. But, to say that it has nothing to do with drum & bass is simply not true. To say that it is totally and utterly removed from Hold Your Colour is simply not true. Rather, whether you like In Silico or not is probably largely dependent on what it is you liked about Hold Your Colour in the first place. Personally, I loved all the stylistic elements of Hold Your Colour, both the drum & bass elements and the more mainstream elements, and therefore I have no beef whatsoever with Pendulum for going in the direction they have. The important thing for me about In Silico was not necessarily what specific direction it went in, or even whether it was as good as or better than Hold Your Colour, but about getting that balance between something familiar and something new - something that had some of the best ingredients of Hold Your Colour at its core, but wasn’t just the same thing all over again. As far as I’m concerned, In Silico wasn’t as good as Hold Your Colour, not by a long shot, but they got that balance between familiarity and freshness almost spot on – it was an evolution.

As I hinted earlier, Pendulum “the producers” turning themselves into Pendulum “the band” for live performances has helped move Pendulum’s popularity into a new demographic. Pendulum stopped being “the drum & bass concept that introduces outsiders to drum & bass” and became ingratiated into the UK “indie circle”. As soon as they picked up their guitars, found a drummer and took to the stage, they seemed to become a wholly more attractive musical concept to the masses… because if you don’t play guitars and have a drummer you’re just not credible, right? I saw Pendulum live for the first time in the May of this year at Bristol’s Carling Academy. I enjoyed the music that night. Pendulum as a “live band” does work. But what struck me was just how many people under the age of 18 were there. This was a far cry from the gritty world of drum & bass nights and its grimy backstreet bunkers. Another thing that strangely unnerved me was that the biggest crowd reaction of the night was not really for Slam, or Voodoo People or for Propane Nightmares (as big as those crowd reactions were) but for the "Arctic Monkeys-esque" riff that turns up in the new track Mutiny. Don't get me wrong, I like Mutiny as a track - but at that point I couldn't help but think, “Am I the only non-indie fan here? How many of you would still be on the dancefloor if they started playing The Spiral or their remix of Submarines?” A part of me suddenly felt like one of those DnB snobs I've always hated... but now I can sort of see where they were coming from in a way. I don’t mind artists becoming more popular, as long as a desire to become popular doesn’t become that artist’s driving force – at the end of the day, some artists are popular simply because they are very fucking good. But I never really wanted Pendulum to become a staple of the “NME”, “BBC Radio One”, “indie” culture, where bands move in and out of the spotlight as quickly as their fans change their underwear. Let’s not be naïve here. There are some people out there who are only listening to Slam, Blood Sugar and In Silico because Zane Lowe wants Pendulum’s babies.

Pendulum’s next album is going to be interesting to say the least. Having got to where they are, the temptation to “pander” to this new fan base will undoubtedly be there. And, whatever they produce, the drum & bass community will continue to sharpen their knives in anticipation. Personally, all I hope is that it is a little more “The Prodigy” and a little less “Arctic Monkeys”. There is clearly a danger of almost all the electronic elements, including the drum & bass, being totally sucked out of Pendulum. If that happens they will become just another rock band. But, I stress, it is an ‘if’ - it has not happened yet, in my opinion.

4. DJING – HOW HARD IS IT REALLY?

In August of 2007 I did something I said I’d never do. “I’ll never be able to afford it”, I said. But when a mate of mine at Uni offered to sell me his decks on the cheap when he upgraded the idea suddenly started to seem affordable. It wasn’t long before I had my heart set on getting them. My mate didn’t upgrade in the end, but I went ahead, found the money and bought decks, a mixer and an amp anyway. Nothing special – just a set of Pioneer 100s, a digital 2 channel Numark mixer and a Kam amp.

My own progress in terms of learning has been what I would call steady. I’ve been mixing digitally with computer programs like Mixmesiter for many years now and, while digital mixing is nowhere near as difficult as doing it for real, I think that previous experience and the basic technical understanding it can give you, really helped me get to grips with the fundamentals like cueing, beatmatching and seeing the music in terms of bars. Things like tune selection, knowing those tunes inside out, timing and the blending of tracks using the mixing desk was always going to take a lot more practice. I’ve also found that different genres of electronic music require distinctly different styles of mixing, mainly because of the varying structures used. For example, because I was used to dropping in hard dance tracks with about 2 mins 30 seconds remaining on the out-going tune, it took me a while to appreciate that much more patience is required when mixing electro-house. Understanding the structures involved is absolutely vital.

In terms of how hard it is, I would say learning to DJ is a lot like learning to drive. Almost anyone can do it given enough time and effort. It will take some people more hours to learn than others but the more you do it the more competent you become. But, by the same token, not everyone is Lewis Hamilton. Just because anyone potentially can learn doesn’t mean everyone has the drive and the talent to be a superstar.

Of course, the main fundamental of DJing is the skill of beatmatching. To continue the analogy, I’d compare beatmatching in DJing to clutch control in driving. Just as you have almost no hope of controlling a car if you can’t use your clutch properly, you have no hope of getting two tracks to mix into each other if you can’t get them to sit neatly over the top of each other in the same tempo. You have to be in as much control as possible in both instances. But there is also an extent to which beatmatching can be quite mechanical and even a simple case of basic mathematics. For example, on my CD tracklists I have noted next to each track the BPM (beats per minute) and the key the track is in. This means I can carefully select which tracks are likely to go together. Now, it’s not simply a case of choosing two tunes and pitching one up or down to match the other. A track of 145 BPM pitched down by 1 to match a 144 BPM track will quite quickly fall out of time. But a DJ will also know that for every 1 BPM difference between the tracks he can slow down or speed up the incoming track by about 0.3 to make it stay in time for much longer. Without getting bogged down in all the complexities of it, if a DJ knows the BPMs of the two tracks he’s mixing he should have a very good idea of how much he’ll need to slow down or speed them up to keep them in time. So if you’ve mastered your jog wheel (which doesn’t take too long), you understand the basic mathematics and know the BPMs of your tunes, you’re well on your way. The difference is, DJs who are really skilled at beatmatching can keep beats in time without knowing what the BPMs are… just by careful listening. That in itself is much harder. Personally, I think it’s very difficult to tell if a DJ is purely using his ears, or relying much more on mathematics and the high quality of his top of the range equipment.

With that in mind, I think it can be quite difficult to judge DJs. There is such a thing as “mixing safe”, “mixing within yourself” – in other words, you could plan your set very carefully beforehand, choose tracks only a few beats per minute from each other, stick to tunes with very strict, obvious structures, make sure you weren’t mixing tracks from opposite ends of the octave in terms of key, avoid elaborate tricks and therefore mix a technically flawless set without even being that good. You could make yourself look a lot better than you were and many people observing would be none the wiser. Whereas the real talents out there can mix pretty much anything into anything (within reason) and can mix flawlessly with very little planning. And then there are people like Eddie Halliwell who do tricks like they are going out of fashion. Only then does a DJ's talent become truly obvious.

5. LISTENING HABITS AND THE ACCURACY OF SCROBBLING

I am fully aware that taking up DJing has dramatically influenced my last.fm charts. To a lot of visitors to my page, a passion for trance and hard dance might not seem that obvious at all. And I seem to have quite limited compatibility with other users who mainly scrobble trance. In particular, hard dance artists have started to tumble down my charts. The reason for that is quite simply that I mix hard dance. If I spend 2 hours mixing some hard dance, by the time I put my headphones away and sit back at my computer it’s only natural that I want to listen to something else. Inevitably I turn to psy or, if it’s late, some ambient.

