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-- When does trance become house?
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Sigh...sometimes I miss the early 90's when it was all just "techno".

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Originally posted by DJMaytag it's because it did, and those of us who were around 15+ years ago can tell ya that. By and large, ONE MAN and ONE group of artists were responsible for the birth of trance: Sven Vath and the artists under the Harthouse Label in Germany around 1992, artists like Hardfloor, Oliver Leib's various psuedonyms (Spicelab, LSG, etc), Barbarella (Vath & Ralf Hildenbeutel), Pascal FEOS (Resistance D), Matthias Hoffmann (Metal Master, Brainchild, Cygnus X, etc), Marco Zaffarano, etc. It was started as a knee jerk reaction to the "hardcore" sounds that were popular at the time (akin to something similar to today's breakbeats, jungle, and yes... even happy hardcore) that some people didn't really care for (listen to a PVD mix from that time and you'll hear some "hardcore" tracks in them). The gist was to strip everything down to a simple house beat and use modulating synth textures and hypnotic rhythms to create a certain vibe (the "trance" term was coined later by the media). The TB-303 acid squelch factored heavily into the equation, and was the driving force behind many of the legendary buildup in some of the most classic tracks of the day (notably those by Hardfloor). "Trance" wasn't necessarily a genre back then, it was a type of house or techno... so long as it had that minimal hypnotic effect to it. EVERYBODY was getting into the act by 1993 and many of today's techno producers (well, those still producing anyway) were influenced by the 1992/1992 trance revolution. Aphex Twin, Orbital, CJ Bolland, The Prodigy, Casper Houser, Felix Da Housecat, Moby, Joey Beltram, Underworld, DJ Misjah, 808 State, The Orb, Speedy J, and even some of the godfathers of techno from Detroit were to be found with tracks on "trance" compilations (like this one, which claimed "100% pure quality house & techno" Review your history before you go making claims about things from before your time. There are a few others on TA like me who were around back then...

Finally, someone who knows what they're on about!

You forgot to mention Giuseppe Cherchia, Bruno Sanchioni, Rolf Ellmer and Markus Loffel though.

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Originally posted by Beat Blog Finally, someone who knows what they're on about! You forgot to mention Giuseppe Cherchia, Bruno Sanchioni

I thought I'd start at the beginning, rather than get into what came later, like the classics like... oh let's say, "The Age Of Love [Jam & Spoon's "Watch Out For Stella" Remix]".

The post Vath & Harthouse talk could go on forever, so that's why I limited it.

Diginut is probably typing a 50 page response by now

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Originally posted by Aesthetic Diginut is probably typing a 50 page response by now

that or he's in the corner sucking his thumb like a little baby after getting owned...

i think the real question here is... when does house become trance?































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Originally posted by DigiNut Never said electro house wasn't a genre, just that it has nothing to do with house music.

Or electro for that matter.

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Originally posted by echosystm i think the real question here is... when does house become trance?

well, I think I stated this before... but it's when you have a simple house beat and it uses modulating synth textures and hypnotic rhythms to create a that vibe.


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Actually, a pretty big chunk of progressive house releases from 2000-2005 would fall into the mold of ORIGINAL trance movement of the early 90's. Problem is that a lot of those weren't nearly as interesting and many were downright BORING.

It's been interesting to read how different people demarcate their definitions of house vs. trance and other things. I don't really believe in absolute definitions of any kind. All of our definitions are derivations from the definitions given by people whom we define as influences or mentors and their definitions likewise are derivations of their own. It doesn't really matter what the person was feeling who invented trance unless it matters to us and perhaps it should if it matters to those whom we are trying to influence, pitch our demos to, etc. All of us have our own reasons for making trance or making house.

The most important thing I take away from this is what type of music you're making has everything to do with motive. Sometimes I make tracks that I want to be epic; sometimes I want them to be smooth; sometimes I just want them to make people dance. It seems like trance may fit certain priorities while house or dnb may fit other priorities.

It was cool to get some historical context on trance. It seems like most genres define themselves in contrast to other genres saying basically "We're not going to be X anymore" or "We're better/purer than X because..." I like trance because it has the capacity to be spiritual amidst a world that's almost entirely cynical. When I'm making trance, I'm wanting for people to have a soundtrack for epic encounters whether on the dance-floor, in their cars, or typing essays on their laptops. That's just my definition.

I know someone's going to make fun of me for babbling nonsense like this. I just felt like people were getting too absolutist in the way they were talking ("I know what I'm talking about and you don't...", etc). Thanks for giving me stuff to think about it and tolerating my love of talking a whole lot of bullsh***.

Peace, Agent Starchild

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Originally posted by AgentStarchild It's been interesting to read how much life has been wasted on this thread

fixed.

