So what's happening with Trance?

[Anderton]

It was supposed to be the next big thing, and while Trance has made modest inroads in the US, it seems to be stalled. The dominant form of Trance music seems to be the breathy-girl-singer-with-beats stuff, not necessarily the harder trance where DJs really do their thing.

 

Thing is, I like trance. A lot. But I'm waiting for it to grow more, not get stuck in a rut. Better lyrics wouldn't hurt, either. Hmmm, maybe I'll just have to come up with something myself

[aeon]

I liked it until right around 1994-1995, but at that point it took a turn I did not care for, and I have not listened to anything in the genre since that time.

 

 

cheers,

Ian

[d. gauss]

i don't know about t-rance, but i sure as sugar liked T-Rex.

 

-d. gauss

[Dot]

It has grown. Trance is still very big on a worldwide level. The style of Trance that became more commercial is known as "Progressive". And a lot of the bigger Trance folks like Sasha and John Digweed moved into other forms like Chillout.

 

A great internet radio source for Trance music and other branches of styles at http://di.fm/

 

The Chillout channel there has become one of my favorite sources for listening to music in the last couple of years. Check out it.

[Lee Knight]

Can someone describe Trance? Is Juno Reactor Trance?

[nat whilk II]

ya wanna know all about trance? check out this website - amazing and amusing:

 

http://www.ishkur.com/music

 

 

nat whilk ii

[Lee Knight]

Originally posted by nat whilk II ya wanna know all about trance? check out this website - amazing and amusing: http://www.ishkur.com/music nat whilk ii

 

Well... that clears things up! That's a cool sight. The amount of genres the electronic music scene has is mind numbing, particularly when can't hear much difference between a lot of it.

 

Some things are clearly unique. Synth Pop as oppossed to Ethereal, etc. But when you get into Nu, Hard, 2-Step, Progressive... wha????

 

So... what's Trance again?

[Super 8]

I guess it depends on what you consider "Trance". IT seems as if there's probably a 1/1 song/subgenre ratio.

 

The 4-on-the-floor kick can get a little annoying. I always found that to be an expremely uncreative way to express the beat. And then, as if to mock me, the DJ's start layering it and turning it up louder!

 

 

I pretty much stopped at The Orb. Once I heard them, nothing else could compare. I better throw Massive Attack in there too....good stuff.

 

So what's cool these days? Turn me on to something.

[felix]

Seems to me that as "mainstream" Electronic Music matures, it faces the same challenges that any other genre does - what was once innovative, fresh, and new is now "it's all been done before."

 

Trance seems to be getting there. It also has blown up big enough that there's a bunch of crap out there and you have to look harder to find the good stuff. It's a fairly narrow genre, so there aren't a lot of new directions it can go (though I can't wait to see what the next clever guy does with it when that does happen).

 

Concerning Electronica in general,

 

Some artists seem to have been able to grow within the Electronica genre. For instance, I like that BT doesn't just rehash old material, that each release from him has grown in new directions. I like that Felix da Housecat's second album didn't sound just like his first. But when I compare recent releases from what used to be some of my favorite Electronica artists (and some of the highest profile, mainstream Electronica players), they just don't stack up to their earlier material (cases in point, Crystal Method, Fatboy Slim).

 

Other favorite acts of mine have been slow to release new material (cases in point, Underworld, Prodigy, Fluke) or have disappeared altogether (cases in point Propellerheads, Mono).

 

I still find stuff I like, but I have to work harder nowadays to sift through the dreck.

[jahozer]

Trance is also starting to take hold in the jam scene and manifesting itself as "livetronica". Probably pioneered by and getting biggest with the Disco Biscuits, but a little more true to the trance genre would be bands like

Brothers Past

Sound Tribe Sector 9

Partlicle

New Deal

Perpetual Groove

Lotus.

I just saw Electron in Philly which is 2 guys from the DB (magner, Brownstein) 1 guy from BP (Tommy Hamilton) and Joe Russo from The Duo. I was afraid it would be too techno-ish, but it faaaareeeakin' ROCKED. Best music I have seen in a long time, and I see alot.

[blue2blue]

I have to say that, while I listened to a lot of electronica and related music in the 90s (and that meant a lot of trance and related music) and I still listen to a fair amount of downtempo, trip hop, and modern dub, that 'rave' music (you should pardon the wildly dated reference) proved to have little sticking power with me.

 

And, while D'n'B and some other forms offered at least a tweaked out intellectualism, that the frequent lack of development of melodic or harmonic elements in the more 'straight ahead' forms ultimately proved unengaging to me. (That said, I still like a funky house track if it's not just the typical club fodder with disengaged divas and out of the box sections.)