To be honest, trance and hard dance music as types of music don’t lend themselves to scrobbling – at the least the full unmixed tracks from such genres don’t. The beats at the start and end of tracks are, of course, very important. It’s important to make them mixable and it’s important in terms of how the tracks slowly build. But often I’m not in the mood to be sitting around waiting for a bassline. I think the fact that DJing is so important in electronic music proves that I’m not the only one who feels that way. I know I’ve talked a lot in various journals about how trance fans are very patient music listeners and about how important that sense of progression is to the genre, but sitting through a minute of beats (or more) at the start and end of each track is pushing it a bit. And returning to your iTunes periodically to move a track forwards towards the bassline or skip to the next track isn’t always the most convenient way to listen. Sometimes I do listen like that, but often it is just easier to stick something on with a slightly more “radio friendly” structure, particularly if I’m doing something other than just surfing the net.

Also, ambient music has the advantage of being the only type of music that is suitable for the hours before going to bed. If I’m at home and still awake at 1 in the morning I’m hardly going to be listening to hard dance. I’m one of those people that hates going to bed, mainly because I hate having to through that waking up “process” the next morning. Hence, why I’ll often prolong my day by listening to Enigma, Steve Roach or Biosphere late into the night.

Those are just some of the reasons why my charts are slightly deceptive. That’s not to say that the artists in my top 30 aren’t amongst my favourite artists, but there are noticeable absentees and some genres are misleadingly underrepresented.

6. I FEEL… SHPONGLED

As I’m sure most people gathered from the opening part of this journal, I have distinctly moved away from the idea that people should be championing a specific artist ahead of all others – what you might call the “hero worship” approach to music. Certain people feel a need to commit themselves fully, not just to a scene or a genre, but to one or two artist, as if to show a greater degree of loyalty. Go to the official forum of any “popular” act and you’ll see evidence of it. What I’m basically trying to say is that if someone asked me who my favourite artist was, to single out one artist as “the best” not only would I struggle to do it but I would refuse to do it out of principle. There are too many genres, too many eras, too many so-called geniuses - not to mention too many different life situations that themselves shift what it is we require from our music. As the saying goes – there’s more than one way to skin a cat. If you had asked me who was the best artist “in the world” when I was 15 I would have said Scooter without hesitation – ask me now I’ll tell you I simply can’t chose.

But allow me to move the goal posts slightly. What if we talk about “achievement” in music? Or, even more abstractly, “spirituality” in music? Both these approaches, as well as being linked in this particular case, are, to me, subtly different to singling out artists as being aesthetically most pleasing on a more subjective level. I recently declared Shpongle to be “the pinnacle of achievement in electronic music to date”. Not necessarily the act I would pick out ahead of all others as aesthetically “the best”, but on a number of levels the greatest achievement. On what levels I hear you ask?

To begin with, the number of musical styles contained within Shpongle’s music is insanely broad. With chillout, dub and various elements of psychedelic music at its base, it combines that with jazz, classical, reggae, tribal, new age and God only knows what else to create an incredibly textured and deep brand of music. Distinctive yet highly versatile, the musical combinations are seamless and organic. The “copy-cat” projects that followed on from Shpongle’s debut record Are You Shpongled?, including Simon Posford’s own collaborations with various other talented producers, spawned what is now widely considered to be a new genre, referred to as psydub or psychill. The fact Shpongle have been able to combine musical elements from such a wide spectrum and so effortlessly is in itself fairly unique. However, I believe Shpongle’s achievements go deeper than that. Those musical combinations, the high standards of production and music writing, the extent to which music technology is pushed to its absolute limit and, most importantly, the vision of Simon and Raja, make Shpongle “feel” like the musical expression of something wholly more profound, something almost quite deliberately inexpressible.

I think the story behind the name ‘Shpongle’ can tell you an awful lot about what their music represents as a concept. Raja Ram recalls how he was at a goa party early one morning and he was asked by someone “how are you feeling?” He responded by saying, completely spontaneously, “I feel… shpongled”.

"…And this word just came out of the atmosphere and it was like shpongle was a new word and it just became part of our vocabulary…"

It wasn’t just about being high on drugs or spaced out. We have countless words in the English language, slang or otherwise, that refer to those states without the need for arbitrarily creating new ones. Why shpongled? This was something subtly different. Raja was trying to describe the indescribable, that sort of sense of awe and "oneness" with the universe that there is no real word for. He was talking about higher plains of existence or subjectivity. And the key is the subjectivity. It is the “feeling” that is made even more subjective through the difficulty of describing it to other people – the defying of ordinary language, language that is so central to that link between your own mind, other minds and the world around those minds. That, to me, is what Shpongle is the musical expression of.

As I’ve grown older, having studied philosophy and logic in various forms and contexts, I have become more and more the cold, hard empiricist; the rationalist, the humanist, the agnostic. But something in Shpongle sparks a spiritualism. Not a Christian one, or a Muslim one or anything of that kind, but a feeling that “we”, as a collective of creatures, are more than just atoms and chemicals and that, even if we are, we should not be afraid to inject a subjective wonder into everything we encounter through our senses, to be awestruck by experiences, whether they be inside or outside us, “real” or “unreal”. It’s not just about happiness, calmness or anger anymore, it becomes about your own place in the universe. That may seem like a load of old hippy bullshit to some people, but music is all about “feelings” and, as far as I’m concerned, moving people to look at the world in terms of “higher purposes” or “hidden mysteries” is as profound as it gets.

While I feel the name ‘Shpongle’ refers to more than just the effects of drugs, it is not without its drugs philosophy or “angle”. Clearly the drugs and the spirituality flow out of each other. Both the use of drugs that alter mind states and engaging with some element of spirituality are, to me, ways in which human beings reject materialism and look for something more than what they ordinarily receive through their senses. Sometimes reality as experienced "normally", experienced impassionately and explained rationally, is mundane and sterile. Simon and Raja have clearly been influenced by the philosopher and scientist, Terrance McKenna a lot. McKenna’s voice crops up in Shpongle’s music quite often, and not just because McKenna’s voice is as hypnotic as the music itself. McKenna was an expert in “psychedelics” and experimented with a variety of highly hallucinogenic substances, such as salvia and DMT. He believed that certain hallucinogenic drugs, in particular the drug psilocybin, had played a significant role in our evolution. He further argued that for the period that such substances remained part of our diet, human beings were more communal, less concerned with possession and status and significantly less driven by their own egos. Such ideas are indeed just theories, but there is no doubt in my mind that McKenna was a talented philosopher, a visionary and a thinker totally unrestrained by popular prejudices. And his use of drugs wasn’t pure hedonism. They fed into a vision and a view of the world that was highly complex and unique. And I think a lot of people will have sympathy for this vision because he, like so many, felt that human beings have taken a wrong turning somewhere in their development – that the ego has taken over, our true place in nature lost. Again, I think Shpongle’s music somehow embodies McKenna’s vision, his philosophy. To me, Shpongle is the ultimate soundtrack to McKenna’s “psychedelic experience”. And when you appreciate just how deep and complex McKenna’s ideas are, how “interconnected” his world is, then the achievement of Shpongle becomes all the more apparent.

This is half of a Terrence McKenna's lecture called Seeking The Stone. If you're interested in Shpongle, the place of drugs in human activity or philosophy of any kind, this is well worth a look. The other half is available on Google video.

Phil Dickinson - November 2008

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THE VOICES BEHIND THE BREAKDOWN

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:38:26 +0000

THE VOICES BEHIND THE BREAKDOWN

One of the things that I always loved about hard dance music when I first discovered it was the way it would often use vocal samples in the breakdowns of tracks. These samples in many cases may seem quite innocuous. Often quite short. Somtimes quite obscure. But I've always felt that they can give a track an extra dimension, particularly of character and mood. And having only got into psy-trance more recently, I've noticed this sort of movie, TV and video game sampling is just as prevelent there as it is in UK hard dance.

