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| quote: | Originally posted by Spirit5
Yeah I totally agree with what your saying. Some people are so in a rut when it comes to electronic music, that all they can think about is this music for dancing, when there are so many more ways that electronic music can be experienced. Surely dancing is great, but what about music that is truly compositional or so enthralling that you literally get lost in the music. It takes you into another world. It stems from artists like Tangerine Dream, Enigma, Enya, Delerium, Brian Eno and the like.
Too many reviews of trance tracks and people's opinions of them, there seems to be this focus on "what works for the dance floor", ignoring the fact that some of this stuff...it may not all be this music for the peak hour of the dance floor and could work very well as a composition. I'm believing that trance music can be more than dance music, and there are a lot of ambient music out there that does border on being trance. This is a step I think more artists can go, making true deep and downtempo trance music. This is essentially trance music that isn't orientated for dancing, because why does it all have to be for dancing? This could be what BT is doing, and I definitely think Ulrich Schnauss's music is a step towards creating a downtempo trance. You really can't call all of Ulrich's stuff ambient, and it's more than just downtempo music. There is this ethereal, trance-like quality to his music. |
There is a broad range of music and quality that is ignored when ppl only look for stuff that works on a dancefloor, that is true. I think many in the edm community also limit their own view, so to speak, in an unnecessary way by being to attached to the established artists, labels and jargon of edm. Many don't seem too eager to leave the word "trance" behind for example. They listen to trance, and if they listen to something else that they think is good and relaxing but isn't trance then it's chill-trance. Any downtempo/dub/leftfield/ambient version of a trance-original is chill-trance or ambient trance etc.
When it comes to Ulrich Schnauss i would personally not use the word "trance". He's an amazing musician, he does great music that has a very organic sound and quality. He mixes huge dreamy ambient soundscapes with organic-sounding elements, drums in particular. However his music differs a lot from other sorts of music in the same "family" that sound more explicitly electronic. I would say the characteristics of his sound are much closer to those of a typical rock song than those of a typical contemporary trance tune. However, even if i wouldn't place Schnauss in it, there is a category of music that i would like to call downtempo trance, but it's not a big genre, it's more like a style or a description that fits some tracks here and there on diverse artists records. Artists like Aes Dana/Asura, Solar Fields, Carbon Based Lifeforms and Cell put out this kind of tunes sometimes. The french label Ultimae Records is home to most of these artists. Some tracks on Human Blue's "Diskovery Channel" are in that fashion too. Those are a few examples, there are of course many more artists putting out this kind of music. A rough definition would be: explicitly electronic sound, 4/4-beat (most of the times) or a beat that does not break much, it still has to sound repetitive, hypnotic and steady, bassline has to share those characteristics too. The tracks are most of the times based on atmospheres and harmonies, melodic elements are quite minimal. This has to do with the fact that those tracks are an offshoots of ambient and downtempo going towards trance rather than the contrary.
Two examples:
Carbon Based Lifeforms - "Neurotransmitter" (from the album Hydroponic Garden)
Human Blue - "Oceans One" and "Riddle Rythm" (from the album Diskovery Channel)
Now i've written too much bs again. 
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