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Originally posted by DJMaytag I thought I'd start at the beginning, rather than get into what came later, like the classics like... oh let's say, "The Age Of Love [Jam & Spoon's "Watch Out For Stella" Remix]". The post Vath & Harthouse talk could go on forever, so that's why I limited it.

Good post even if it was a wiki rip

I'd like to point out (even if it's just for being english) that though Germany is quoted as being the Birthplace of Trance on many mainstream media sources and that Mr. Vath is certainly a pioneer of "Trance," there were many parallels of the early house and trance pioneers in the UK in the very late eighties and early nineties.
I'm not going to re-gurgitate (like ever dance music magazine does every five years - even with the same photos!) the "infamous" baleric trip that a certain bunch DJ's and promoters had in the late eighties, but what they began to produce was Trance in it's "uplifting house" guise.What Harthouse and Vath were making was known as Techno at the time - not Trance. It's only later when Trance became a genre in it's own right that it was labelled (after the fact).


It's interesting EricJ that you say Techno, because that's (prepare for semi-ignorant sweeping generalisation) what most Americans label house/Trance/Prog/etc. I remember trying to explain to my neighbour when I lived in LA, what I played and she was like "oh, you play Techno then?". One night I played some to her and she said "I thought Techno was much harder than this".....then explanation of Trance came.

And America didn't have the uplifting house Phase - it was all techno until the label trance made it over the pond.

Techno always was this much harder, glitchy, darker, less melodic, evil brother of house.

Oh, and one more thing - by pure co-incidence (or fate) I got out my original copy (bought in the early 90's) of The Age of Love about two nights ago.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN It's interesting EricJ that you say Techno, because that's (prepare for semi-ignorant sweeping generalisation) what most Americans label house/Trance/Prog/etc.

Yeah, that's just what we called it back then. I don't know if that was right or not, but I don't remember it being referred to anything other than that until 94-95. In fact, back then we referred to what is now "jungle" as "breakbeat" or "hardcore". Prodigy, the Experience years, Smart-E's, Moving Shadow, Suburban Bass stuff, that was all "breakbeat" to us over here.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN Good post even if it was a wiki rip

No wiki rip, my friend. These were all details that I have vaguely remember over the years ("classic trance" threads here help refresh my memory every few months). Only thing I had to look up was Bruno Sanchioni, as I knew who it was but forgot which project he was with (it's not like many people were really referring to the individuals behind project like that 15 years ago! LOL)

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What Harthouse and Vath were making was known as Techno at the time - not Trance. It's only later when Trance became a genre in it's own right that it was labelled (after the fact).

by 1993 the term has stuck yeah, but you're saying pretty much what I was saying, techno OR house with that vibe fell under the trance umbrella.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN Oh, and one more thing - by pure co-incidence (or fate) I got out my original copy (bought in the early 90's) of The Age of Love about two nights ago.

I hate you so much right now.

Diginut you keep saying that using the term progressive is pretentious and for wankers but I think you taking it out of context. When most people on here (or anywhere for that matter) use the word progressive i.e - progressive house or progressive trance, they don't mean cutting edge/ahead of the masses or whatever you seem to think they mean.

They just mean its progressive in its structure and merely a way of describing the style of track. If someone descibes their track as progressive trance, all they will mean is it is most likely between 128-135bpm. It wont have epic breakdowns and huge buildups. It will instead gently flow over time (progress) without climaxing to the big breakdowns as mentioned before.

Now what exactly is wrong with that..?

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Originally posted by G-Con If someone descibes their track as progressive trance, all they will mean is it is most likely between 128-135bpm. It wont have epic breakdowns and huge buildups. It will instead gently flow over time (progress) without climaxing to the big breakdowns as mentioned before.

Yup, this is all 'progressive' means. Kinda similar to the meaning of the word 'minimalist' when used about other types of music...

DJMaytag - If that's all from memory then I take it back and am impressed! I find it difficult to remember because I was having the time of my life! It makes both you and EricJ quite a rare species - (North Americans that were in to dance music at that period and know their EDM history).

EricJ - That's really funny how the oldschool genres were known over there back then. Prodigy, the Experience years, Smart-E's, Moving Shadow, Suburban Bass stuff were known as Rave/Hardcore and or Oldskool over here in the UK, then those labels moved in to Jungle to Drum n Bass.

Progressive apologists always seem to try to assert that Progressive Dance music is named for the fact that the music "progresses," but this is simply retro-defining the genre. In the mid to late ninties, there was a centralizing movement amongst producers which sought to include the most popular and danceable components from House, Trance and Techno. Tracks that acheived this were deemed to be avant-garde and original; in a word, they were called Progressive. Understandibly, the result often led to sounds that were difficult to place in any one of the genres, because it tended to lack funk, hypnoticness or mechanicality, so it was all lumped into the "progressive" category, which is perfunctorily labelled as a house genre.