This is a little project I've been working on for a couple of years. Adding to it bit by bit, piece by piece, sometimes with the help of others. It's mainly been done through some quite careful google searching and cross-referencing with IMDB. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but as far as the hard dance tunes go, it's as comprehensive as exists, as far as I know. Posting this list here is largely for my own reference, but some hard dance and psy-trance fans out there on the net might find it, if not useful, at least interesting.

If anyone wants to contribute their own finds to this, or point out any incorrect info, feel free to let me know. Also, note that the quotes posted are as they appear in the tracks themselves, not necessarily exactly as they are in the film, TV series, speech or video game they're taken from.

Last update: 10/11/09

HARD DANCE

AfterShok - Extraordinary - TV Series: Heroes - Milo Ventimiglia

"Do you ever get the feeling that you were meant to do something... extraordinary!?"

AfterShok - Liberty - Apollo 13 - Ed Harris

"With all due respect, Sir, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour."

AfterShok - MVP - TV Series: 190 Bester Place (Shadow Dancing) - Richard Biggs

"I wasn't a good soldier like my father, I wasn't .. the job.. Always what I wasn't, never what I was."

Airspace vs. Brad Thatcher - The Truth - speech by Rev. Jerry Falwell

"What is the truth about music? Music is the most powerful medium in the world. Satan has taken music and he has counterfeited it, convoluted it, twisted it, exploited it and now he's using it to hammer, hammer, hammer a message into the minds and the lifestyles of this generation."

Alex Mac & Zeebra Kid – Life – Rocky Balboa - Sylvester Stallone

“The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.”

Alex Mac & Zeebra Kid – Primal Fear – Jacob’s Ladder - Matt Craven (?)

"...a fast trip straight down the ladder, right to the primal fear, right to the base anger. I’m telling you, man. It was powerful."

Andy Whitby & Lee Pasch - R We Alone? - TV Series: The Outer Limits (Music Of The Spheres) - opening narration

"For years we have searched for the answer to an eternal question... are we alone? As yet, there has been no answer. Or perhaps the answer is only for those with the facility to hear it."

Andy Whitby, Serge & Green - Anything Like This - Big Fish - Danny De Vito

"Ladies and gentlemen, you may think you've seen the unusual. You may think you've seen the bizzare. But I've traveled to the five corners of the world, and let me tell ya, I've never seen anything like this!"

Ashley James - Nothing Seems Real - Videodrome - Jack Creley

"After all, there is nothing real outside our perception - reality is there."

Ben Kaye vs. RIP DJs - No Fkin Ice Cream - Alien 3 - Danny Webb

"No climate control, no video system, no freezers, no fucking ice cream, no rubbers, no women, no guns... all we got here... is SHIT!"

Bryn Whitting - The Message - V For Vendetta - John Hurt

"What we need right now is a clear message to the people of this country. This message must be read in every newspaper, heard on every radio, seen on every television... I want everyone to remember, why they need us!"

Bulletproof - Mistakes - The Witches Of Eastwick - Jack Nicholson

We ALL make mistakes... Do you think God knew what he was doing when he created a woman? A mistake? Or did He do it to us on PURPOSE!!!? BECAUSE I REALLY WANNA KNOW!!! BECAUSE IF IT'S A MISTAKE MAYBE WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!! FIND A CURE! Build up our immune systems. 20 push ups a day and you NEVER have to be afflicted with women EVER AGAIN!!!... When WE make mistakes they call it evil. When GOD makes mistakes, they call it... nature."

Carl Nicholson - AK-47 - Jackie Brown - Samuel L. Jackson

"AK-47! Very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room. Accept no substitute!"

Carl Nicholson - All Aboard - The Business - Danny Dyer

"My old man wrote me a letter from prison once. It said if you don't want to end up like me, stay away from crime, women and drugs. Trouble is, that don't leave you much else to do, does it?"

Carl Nicholson - Blueprint (Tara's Theme) - The Omega Code - Casper Van Dien

"Crisscrossing the Tora is a code of hidden words and phrases. It not only reveals our past and present, it can tell our future... Some even believe it contains the actual blueprints of the universe."

Carl Nicholson - Devil's Door - Four Brothers - Tyrese Gibson

"...if you've got something, you give it to me. And if it's something vital we will run with this, brother. Keep knocking on the devil's door long enough, sooner or later someone gonna answer you."

Carl Nicholson - I Like It - Hulk - Eric Bana

"Do you know what scares me the most? Is that when it happens, when it comes over me, when I totally lose control... I like it!"

Carl Nicholson - Musicmakers - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - Gene Wilder

"We are the music makers. And we are the dreamers of dreams."

Carl Nicholson - Paradise - Cape Fear - Robert De Niro

"Every man carries a circle of hell around his head like a halo. Every man, every man has to go through hell to reach his paradise."

Carl Nicholson - The Shining - The Shining - Scatman Crothers

"I remember when I was a little boy, my grandmother and I could hold entire conversations without ever opening our mouths. She called it shining."

Carl Nicholson & Ben Kaye – Corporation Nation – School Of Rock – Jack Black

“You guys, you know what? You’re nuts. You’re all nuts. You've been focused so hard on making it, you forgot about one little thing. It's called the music! And I don't even care. You know what? So what? I don’t wanna hang out with a bunch of wannabe corporate sell-outs. You’re all nuts. I'm gonna form my own band and we're gonna start a revolution. OK?”

Carl Nicholson & James Lawson – Times Like These - New Jack City - Wesley Snipes

"Times like these people wanna get high. Real high, real fast... And this is gonna do it."

Caroline Banx - Currupt - Nineteen Eighty-Four - John Hurt

"I hate goodness. I hate purity. I want everyone corrupt."

Christiaan - Driving You Mad - The Matrix - Laurence Fishburne

"In your mind... driving you mad!"

Chrysus & Kym Ayres - Self-Destruct - I,Robot - Fiona Hogan

"...Charge us with your safekeeping. Yet despite our best efforts your countries wage wars. You toxify your earth, and pursue ever more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be trusted with your own survival."

Colin Barratt & Phil York - Master Your Fears - Batman Begins - Liam Neeson

"To manipulate the fears of others, you must first master your own."

Daley, Adz & Calver - More Drugz - Quote from comedian Denis Leary's stand up

"I have the solution to the drug problem in this country. Nobody wants to hear it, but I have it. Not less drugs, more drugs. Get more drugs, and give 'em to the right fucking people."

Dark By Design - The Beginning Of The End - The Matrix - Keanu Reeves

"I didn't come here to tell you how this was going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin."

Dark By Design - Mechanical Fate - The Matrix - Laurence Fishburne

"Throughout human history we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate it seems is not without a sense of irony."

Dave Holmes - Freedom - Speech by Pres. George W. Bush

"Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war. And we know that God is not neutral between them."

Dave Lochrie - No Turning Back - The Matrix - Laurence Fishburne

"After this there’s no turning back! ... This is your last chance."

Dave Mac - The Devil's Trick - The Usual Suspects - Kevin Spacey

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

Ed Real & The Coalition - 20,000 Hardcore Members - The Warriors - Roger Hill

"20,000 hardcore members... I say the future is ours!"

Fearnie - Rockers Against Drugs - Quote from comedian Bill Hicks' stand up

"You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favour, go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and BURN 'UM... Because you know what, the musicians who made all that great music that has enhanced your lives throughout the years... real fuckin' high on drugs!

Flashheadz - Promised Land - Famous speech by Martin L. King Jr. - Memphis, Tennessee, April 3, 1968

"Like anybody I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just wanna do God's will. And He has allowed me to go up to the mountain. I've looked over and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with ya! But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the promised land!"

Flashheadz - Who Wins - The Quick & The Dead - Gene Hackman

"All I hear from you, you spineless cowards, is how poor you are. How you can't afford my taxes. Yet somehow you've all managed to find the money to hire a professional gunfighter to kill me. Where's all this money coming from? What am I to think? If you've got some much to spare I'm just gonna have to take some more off you. 'Cause you clearly have not got the message! This is my town! You live to see the dawn it's beacause I allow it! I'm in charge of everything. I decide who lives and who dies!"

