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I agree with you RJT.

I've been thinking this for a while too.

Someone in the Australia forum said a few months back that "tech-house is the closest thing to trance these days", or words to that effect.

At first that sounded stupid, but then I realised how repetative and hypnotic a lot of the melodies are, backed by minimalistic percussion and strong bass lines - much like 90's trance.

I can't think of a good example at the moment, but Rejected - SL3 is the kind of thing I'm thinking of, with the very repetative "blip" noises over and over.

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In another development which I almost posted about the other day, I've been noticing a lot of psy-trance labels pushing far slower music (128-130), with highly compressed, droning bass lines (rather than the usual "rolling" psy bass line) minimal percussion and blippy melodies.

Psy-trance merging with tech-house.

Check out Blackout - Wave Force to see what I mean.

Link:

https://www.beatport.com/en-US/html...6/va_get_wet_go

I can see what you mean. Honestly I would agree that the transition from the stuff I listened to in the 90's to the stuff I listened to now was pretty easy. I always felt like they had a ton of similarities, but then again I agree with you that a lot of what we used to listen to was never really trance to begin with. We just didn't know any better.

vince watson is a techno producer who makes trance

also some taho really is pretty proggy

any of these neo detroit 'white wave' producers really, joris voorn included



please understand this is in no way a comment on the quality of music. i own and play loads of the tracks produced by these three

Vince Watson makes INSANE tracks. Very melodic and percussion heavy.

That's been happening for quite some time now. Real trance is now called tech house and the acid sound of the 80s is now called deep house. You can't really market them by what they really are anymore because people have associated the word with something that clearly isn't trance.

You should try incorporating early 90s tracks in your mixes.

quote:

Originally posted by Project-K That's been happening for quite some time now. Real trance is now called tech house and the acid sound of the 80s is now called deep house. You can't really market them by what they really are anymore because people have associated the word with something that clearly isn't trance. You should try incorporating early 90s tracks in your mixes.

Now this is the kind of response I was looking for - nice and controversial.

For my part, I agree with pretty much all of that - save for that I think modern Deep House is a bit more diverse than just being distilled down to old acid noises.

As far as putting early 90's tunes in my mixes - I guess I just need to dig deeper (older?), because I thought I had at least one or two from the early 90's that had made it into my last three, but the oldest/furthest back I've made it is '96.

I dunno, I see the new tech house as somewhat different from old trance.

It has the repetitive melodic and hypnotic part down, but not that much of the "trippiness" and spaciness I associate with a lot of "Berliner trance."

There are definitely shared features, though.

I'll admit that I may be off, though, as I haven't listened to terribly much tech house or dance music in general lately...

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles I'll admit that I may be off, though, as I haven't listened to terribly much tech house or dance music in general lately...

Mix, sig,

It will trance your fucking pants off.

I actually quite share your opinion, i am more and more surprised to see prog house artists like tommie playing very trancish sound yet it's called prog house or tech house, same with guys like roth for example, each time i think that a trance track sounds good it appears that it's labelled as prog or tech or even deep house (Ame 's recent productions).

quote:

Originally posted by RJT save for that I think modern Deep House is a bit more diverse than just being distilled down to old acid noises.

Obviousely. I don't mean that deep house = acid, just that if music in that style gets released today, it usually gets labeled as deep house.

Love to hear some more examples of the tech house/minimal that you say uses late 90's trance/prog sounds, i.e. track names... The main clear link I can see from the stuff played back then to the sounds nowadays is Peace Division. These guys were really ahead of their time. Some other artists I can think of that incorporate more percussive or "lush" elements into their song, and would be classified as tech-house and minimal would be: Joel Armstrong, Solomun, Chymera, and some Pig & Dan. But, the drums in lots of tech-house seem too crisp and refined, as opposed to the organic, tribal sound in classic prog, not to mention the music palette stems away from lush pads and sweeps into slightly more abrasive, electro sounds.

I think right now the best example of tech-house as the heir to the prog throne would be Transitions 4. Although it has many names associated with minimal and techno (Claude VonStroke, Pig & Dan, Loco Dice), the way it's mixed and layered clearly harkens back to the darker days of prog (2001 if we can pinpoint an exact year).

And finally, the perfect example of minimal, trancelike music is Robert Hood... stripped down, repetitive, driving, but the melodies in his songs morph ever so subtly.

quote:

Originally posted by Mr Game+Watch Love to hear some more examples of the tech house/minimal that you say uses late 90's trance/prog sounds, i.e. track names...

quote:

Originally posted by Mr Game+Watch Peace Division. Joel Armstrong, Solomun, Chymera, and some Pig & Dan. .