Ironically, this name given to music for being edgy and new is now applied to a very cliche and hackneyed sound.

And to answer the question, Trance becomes House when it stops being Progressive.

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Originally posted by thoughtlessjex Progressive apologists always seem to try to assert that Progressive Dance music is named for the fact that the music "progresses," but this is simply retro-defining the genre. In the mid to late ninties, there was a centralizing movement amongst producers which sought to include the most popular and danceable components from House, Trance and Techno. Tracks that acheived this were deemed to be avant-garde and original; in a word, they were called Progressive. Understandibly, the result often led to sounds that were difficult to place in any one of the genres, because it tended to lack funk, hypnoticness or mechanicality, so it was all lumped into the "progressive" category, which is perfunctorily labelled as a house genre. Ironically, this name given to music for being edgy and new is now applied to a very cliche and hackneyed sound. And to answer the question, Trance becomes House when it stops being Progressive.

i couldn't give a shit where the word progressive came from to be used. I'm saying that nowadays, people use that word to give an indication of the style of trance/house track they are talking about. Not to imply it is cutting edge

When i was 10 / 11 i used to listen to acid house, not sure what it was called that i listened to for a bit. Remeber radio show: colin favour - the sonic underground. And i remember The hypnotist - the house is mine on rising high, and trashman - cosmostrash.

But i remember hardcore cos it was my fav. What is now called old skool but was called hardcore then. Then the split came and it everntually was called breakbeat hardcore or jungle. Then happy hardcore came and jungle was called drum and bass. I kind of missed out the start of trance although I did like perfecto fluoro and the whole goa explosion in about 93/94 before hooj tunes and the epic house scene e.g. robert miles - children (cheesy example) came along and it sounded more like todays trance.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN DJMaytag - If that's all from memory then I take it back and am impressed! I find it difficult to remember because I was having the time of my life! It makes both you and EricJ quite a rare species - (North Americans that were in to dance music at that period and know their EDM history).

I was lucky to have moved to Madison, Wisconsin in 1989, as that was ground zero for the beginning of the midwest rave scene the following year. a DJ from Madison named Nick Nice was in college in Paris in the late 80's and brought back all sorts of techno & house records when he returned, and partnerd up with another young DJ (Mike Carlson, who I worked for at his record store for 2.5 years) to start throwing the very first rave parties and do techno & house nights at the local clubs.

It also helped that the local teen club when I was in high school had a DJ that played all sorts of Chicago house from the late 80's and a few things in the "hip-house" realm of the early 90's (Fast Eddie, Julian "Jumpin" Perez, Mr. Lee, etc). Ironically, that DJ was Mike Carlson (didn't know that until after I had worked for him for over a year!). A good friend used to go down to Chicago on the weekends to visit his mom, and would tape stuff off B96 (or whatever station it was) when Bad Boy Bill was playing live, dropping hip-house and early Detroit techno (to which I absolutely fell in love with what I MUCH later learned was a group called Inner City).

I was just an absolute freak for anything about the music back then, and I read tons of rave magazines and LOVED those Volume/Trance Europe Express compilations that had those 192 page booklets! CD's like that were an invaluable source of information, and getting connected with people on music production mailing lists as far back as 1995 helped garner some extra info (like the history behind the machines such as the 808, 909, 303 that made dance music possible).

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EricJ - That's really funny how the oldschool genres were known over there back then. Prodigy, the Experience years, Smart-E's, Moving Shadow, Suburban Bass stuff were known as Rave/Hardcore and or Oldskool over here in the UK, then those labels moved in to Jungle to Drum n Bass.

It was mostly called breakbeats, but in 1993 Moonshine did start to produce that series of "mix CD's" (they were digitally edited, not real mixes) called "Speed Limit 140 + BPM" that prominently noted them as being "The Sound of London Hardcore". I bought the first 4 when they came out, but it started sounding too much like jungle by the 4th (not my style).

I'm glad you have an open mind to the possibility that American's could have known about dance music long before 1998. I almost died laughing over a thread on TA where someone from the UK flat out denied it was even possible for Americans to have heard of techno & trance in the early 90's!

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Originally posted by G-Con i couldn't give a shit where the word progressive came from to be used. I'm saying that nowadays, people use that word to give an indication of the style of trance/house track they are talking about. Not to imply it is cutting edge

This is almost exactly what I said. I said Progressive != progression of a track. Progressive = a sound that has been long defined based on the use of elements from outside a particular genre to create a more "centralized" style.

As to how people use it nowadays, you should listen to people talk about Prog in MD if you don't think they use it to imply some kind of originality. Just about any style of Prog will have its followers who will swear on their favorite DJ that they only listen to music that is at the vanguard. There is as much snobbery in Prog as there ever was.

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