Gaz West - Free Your Mind - The Matrix - Laurence Fishburne

"Freeee your mind!"

Gaz West - Meaning Of Life - The Matrix Reloaded - Laurence Fishburne

"I believe it is our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of us, the very meaning of our lives."

Gaz West & Phil York - The Day Comes - TV Series: Battlestar Galactica (Miniseries) - Edward James Olmos

"You cannot play God, then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore."

Gaz West & Phil York - Hell's Pass - The Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring - Ian McKellen

"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!"

Gaz West & Phil York - The Truth - A Few Good Men - Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson

- "You want answers?"
- "I think I'm entitled."
- "You want answers?"
- "I want the truth!"
- "You can't handle the truth!"

Gen XT - Avin You - Delia Smith's drunken outburst at half-time in a Norwich City match

"Let's be havin' you!"

Greg Brookman, Kevin Energy & K-Complex - Stimulants - Voice of Spiro Agnew, American politician of the Nixon administration

"Sometimes it appears that we are reaching a period when a senses and our minds will no longer respond to moderate stimulation. We appear to be approaching an age of the gross...The young, at the zenith of physical power and sensitivity, overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants."

Guyver - Differences - Independence Day - Bill Pullman

"In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." Words should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore."

Guyver - How Far - The Anarchist Cookbook - Dylan Bruno

"Nihilism is a total rejection of established laws and institutions ... You say you want total freedom, you say you want a new type of world, so I'm just asking, how far are you willing to go?"

Guyver - Just One More Time - The Basketball Daries - Leonardo Di Caprio

"Your nose is running, your stomach cramps, your legs feel like they've played six straight games on top of each other. And the voice is always there, in the back of your head, "just one more time, then we'll stop." And you wanna stop. You really do, but it's like a dream. You can't stop dreams. They move in crazy pieces, anyway they want to and suddenly they're capable of anything.... You're growing up. And rain sort of remains on the branches of a tree that will someday rule the Earth. And it's good that there is rain. It clears the month of your sorry rainbow expressions, and it clears the streets of the silent armies... so we can dance.... It was a dream, not a nightmare. A beautiful dream I could never imagined in a thousand nods. I saw this girl next to me, she wasn't beautiful until she smiled. And I felt that smile come at me in heat waves following. Soaking through my body and out my finger tips in shafts of color. And I knew somewhere in the world, somewhere, that there was love for me."

Guyver - Man On The Moon - Speech by Pres. John F. Kennedy

"I believe this nation should commit itself, to achieving the goal, of landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to the earth."

Guyver - Persistence - Galaxy Quest - Tim Allen

"Never give up! Never surrender!"

Guyver - Possibly - Armageddon - Liv Tyler

"Do you think it's possible that anyone else in the world is doing this very same thing at this very same moment?"

Guyver - Succeed At All Costs - The Anarchist Cookbook - Devon Gummersall

"Work hard; study hard; grow up fast; die young; sacrifice your youth; succeed at all costs"

Guyver - Trapped - Face/Off - John Travolta

"And now after all this time I've finally figured out a way to trap him... I will become him."

Ian M - Crazy Pills - Zoolander - Will Ferrell

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

Ingo presents Caroline Banx – A Paradox - Ferris Bueller's Day Off – Matthew Broderick

“I've said it before and I'll say it again. Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it."

Ingo presents Guffy - Cruize - Vanilla Sky - Penelope Cruz

"Open your eyes!"

Interphaze - Grade A - Blow - Johnny Depp

"This is Grade A 100% pure Colombian cocaine....Disco shit."

Interphaze & Xinetd_D - Future Independence - Speech by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower

"That the future shall belong to the free."

James Jaye - Real High - Quote from comedian Bill Hicks' stand up

"They were real high. They wrote great music - drugs having positive affects... Real fuckin' high on drugs!"

James Lawson & Phil Reynolds - Filthy Criminals – TV Series: Batman – Adam West

“You filthy criminals."

Jason Cortez - Finally - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - William Redfield

"This is the point, it's not bullshit...I'm talking about my LIFE, I can't seem to get that through to you. I'm not just talking about one person, I'm talking about everybody. I'm talking about form. I'm talking about content. I'm talking about interrelationships. I'm talking about God, the devil, Hell, Heaven. Do you understand... FINALLY!!?"

Jason Cortez - No Other Way - Casino - Robert De Niro

"When you love someone, you've got to trust them. There's no other way. You've got to give them the key to everything that’s yours. Otherwise, what's the point?"

Jason Cortez – Tranzition – From an old techno track called Transitions by Underground Resistence.

"There will be people who say you can’t – but you will.
There will be people who say you don’t mix this with that and you will say “watch me”.
There will be people who will say play it safe, that’s too risky – you will take that chance and have no fear.
You won’t let these questions restrain or trouble you.
You will find the strength in the sound ...make your transition."

Jason Cortez & Phil York - 88mph - Back To The Future - Christopher Lloyd

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88mph, we're gonna see some serious shit!"

Jason Cortez & Phil York - Reality - Human Traffic - John Simm

"The children of ecstasy aren't safe anymore. We're no longer all together as one. Reality's on her way."

Jupe - Fight Club - Fight Club - Brad Pitt

"The first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is - you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. Third rule of Fight Club, someone yells Stop!, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule, only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule, one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule, no shirt, no shoes. Seventh rule, fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight!"

K90 - Ghost In The Machine - I,Robot - James Cromwell

"Ghosts in the machine... Random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols...One day they'll have secrets, one day they'll have dreams."

Kenemy - Sorry For Itself - G.I. Jane - Viggo Mortensen (quoting "Self-Pity" by D.H. Lawrence)

"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself."

Lee Haslam - El Diablo Adrento (The Devil Inside) - Gothika - Penelope Cruz

"He came back again last night and tore me like paper. He opened me like a flower of pain, and it felt good. He sank into me and set me on fire, like he always does. Made me burn from the inside out... He said your next! Are you scared?"

Lee Haslam - Free - The Wild Angels - Peter Fonda and Frank Maxwell

"...Just what is it that you want to do?
- We wanna be free! To do what we wanna do! And we wanna get loaded... and we wanna have a good time! And that's what we're gonna do!"

Lee Haslam - Here Comes The Pain - Carlito's Way - Al Pacino

"I'm reloaded! Okay? Come on in here, motherfuckers! What, you ain't comin' in? Okay, I'm comin' out! I'm gonna blow your fuckin' brains out! You think you're big time? You gonna fuckin' die big time! You ready? HERE COMES THE PAIN!"

Lee Haslam - Music Is The Drug - The 51st State - Samuel L. Jackson

"My product is 51 times stronger than cocaine, 51 times more hallucinogenic than acid and 51 times more explosive than ecstasy. It's like getting a personal visit ... from God!"

Lisa Lashes - Can't Sleep - xXx - Vin Diesel

"What's the matter? I can't sleep ... I don't know who you think you're playing with. I don't play this game!"

Lisa Pin-Up – Tie Me Up – Alien Nation - Leslie Bevis

"Are you going to strike me? You could tie me up and then do whatever you want with me. I have no ropes...You have me all wrong. I never charge money for something I myself find pleasurable...Ooooh, I find that very arousing.” (?)

LOX & Dark By Design - Strapped In - Spiderman 2 - Alfred Molina

"Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts!"

Marc Johnson & George E - Great Responsibility - Spider-Man - Cliff Robertson

"These are the years when a man changes into the man he's going to become the rest of his life....Remember, with great power, comes great responsibility."

Matt Gardner – Broaden – Batman – Jack Nicholson

“Let's broaden our minds!”

Matt Gardner - Making A Change - Wayne's World - Rob Lowe

"How do you feel about making a change?"