[Anderton]

I know trance is big worldwide, I was referring mostly to the US market. It just seems really hard to find trance.

 

BTW there are some cool links in this thread, here's one of my faves:

 

http://live.basic.ch/

 

They have a bunch of great archived DJ mixes.

[nat whilk II]

Methinks that the electronic genres (and some alt) carried the torch of innovation and creativity during the late 80s and 90s. But I do wonder if the electronic scene hasn't seen it's day. It's really hard to find new stuff that scratches the itch.

 

Trance, well, it sure has a bad name these days even among many electronica fans. But maybe there's some projects out there worth checking out.

 

So Craig, throw us some names to check out. The last kinda trance-like material I checked out was BTs Emotional Technology. My critical assessment FWIW is that it's ok, but just ok. Lots of clever sound manipulation, but the basic songwriting seems bland to me IMHO.

 

I've bought a lot of techno/electonic stuff over the years, but not much trance. Maybe I just don't know what the good stuff is...it's not like the radio plays the stuff in Texas.

 

nat whilk ii

[jahozer]

seriously try the "livetronica" stuff. For me its a nice blend.

Check out Brothers Past

[Rabid]

It is hard to find good trance in the US. I bought a variety CD a few years ago that enabled me to discover BT, Underworld, Renocerose and a few other acts I like. For every one good act (IMHO) it had 5 artists that did nothing more than play basic patterns. I've tried XM, online radio, and buying more compilation CD's. To me, trance feels or sounds very immature. Everyone with a beat box thinks they are making music, and that floods the channels with mediocre music. It's tiresome to go through so much crap to find the Sasha's, BT's and Orb's.

 

Robert

[Rabid]

By the way, thanks for the links. That will help.

 

Robert

[blue2blue]

Originally posted by Rabid It is hard to find good trance in the US. I bought a variety CD a few years ago that enabled me to discover BT, Underworld, Renocerose and a few other acts I like. For every one good act (IMHO) it had 5 artists that did nothing more than play basic patterns. I've tried XM, online radio, and buying more compilation CD's. To me, trance feels or sounds very immature. Everyone with a beat box thinks they are making music, and that floods the channels with mediocre music. It's tiresome to go through so much crap to find the Sasha's, BT's and Orb's. Robert

 

Donchya know it. Our once-hip local college station has an evening electronica/dance show that has been at the forefront of dumbing down that station for a number of years. The DJ, who used to affect an English accent, which later evolved to a pseudo-urban fake hip hop patois, is the reigning king of lame mixes in SoCal, seems to me.

 

Time and again I've heard mixes that showed little or no evidence of ever having left the old Mixman novelty loop mixing software. I got so tired of some of those loops, but you'd turn on Jas-- er, this guy's -- show and hear the same tired samples in tune after tune. You wanna talk embarrassment...

 

I noticed recently that that station was in begathon mode. Ten years ago, pledge time used to ruin my music life for a week or two.

 

Now, thanks to people like the aforementioned DJ and their pabulum-loving MD, they're almost completely irrelevant to me. Except for NPR broadcasts -- and I can get those straight from the NPR.org site.

 

Too bad. It was a great station.

 

Now, back to the trance discussion... still in progress.

[aeon]

Originally posted by Super 8 The 4-on-the-floor kick can get a little annoying. I always found that to be an expremely uncreative way to express the beat. And then, as if to mock me, the DJ's start layering it and turning it up louder!

 

Agreed, Super 8, but you can't deny that sometimes, 4-on-the-floor just returns to a basic power that is amazing.

 

Consider The Orb's "Assassin" from 1993...15 minutes of ambient-beats bliss that is basically 4-on-the-floor, but a track that, for me, remains evergreen. Of course, they also used some hip samples.

 

 

cheers,

Ian

[veracohr]

Trance was my introduction to electronic music, and was my favorite for a while. I've come to be bored and turned off by what I think of as overly-emotional, gigantic-strings-euro-trance.

 

For new, arguably ground-breaking music under the umbrella label of trance, see psytrance and goa (similar in style; goa gave birth to psytrance.) They're not new genres, but they do encompass some very interesting and outstanding music (to me at least.)

 

I don't know many artists in the genre, other than Infected Mushroom (the site seems to be experiencing problems at the time of my posting, hopefully it will be resolved soon and the link will work) and Astral Projection.

 

But I can suggest you listen to the Digitally Imported Goa/Psytrance channel: http://64.236.34.67:80/stream/2007

[veracohr]

Oh, and Craig, as for your comment about lyrics, I may as well put forward my neigh-saying, egalitarian attitude about that. I've always hated vocal trance (ie., trance with vocals). The best trance, in my opinion, usually doesn't have vocals.