In all seriousness though - some of Funk D'Voids stuff I think is reminiscent of older sounding trance, stuff from Shonky, Sei A, DJinxx, a lot of the new stuff on Cocoon, and Efdemin come readily to mind.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles I dunno, I see the new tech house as somewhat different from old trance. It has the repetitive melodic and hypnotic part down, but not that much of the "trippiness" and spaciness I associate with a lot of "Berliner trance." There are definitely shared features, though.

yeah you should check out some more music

these obviously aren't trance but they some of the closest things in this day and age


Vermittelnde-elemente - Leittongeleise
D5 - Sides Of Space
Delta Funktionen - Estuary/Nebula

also a lot of the upbeat dub/chain reaction techno like

substance & vainqueur - reverberation/reverberate
substance & vainqueur - surface/immersion
substance & vainqueur - resonance/libration

and some david alvarado stuff

Associate of mine came up with a good term for this sound: closet trance.

It's trance that's too afraid to admit it.

quote:

Originally posted by Sykonee Associate of mine came up with a good term for this sound: closet trance. It's trance that's too afraid to admit it.

Awesome.

I'm taking it back just like Randall reclaimed "Porch Monkey" in Clerks 2.

JBJ check this out

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec JBJ check this out

Lol, I have just been listening to/hammering the Berghain tracks/mixes nonstop lately.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec JBJ check this out

I listened to all of the samples, although not all the way through for each, and I still think that most of them sound like stripped down techno rather than trance. Maybe I just have too narrow an idea of what "trance" is.



One thing I noticed that was "missing" a lot of the time was melodic content in the higher registers, an absence I definitely associate with techno rather than trance. This may be why the fifth sample (Byetone - "Plastic Star" (Sleeparchive Remix)) and the twelfth (Substance - "Relish" (Shed Remix)) struck me as the most "trancey": they both had melodies higher up rather than having nearly all of their activity in the low end...

yeah they're not trance

but this is the musical descendent and cultural equivalent today imo



edit - it would be silly and disingenuous to make music that outwardly sounds like older music, when the cultural context, history, and technology have changed

What did you mean by "cultural equivalent?"

well if you go to berghain or some of the other similar spots in berlin, you'll find the sort of crazies that you would have found at dubmission, etc ,or i'm sure the grown up versions of them


also the drugs have changed

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec also the drugs have changed

Coke and K rather than ecstasy?

Which kind of begs an interesting question: what the heck drives "trends" in drug usage within a music scene?

also jivebo,

i think your definition of trance as some 'high register' music is wayy too technical and misses the whole point of the documentary you have in your sig.

maybe the peppy dancey pvd kind of stuff, but listen to the track at 4:45 and 5:50 in that video.

in general, i will agree that trance music was more high-energy, but again, ill argue that this was for two reasons:

drugs
young age of listeners/patrons

today's producers and crowds are older. they make slower and more dynamic music for their sensitive old ears and bodies. and i already mentioned the drugs


kids still get into high energy music like pendulum dnb, pvd trance, hard dance for the same reasons. then their taste gets progressively slower and deeper until they start listening to ambient, post rock, and shoegaze


from mark reeder

"it was just atmosphere, it wasn't any particular sound or any particular sequence, really. it was the way the sounds and sequences fit together, and which create a hypnotic, trance-like - and when i say trance, i mean we had difficulty in the beginning, how do we call this kind of music - it's very repetitive, some of the sequences - some of it's fast, some is not so fast. But it all has this one connecting element, which is like it's a kind of modern day trance music....dancing is a kind of sexual expression...."

he has a lot of difficulty describing it lol, but it's very clear that this stuff played at berghain is the "modern modern-day-tribal trance music"


and if you listen to tracks played by michel mayer on kompakt, they have the kind of emotional content of for instance humate - love stimulation. a lot of kompakt stuff is very trancey in the high register sense



two words

reinhard
voigt


three more

charge
your
dreams


minimalism is the result of refined production techique and new drugs IMO it is the biggest and most important innovation and technique in contemporary dance music.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles Coke and K rather than ecstasy? Which kind of begs an interesting question: what the heck drives "trends" in drug usage within a music scene?

quality/novelty/cost/cool factor

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