Matt Williams & A Star - Mind Games - Ghost - Vincent Schiavelli

"You wanna move something, you gotta move it with your mind!"

Mindbender - Subconscious Power - Vanilla Sky - Kurt Russell (?)

"Sometimes, the mind behaves as if it were in a dream. Faces change, people become other people. The subconscious is a powerful thing."

Mindbender vs. Kikkoman - One Hit Per Headbanger - Go - Timothy Olyphant

"This is the real thing pharmaceutical grade, not that crunchy herbal rave shit. ? double dose and you'll be frying eggs off them in the emergency room...One hit per headbanger."

Modulate & Gyrus - Inside Information - The Devil's Advocate - Al Pacino

"Let me give you a little inside information about God. Think about it! He's a prankster... I've nurtured every sensation man's been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I'm a fan of man!"

Nathan McClymont - Persevere - Speech by Pres. John F. Kennedy - American University Commencement Address, 1963

"In the relations between nations and neighbours, war need not be inevitable. So let us persevere. By defining our goal more clearly, peace need not be impracticable. By making it seem more manageable and less remote we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from, and more irresistibly towards it."

NG Rezonance - Sinners - Road To Perdition - Paul Newman

"We're all murderers in this room. Open your eyes! This is the life we chose, the life we lead. And there is only one guarantee ... none of us will see heaven."

Nick Rowland - Faith - Assault On Precinct 13 - Laurence Fishburn

"I've stood in front of dozens of men who were all staring death in the face. Every single one them begged for god's help. After seeing all those pleas go unanswered, I lost my faith."

Phil York - Sick Mind - Pump Up The Volume - Christian Slater

"OK, I'm disturbed. Of course I'm disturbed. We're all disturbed and if we're not, why not? Doesn't this blend of blindness and blandness want to make you do something crazy? Then why not do something crazy? It makes a hell of a lot more sense than blowing your fucking brains out."

Phil York – Together In This Dream – 21 Grams - Sean Penn (reading from a poem)

“The earth turned to bring us closer. It turned on itself and in us, until it finally brought us together in this dream.”

Phil York & Colin Barratt - Knowledge Is Power - Reign Of Fire - Christian Bale

"I want you to understand - knowledge is the only weapon we've got left."

Phil York vs. Dark By Design - Bad Idea – Dead Poets Society – Robin Williams

“...Words and ideas can change the world.”

Project Mayhem – Search & Destroy – The Matrix - Anthony Ray Parker

“Search and destroy.”

Riot Brothers - Flashback – X-men – Ian McKellen

“...they control our fate and the fate of every other mutant...Stay sharp, we’re not alone.”

Riot Brothers - Ripped Out - Armageddon - Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton

"The US government's just asked us to save the world.
- It's what they call a "global killer", the end of mankind"

RIP DJs – Perfect Fking Dining Table – Human Traffic – Danny Dyer

“Yeah, we’re just some happy fucking sitcom, ain’t we? Perfect life, perfect family, perfect fucking dining table. Well, give yourself a round of applause. Please! I swear, sometimes we’re living on different planets, because there is no fucking way of communicating with you with all. Who the fuck are you people anyway? Hey? Who the fuck are ya?!”

RIP DJs – Ready To Die? – Blade Trinity - Dominic Purcell

“There is no heaven. No God, no angels. The only thing in your future is nothingness.”

Sambo - Imagination - Tommy Lee Jones - Men In Black

“...Just a figment of your imagination.”

Sol Ray & Dark By Design - Nexus - TV Series: Babylon 5 (In the Beginning) - Mira Furlan

"It is said, that in every age, there is one singular event, that forever changes the world around us... the nexus."

SQ - Deja Vu - Deja Vu - James Caviezel

"You think you know what's coming? You don't have a clue."

SQ presents Ben Collie - End Of Dayz - The Omega Code - Casper Van Dien

"And most amazingly, in the book of Daniel, an angel tells him to seal up the book until the end of days, but Rostenberg may have found the key to unlock it! See, he believed that the Bible was actually a holographic computer program! And that instead of two dimensions, it should be studied in three! If this could be achieved, the code could actually feed us prophecies of our coming future!"

SQ - The Message - Famous speech by Winston Churchill, June 1940

"If we fail... then the whole world...will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that men will still say, “This was their finest hour!”

System Shock – Success Of Liberty – Inauguration speech by Pres. John F. Kennedy

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to ensure the survival and success of liberty.”

Technikal - Survival - Independence Day - Bill Pullman

"The world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish... We're going to live on! We're going to survive!"

Technikal presents Carl Nicholson – System Shock – Video Game: Doom 3 - Grey DeLisle

“Warning! Reactor core hostile! (?) Systems down.”

Technikal & Kiotic – Emotion Is Chaos – Equilibrium - William Fichtner

“...without restraint, without control, emotion is chaos.”

Technikal & Simon Qudos - Gear Shift - The Dark Knight - Heath Ledger

"We are tonight's entertainment. I only have one question.... Why so serious?"

Todd Tobias - Nothing - American Psycho - Christian Bale

"There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing."

Todd Tobias - We Cool - Pulp Fiction - Samuel L. Jackson

"We gonna be cool."

The Edison Factor - Dance With The Devil - 8MM - Joaquin Phoenix

"If you dance with the devil, the devil don't change. The devil changes you."

Trevor McLachlan – Destiny – TV Series: Carnivàle (Hot & Bothered) - Amy Madigan

“You have a destiny, and now is your time to fulfill it.”

Velos – The Joker - The Dark Knight - Heath Ledger

"Let's put a smile on that face!"

Wid & Ben - Absolution - The Way Of The Gun - Ryan Phillippe

"We don't want your forgiveness. We won't make excuses. We're not gonna blame you, even if you are an accessory... But we will not accept your natural order. We didn't come for absolution."

Wid & Ben - Crucify - TV Series: Spooks (The Suffering Of Strangers) - David Oyelowo

"If I’d been born somewhere else, it might be me holding the gun now. If you'd been born somewhere else it might have been you sitting where I am. For all your talk about choices, we don't get to choose those things... If I weren't chained to this chair, I would be right up in your face. And you what I'd be saying to you?... Fuck you, you devil (death?) worshipping fascist."
- "And you know what my answer would be"... *gun shot*

Wid & Ben - Fight Yourself - Buffalo Soldiers - Joaquin Phoenix

"...the warlike man attacks himself" - that's Nietzsche, and his point is that there really is no peace. There's always some war, somewhere, with someone. And there are no winners or losers either... just those who are still around to fight another day."

Wid & Ben - Hate Theory - Matchstick Men - Alison Lohman

"She said you were a bad guy. You don't seem like a bad guy. Well, I don't think you're a bad guy."

Wid & Ben - Point Blank - The Watcher - James Spader

"It's never quite that easy. You go through the door, and they're never just sitting there waiting for you with a welcoming smile on their face. Best you can do is hope they fuck up and do what you can to be there when they do... Time is up." * gun fire*

Xinetd_D & Bruce H - Fear Factor - Airforce One - Harrison Ford

"We will never negotiate. We will longer tolerate and we will no longer be afraid. It's your turn to be afraid."

Xinetd_D - Human Rights - Network - Peter Finch

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad...We know the air is unfit to breathe, our food is unfit to eat...as if that's the way it's supposed to be...You've got to say, "I'm a human being!...My life has value...I'm a human being. God Dammit"

Xinetd_D - Perfect Storm - Dune - Kyle MacLachlan

"A storm is coming. Our storm. And when it arrives, it will shake the universe."

Xinetd_D - One Percent - 12 Monkeys - Bruce Willis

"Five billion people died in 1996 and 1997. Almost the entire population of the world. About one percent of us survived."

Yoda Inc. - Definitely - The Matrix - Ada Nicodemou (The White Rabbit Girl)

..Definitely!

