I dunno, people have been making trance-not-trance for a long time now. That Richard H Kirk thing the article mentions is from 2001, after all. There was Kompakt and neo-trance, and my copy of Petar Dundov's album Ideas From The Pond had a quote from a German music magazine stating it was one of the best trance albums ever, even if not everyone agreed on the category. Is there anything new here?

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Mixes:
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24
> Surface Tension [Progressive Trance]
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]

If you enjoy any of these sets and want to hear me live, I'll be playing a 2 hour progressive trance set at Basing House in Shoreditch, London on 11th October.
I'm also a resident at our bi-monthly party Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

Doing anything in a "half-ironic" fashion just makes me want to hurl.

Sounds IDM-ish, which I suppose is also somewhat of a deconstruction or abstraction of EDM.

I'm pretty sure AraabMuzik already did the deconstruction-of-trance thing, to glowing plaudits because "LOL, trance ironically"; Hip-hop has been raiding trance melodies for a while now too. And like J' said, Dundov's been doing "don't call it trance" trance since at least his Escapements LP, which is sort of the other end of the spectrum that Kompact started. A 'take back trance' movement, if in spirit only:



And it's not like Kirk hasn't traveled this line before either. Here's an oldie by him that threads the techno-trance divide like so much early stuff did:



These sort of tunes would have easily found comfortable homes on trance compilations of the early '90s. It was after the influence of Cream and Gatecrasher marketing that trance became exclusively associated with the sound of anthems and such.

The commercial EuroTrance stuff will always be ripe for 'artistic deconstruction', as anything pop orientated is easy pickings for that scene (oh hi, vaporwank). On the other hand, I can see non-EuroTrance trance continuing a cautious, non-ironic showing of support by producers who appreciate the hypnotic potential of the genre, even if they remain hesitant to promote it as trance.

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Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!

Skimmed through the Paradinas Trancework set. Yeah, I don't really hear the 'trance' in it, beyond a few recognizable anthems. It sounded more like a throwback rave set that happened to have 'happy, uplifting' bits in it. Hardly a trance exclusive, that.

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Everyone has an opinion. Mine just happens to be a little more informed than most.
Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J There was Kompakt and neo-trance, and my copy of Petar Dundov's album Ideas From The Pond had a quote from a German music magazine stating it was one of the best trance albums ever, even if not everyone agreed on the category. Is there anything new here?

Well, the difference between that and this is that the Kompakt and Petar Dundov trance-not-trance tries really, really hard to be "trance" without being trance if that makes any sense. This actually doesn't shy away from using trance tropes like cheesy supersaw synths, which Peter Dundov or the Kompakt producers would never do.

I did think about AraabMuzik while making this thread, but his attempt felt more like a lazy-ripoff by an electronic music outsider (I doubt any hip-hop listener could trainspot a bunch of cheesy trance samples), rather than a deliberate "deconstruction, which is what this is. So I guess what I think makes this new is the combination of both the deliberateness and the actual use of trance sounds and genre tropes.

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June 2018 mix

quote:

Originally posted by Woony Is this the ultimate death of trance?

Depends on your opinion about uplifting, of which I'm pretty sure is not within your field of view.

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Longest (classic) Trance playlist on YouTube (5000 tracks released up to and including 1997), click here

quote:

Originally posted by Trance-M Depends on your opinion about uplifting

Armin van Schulzenyond 4ever.

quote:

Originally posted by Chimney Armin van Schulzenyond 4ever.

Nothing lasts 4ever.

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Longest (classic) Trance playlist on YouTube (5000 tracks released up to and including 1997), click here

I listened to that Mike Paradinas set, just sounded like he took the riffs from all these old trance songs from 1999-2000 and layered them over spastic 90's 'ardcore breakbeats. Don't see what's so 'revolutionary' about that. Nor am I a fan of anything done 'half ironically' like Mr. Mystery.

The Petar Dundov and Sandoz stuff posted in this thread is much more appealing. I like that whole kompakt 'neo trance' stuff, probably the best thing to come out of that whole mnml era:

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I'll just throw this in the mix here:



I think it's one of the better examples of the modern techno sound evolving towards trance. Not the anjunabeats trance of course, but rather the original archetypical trance. Which I'm not sure I can define by words

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