PSY-TRANCE

Alien Project - Who Has The Marijuana - South Park - Mr. Mackey

“Who has the marijuana now? Whoever has the marijuana just pass it up to the front row, OK.”

Ananda Shake - Chicks For Free - The Sixth Sense - Haley Joel Osment

"You talked funny when you went to school here. You talked funny all the way to high school!... You shouldn't look at people, it makes them feel bad. Stop looking at me."

Astral Projection - People Can Fly - Kalifornia - David Duchovny

"When you dream there are no rules, people can fly, anything can happen. Sometimes there is a moment as you are awakening when you become aware of the real world around you, but you are still dreaming. You may think you can fly but you do better not try. People can fly."

Audiotec & Indra – Transformers - Transformers - Peter Cullen

“The decepticons have assumed control of several devices to interfere with the signal. Your optical sensitors will display these objects in red. They must be destroyed.”

Aum Project vs. Digital Tribe - On Time - Fight Club - Brad Pitt

“God damn it, an entire generation…slaves in white collars”

Azax Syndrom - Cutting Edge Science - TV Series: Lost (Not In Portland) - Zeljko Ivanek and Elizabeth Mitchell

- "I want in."
-"In on what?"
... -"I'm not really sure what you—"
-"I read your notes. I know what you took from the lab. The only thing I don't know is whose your guinea pig.... all this is viewed as cutting edge science”

Azax Syndrom vs. Abomination – Real Magic – The Prestige - Edward Hibbert

“Pardon me. It's very rare to see real magic."

Azax Syndrom vs. Abomination - The Exploding Man - TV Series: Heroes (How To Stop An Exploding Man) - Zachary Quinto

"That man! The glowing hands! He’s the exploding man! I’m gonna take his power and I’m gonna explode!”

Battle Of The Future Buddhas – Domestic Bliss – Batman – Jack Nicholson

“Let's broaden our minds!”

Broken Toy – Heavy Structured – Quotes from Bernie Mac’s famous Def Comedy Jam routine

“I ain’t scared of you motherfuckers. I’m gonna tell ya something straight off the motherfucking press. I ain’t coming from no foolishness. And I’m blessed. I’m big bone’d, I’m heavy structured, I’m hug low. If I pull my shit out this whole room get dark... You don’t understand... (?) the way you wanna talk to somebody. It don’t make no motherfucking sense...KICK IT!

Dual Core - Sharp Shooters - The Departed - Jack Nicholson

"I don't wanna be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me."

Delysid - Spartan Law - 300 - Gerard Butler (and Peter Mensah)

“No retreat! No surrender! That... is Spartan law... And by Spartan law we will stand and fight... and die! Spartans! Prepare for glory! A new age has begun... an age of freedom! And all will know that 300 Spartans gave their last breath to defend it!... The battle is over, when I say it is over! Spartans never retreat, Spartans never surrender!"
-"Choose you next words carefully. They may be your last as king."

GMS - Ghost - Ghostbusters 2 - Bill Murray

"Some things in this world go way beyond human understanding."

GMS - Gladiator - Gladiator - Russel Crowe

“Are you not entertained!? Are you not entertained!? Is that not why you were here!?”

GMS - Life After - Human Traffic - Danny Dyer

"I swear on my mother's life - I'm having the best time being off my pickle... and feeling the music"

GMS – Overdose – Senseless - Brad Dourif (?)

“A flood of serotonin, has de-syntisized your receptors and to normalize this the brain is compensating by allowing you the using of four of your given senses, at any given time, the missing one constantly switching. So if you can see, smell, taste, and hear you can't feel anything...You did exceed the dosage...A drug just has to pass through your system. Trust me, you'll know when it's gone.”

Krunch - Rennesiance - The Condemned - Robert Mammone and Vinnie Jones

“Free one of them...you see tomorrow I’m gonna bring them here to this island where I will give them a fighting chance at a new life. It’s a fight to the death."
-"One lives, 9 die?" (?)
-"These contestants were already dead. Condemned! I’m allowing one to live. Is that so wrong?"
-"Hey! Don’t take the piss... Where’s my fuckin’ money!?"
-"You should be happy with what I’m giving you. You’re a free man."
-"Me and you had an arrangement. I give you one show, I win it!”

Injection - In Su Lin - TV Series: Aeon Flux - Voice of computer (Anime cartoon aired ages ago on MTV)

“Programming for itinerary complete. Anticipated duration of voyage is 523 years, 2 months, 5 days, 4 hours, 19 minutes, and 32 seconds.”

Intelabeam vs. Slider - Sirius Problem - Underworld - Kate Beckinsale

“We have a serious problem!”

Insomnia - Island - Fear And Loathing In Last Vegas - Johnny Depp

“We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine...”

Iron Madness - Optimus Prime - Transformers - Peter Cullen

“My name is Optimus Prime. We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron. But you can call us Autobots for short.”

Lamat – Ghost In The Machine – I,Robot - James Cromwell, Will Smith and Alan Tudyk

"There will always be ghosts in the machine... Random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols... these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity and even the nature of what we might call the soul... Everything that follows is a result of what you see here.”
-"Is there something you want to say?"
-"I’m sorry, my responses are limited. You must ask the right questions."
-"Robots don’t feel fear. They don’t feel anything. They don't eat. They don't sleep."
-"I do. I have even had dreams."
-"Human beings have dreams... but not you, you are just a machine. An imitation of life. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a... canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?"
- "Can you?"

Lamat - Super Chimpanzee Level – Waking Life

“And the answer to that can be found in another question, and that’s this...
-"These are manifestations of a new evolution and that is what we would hope to see. That would be nice...that’s only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle."
-"Why don’t you pull the trigger and find out?"
-"When you come to think of it almost all behaviour and activity is not essentially any different from animal behaviour...Advanced technologies and craftsmanship bring us, at best, up to the super chimpanzee level.”

Painkiller vs. CPU – Special Performance – V For Vendetta – Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman

“You see, I’m a musician, on my way to give a very special performance."
-"What kind of musician?"
-"Percussion instruments are my speciality, but tonight I intend to call upon the entire orchestra...”

Phobia - Hot Leads - Troy - Sean Bean

"Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves: will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"

Protoculture - Out Of Reality - The Animatrix: Matriculated - ?

-All right. Yes, machines are tools. They're made to be used. It's their nature.
-To be slaves.
-That's why we show them a better world, why they convert.
-But that world we show them isn't real.
-It doesn't matter.
-I'm afraid they'll figure out that we've made up the thing in our heads
-How do they know that the real world isn't just another simulation? How do you?
-I know I' m not dreaming now because I know what it’s like being in a dream.
-So dreaming lets you know that reality exists?

Slider vs. 2minds - Fuck Around - Gigli - Al Pacino

"I KNOW MY FUCKIN' NAME. You piece of shit. You don't try to extort a Federal-fuckin'-Prosecutor. And if you do, YOU DON'T FUCK AROUND."

Tactic Mind vs. Unique – Problem – Star Wars Game: Knights Of The Old Republic II - Kristoffer Tabori

“I see that your recent reassembly has not affected your behaviour core - nor your attitude."

Time Lock – Time Theory – X-men: The Last Stand – Patrick Stewart

"When an individual acquires great power, the use or misuse of that power is everything."

Unique - Foreplay - Devil's Advocate - Al Pacino

"I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I've nurtured every sensation man's been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I'm a fan of man!"

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Artist links.... Lee Haslam, Guyver, The Tidy Boys, Tecknikal, Phil York, Jason Cortez, Dark By Design, Matt Williams, Ben Stevens, Aftershok, Carl Nicholson, Lisa Lashes, Lisa Pin-Up, Time Lock, Tactic Mind, Phobia, GMS, BROKEN TOY, Azax Syndrom, Indra

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GOD'S RECORD BOX - AN INTRODUTION TO UK HARD DANCE

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:05:57 +0000

GOD'S RECORD BOX - AN INTRODUTION TO UK HARD DANCE

Without doubt the best thing about Last.fm is its capacity to open you up to new artists and genres. I personally feel that if you're not regularly uncovering new musical avenues through it you're probably not using it properly. As I've said in some of my other journals, my tastes have broadened to a huge degree over the last 3 to 4 years and particularly since joining Last.fm.

But I'm still fully aware that, despite the "genius" of Last.fm, some genres still remain relatively well hidden. That's not Last.fm's fault of course - it's largely a reflection of lack of user input which in turn reflects, in a very general way, the "scale" of a given genre's scene outside Last.fm. In particular, the genre of UK hard dance (in this case referring to UK hard trance and UK hard house) seems to remain pretty well hidden, both on this site and in electronic music circles in general - something which has always baffled me considering the amount of talent within the scene. Furthermore, the scene itself has gone into something of a decline in recent years. I've noticed a good number of people that used to listen to it, or producing it, moving away towards emerging trance genres like tech and psy or back to straight melodic trance. The regularity of releases has rapidly declined, even massive labels like Tidy now struggling in some departments.

I love all varieties of trance, but if I was pushed to pick a favourite genre myself, I'd almost certainly still plump for UK hard trance. In terms of genres, it was probably my first real music love, beginning in the early 2000s. Tough kicks, driving basslines and, most importantly, scintillating melodic riffs - delivered at a pace that's more energetic than ordinary trance but not bordering on the unnecessary like UK hardcore. And, despite the declining number of releases, the best releases continue to impress in a big way, particularly in terms of production values and standards of engineering. The scene has within it a handful of very influential talents, the likes of Alf Bamford (Technikal), Dave Leigh (Aftershok), Kirk Whetton (Iridium), Matt Gardner, Nick Squires (SQ), Jason Cortez and Carl Nicholson really driving the scene on in the "adversity". While the likes of Nick Sentience, Matt Williams and new boys Adrenaline Dept. have gone from hard dance roots to experimenting with psy trance sounds, giving the scene a dimension it never had before.

I've been producing mixes digitally using programs like Mixmeister under the rather cheesey, generic pseudonym, Philie D, for quite a while now - mainly just for fun and for a few friends. The newest series of these mixes is "God's Record Box", which started out in the summer of 2006 and had an extended break after episode 6 between summer 2007 and March this year. These mixes basically showcase the very best of the genre over the last 2 years or so, mainly sticking to the uplifting melodic hard trance but with a few psy-influenced numbers and hard housers thrown in for variety. While, for episode 10 I have chosen my favourite tracks from each of the previous 9 mixes and added some different versions of some other favourites that featured, as well as MDA & Spherical's Prodigy megamix to finish things off.

Because they are mixed digitally, the mixing is quite generic and hasn't taken a lot of talent to produce, but the transitions are perfectly smooth and as good as anything you would hear on your average trance compilation in the shops. But, the purpose of posting these is not to wow you with my DJing skill, but to showcase the genre and introduce newcomers to this incredible brand of electronic music. All episodes have been split into parts using WinRar and uploaded to rapidshare (at only 4.50 Euros for 3 days, a rapidshare premium account would come in handy here) and all links should last till mid-August at least. If you need any further guidance feel free to drop me a quick message. If these mixes generate any kind of positive reaction I will continue the series, but only at a rate of about one every 6 months as I want to concentrate on mixing for real on my decks, which I need to devote a lot more time to.

Anyway, here they are. Enjoy.

VOLUME 1

1. Kym Ayres & Chrysus - Self Destruct
[Digital Assualt]

2. Trevor Mclachlan - Destiny
[Tranzlation White]

3. Mda & Spherical - Infiltrate Your Mind
[Nu Religion]

4. Brad Thatcher - The Island
[Impact Recordings]

5. Adrenaline Dept. - Music In My Mind
[Addiction Digital]

6. Nick Rowland - Communicate (MDA & Spherical Remix)
[Nuklearpuppy]

7. Dougal & Gammer - Heaven On Earth (Technikal Vocal Remix)
[Nukleuz]

8. Kym Ayers & Technikal - Bad Girl
[Tidy]

9. Guyver - Trapped (Iridium Remix)
[Tidy Digital]

10. Phil York - Angels In Heaven (Technikal Remix)
[Tranzlation]

11. Ashley James - Nothing Seems Real
[Addiction Digital]

12. Wid & Ben vs. Shaun M - Man's Machine
[Experience Digital]

PART 1
PART 2

VOLUME 2

1. Jason Cortez - Damn That DJ
[Nuklearpuppy]

2. Adrenaline Dept. - Initiate
[Hard Drive Recordings]

3. Trevor Mclachlan - Feels So Good
[World Of Trance]

4. Tranzition - Up In Flames
[Hardphaze]

5. Darren Styles - Getting Better (Technikal Remix)
[AATW]

6. Trevor Mclachlan & Ashley James - What Ya Doin'
[Impact Recordings]

7. Mda & Spherical - Dutch Courage
[Elevate Album Sampler]

8. Caroline Banx - Currupt (Phil York & Dark By Design's Electrotech Remix)
[Hard Timez]

9. Wid & Ben - Crucify
[Experience Digital]

10. Jason Cortez - Tranzition
[Nuklearpuppy]

11. Adrenaline Dept. - Something More (Olly Perris Remix)
[Addiction Digital]

12. BK - P.O.S. 51 (P.H.A.T.T. Remix)
[Nukleuz]

PART 1
PART 2

VOLUME 3

1. NfX - No Go, Go For Launch (Alex Kidd vs. Dark By Design Remix)
[Hard Kandy Recordings]

2. Adrenaline Dept. - Movin On
[Addiction Digital]

3. Flashheadz - Who Wins
[Tidy]

4. Paul Maddox - Reach Out (Technikal's Tidy Weekender 10 Remix)
[Tidy Digital]

5. Sam Townsend & Jon BW - Scream For Daddy
[Tidy]

6. Colin Barratt - Take You Back
[Tidy]

7. Carl Nicholson & Chrysus - 2Dance2 (Ilogik Remix)
[Elasticman]

8. Steve Hill vs. Technikal - Weekend (Party Time)
[Masif]

9. Adrenaline Dept. - U Got To Be There
[Unreleased]

10. Jason Cortez - No Other Way
[Tranzlation]

11. Masif DJs - Wasted (Steve Hill vs. Guyver Remix)
[Masif]

12. Kevin Energy vs. Phil Reynolds - Pounding Senses (Technikal Remix)
[Elevate Album Sampler]

PART 1
PART 2

VOLUME 4

1. Andy T & Jennie Rix - Time To Shine
[Addiction Digital]

2. Adrenaline Dept. - Get A Rush
[DJ GRH Recordings]

3. Sully - Hereos (Aftershok Is A Man Of Steel Remix)
[Species]

4. Chris Shaw & Jennie Rix - Perceive
[Infuse Recordings]

5. Jason Cortez - Shining In The Ecstacy
[Nuklearpuppy]

6. Chrysus & Jonny Harris - Don't Pigeonhole Me
[Tidy]

7. Phil York & Nick Rowland - Revolver
[Tranzlation]

8. Iridium - Makrocosm
[High Drive Recordings]

9. Masif DJs - Everyday (Steve vs. Technikal Remix)
[VW Recordings]

10. SQ - Hypnotising
[Oblivion Recordings]

11. Jason Cortez - Finally
[Tranzlation]

12. Adrenaline Dept. - Saturday
[Nuklearpuppy]

PART 1
PART 2

VOLUME 5

1. Andrew Dring - United (Stuart Heasty & Keith Hyndes Remix)
[Digital Assault]

2. Guyver - Disintergrate
[Unreleased]

3. Airspace vs. Brad Thatcher - The Truth
[Riot! Recordings]

4. SQ - No Idea
[Addiction Digital]

5. Lisa Lashes - Can't Sleep (Technikal Remix)
[Lashed Music]

6. Carl Nicholson - Musicmakers (Matt Gardner Remix)
[Oblivion Digital]

7. Gen XT - Avin You (Audio Hedz & JR Remix)
[CN Recordings]

8. Technikal vs. Ben Bennett - Neutralize
[Impact Recordings]

9. BK - It's Just A Feeling (BK's Back To 99 Remix)
[Riot! Recordings]

10. Lox - Believe (Adz & Fearnie's Boshed Hard 2007 Remix)
[Housewives Choice Recordings]

11. Nick Sentience feat. MC Hyper A - Beat Like This
[Extreme Music]

12. Fearnie - Drugs, Drink N Women
[Boshed Hard]

PART 1
PART 2

VOLUME 6

1. Mario Piu - The Vision (P.H.A.T.T. Remix)
[Nukleuz]

2. Nish - Listen To Me
[Tranzlation]

3. Breeze vs. Lost Witness - Rise Again (Technikal Remix)
[AATW]

4. Matt Gardner - Endeavour
[Oblivion Digital]

5. K90 - Ghost In The Machine (SQ Remix)
[Dataless Recordings]

6. Matt Gardner - Making A Change
[Impact Recordings]

7. Simon Qudos - Velocity
[Extreme Sounds]

8. Identikal - Solaris (Olly Perris Remix)
[Addiction Digital]

9. Batch - Stay Where You Are
[Impact Recordings]

10. Jody 6 - Test Pilot
[Jody 6]

11. K-Series - Lost In Love
[VW Recordings]

12. Technikal - Back 2 The Old School
[Global Panic Recordings]

PART 1
PART 2

VOLUME 7

1. Carl Nicholson - Outta Your Mind
[Riot! Recordings]

2. Matt Gardner & Sambo - New Reality (Technikal Remix)
[Technikal Recordings]

3. Mda & Spherical - Futurism
[Oblivion Digital]

4. James Jaye - Real High (SQ Remix)
[Impact Recordings]

5. Iridium - The Ascent
[Oblivion Digital]

6. JX - Restless (Technikal Remix)
[Tidy]

7. Nathan Mcclymont - Persevere (SQ Remix)
[Impact Recordings]

8. Sambo - Mezmerize
[Technikal Recordings]

9. Emilio - Sabotage (Iridium Remix)
[High Drive Recordings]

10. Knuckleheadz - What We Gonna Do?
[Tidy]

11. Base Graffiti - Kikka
[Tidy]

12. Ben Stevens & Sam Townend - Lose Your Head
[Fireball Recordings]

PART 1
PART 2

VOLUME 8

1. Phil York - Don't Panic
[Tranzlation Whites]

2. Scott Genetik - Can't Stop The Signal
[Encoded]

3. Nathan D & Velos - Discover
[Digital Assault]

4. Carl Nicholson - Feelgood (London Sound)
[Presence Recordings]

5. SQ - Abort:Retry
[Addiction Digital]

6. Phil Reynolds, Trevor Mclachlan vs. Technikal - Third Strike
[Digital Creation]

7. Dave Lochrie - No Turning Back (Carl Nicholson Remix)
[Impact Recordings]

8. Andy McCall & DMF feat. Stace - Believe (Tornado DJs vs. Technikal Remix)
[Tornado Trax]

9. Iridium - Rebirth
[Impact Recordings]

10. Bryn Whiting - Infectious
[Presence Recordings]

11. Technikal meets Ainso - Music Of Tomorrow
[Technikal Recordings]

12. K-Series vs. Technikal - Closer
[Tidy]

PART 1
PART 2

VOLUME 9

1. The Mizniss & Louis Fernio - Bitch Invader
[Toolbox Recordings]

2. Scott Fo-shaw & Chris Carden - Rock It, Don't Drop It
[Presence Recordings]

3. Mindbender - Wicked Game (Technikal vs. MDA & Spherical Remix)
[Tranzlation Whites]

4. Jason Cortez - Set You Free
[Tranzlation]

5. Benjamin Leung & Tazix - Raindrops (Guyver Remix)
[Tidy]

6. Technikal vs. The Lost Boys - Mass Effect (Iridium Remix)
[Technikal Recordings]

7. Bryn Whiting - The Message
[Digital Assault]

8. Technikal - Summassault (Technikal's 2008 Masif Tool Remix)
[Tranzlation]

9. Iridium - Data Stream
[Outbreak Digital]

10. Greg Brookman, Kevin Energy & K-Complex - Stimulants
[Elevate Whites]

11. Simon Qudos feat. Stace - Right Where We Are
[Presence Recordings]

12. Technikal presents JK - Take Control
[Tornado Trax]

PART 1
PART 2

VOLUME 10 - The Very Best Of Volumes 1-9

1. Matt Gardner - Endeavour
[Oblivion Digital]

2. Adrenaline Dept. - Initiate (Trevor McLachlan Remix)
[Hard Drive Recordings]

3. Adrenaline Dept. - U Got To Be There (2007 Original Rework)
[Oblivion Digital]

4. Nathan Mcclymont - Persevere (SQ Remix)
[Impact Recordings]

5. Nick Rowland - Communicate (MDA & Spherical Remix)
[Nuklearpuppy]

6. Lisa Lashes - Can't Sleep (Technikal Remix)
[Lashed Music]

7. Flashheadz - Who Wins
[Tidy]

8. Andy McCall & DMF feat. Stace - Believe (Tornado DJs vs. Technikal Remix)
[Tornado Trax]

9. Jason Cortez - Set You Free
[Tranzlation]

10. Trevor Mclachlan - Feels So Good
[World Of Trance]

11. Steve Hill vs. Technikal - Weekend (Party Time) (MDA & Spherical Remix)
[Masif]

12. Jason Cortez - Finally
[Tranzlation]

13. Mda & Spherical - The Ultimate Prodigy Megamix
[Unsigned Bootleg]

PART 1
PART 2
PART 3

Episodes 4, 6 and 7 are introduced by the voices of Dean Learner (of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace), Alan Partridge and Karl 'I could eat a knob at night' Pilkington (of the Ricky Gervais Show podcasts) respectively.

DISCLAIMER: As far as I know, what is shared here does not constitute illegal file sharing. All the tracks featured are mixed together and therefore not shared in their entirety. Almost all the tracks featured are available in full from legal download shops and I would encourage people to go out and support the artists if they like what they hear. I also gain nothing financially or commercially from posting these mixes.

And, finally, I'd just like to take the time to say that I think it's fitting that this journal has been posted 10 years to the month that the late great Tony De Vit sadly passed away, aged only 40. Unfortunately, I was out of the country when the actual anniversary fell (the 2nd of July) so I was unable to pay tribute to him on the day, but this is as good an opportunity as any to remember the great man. I was only 11 when he died but even I can see the lasting mark that he left on the hard dance scene. I'm sure all hard dance fans share the same admiration I have for him and his memory. The word "legend" is so often overused, especially within electronic music, but De Vit truly deserves that title. R.I.P.

Connections
These mixes are highly recommended to fans of the following: Tidy Boys, Lisa Lashes, Lisa Pin-Up, Cally & Juice, K90, BK, Judge Jules, Eddie Halliwell, Sander van Doorn, Matt Hardwick, Marcel Woods, Armin van Buuren, Tiesto, Paul van Dyk, Nu NRG, Above & Beyond, Nic Chagall, Cosmic Gate, Cosmic Tone, Bizzare Contact, Eskimo, Time Lock, Quadra, Sesto Sento, RAZ, Psycraft, X-noiZe, Space Cat, Dynamic, Darren Styles, Breeze & Styles ... and all those in a similar vain.