Listen up kids, Tommie Sunshine did us all a favor with this mix. He didn’t have to drop something from 19freaking92 on us. This is a gem of a mix, that I assume everyone at this party thought was lost. To put this in perspective, I was in elementary school when this party happened, which is funny, since this party apparently took place in an elementary school basement. When people use the word “Rave” this is what one of those sounded like. Take some time and put the 90 minutes into your face when you’re pregaming this weekend. This was only 7 years after MDMA was made illegal. This mix is required listening for anyone who wants to know how we got to where we are today. Without some of the admittedly goofy sounding tracks, progressive, big room, dubstep, trap and everything else y’all hold dear would’ve never happened. Hit up Tommie Sunshine, he’ll learn you.
Quick drop for your Sunday. Some chillness for you from a new Soundcloud follow of mine. Chill Sessions HD focuses exclusively on the lighter, turned down side of things. Dotting a mix with tunes from Jacoo, Enigma Dubz & Coma, plus many others I’d not caught, the hour rounds out in a gorgeously chill way. Check em out if you’re into it & enjoy the Sunday!
This is more of a public service announcement than anything else. This week, Armin’s ASOT podcast counted down the top 20 trance (progressive, epic & uplifting) tracks for the year. This 2 hour compilation is a round up of the favorites that were voted on. And because it’s Armin, the votes number in the 5-6 digits from people around the world. I still cannot imagine that this guy has been putting out 120 minutes of Trance weekly for the last…592 weeks. I’m a huge fan of Armin, here’s a track you probably haven’t heard by him:
10 years of trance. And people still assume that the genre is encapsulated by Sandstorm, Children and that one time they saw/heard Oakenfold back in the late 90’s. Armin’s track recommendations have become a staple of the trance community, influencing dozens of weekly/monthly podcasts by other EDM artists, from Ferry Corsten (Corsten’s Countdown) to Tiesto (Club Life) to Paul Oakenfold’s wonderful Fluoro series. The proliferation of regular music/mixes being put out by the best (and the newest) artists regularly is something that we would have killed for back in the days of sharing music over AIM, Napster, NewsGroups and trading beats/midis with floppy disks.
The track selection is definitely a great representation of trance in 2012, with huge favorites like “I’ll Listen” by AvB & Ana Criado, multiple tracks by Andrew Rayel, who almost seems genetically engineered to produce tracks for ASOT. W&W, Markus Schultz, Solarstone and Aly & Fila also made the list with some stunning tracks, plus a new favorite for me, Giuseppie Ottaviani, an Italian trance producer I’d just never heard of before. Definitely someone I’ll have to keep my eye on.
Great mix of tracks for traveling, cleaning up the house before relatives arrive or just celebrating the season.
This is Terry Gotham.
Peace on Earth & Good Will Towards Men.
This week, I was delighted that a very old friend of mine who DJs under the moniker Theta Waves has started mixing again. A friend who was in the theme camp I stayed at when I made it out to Burning Man in 2006, he’s been a source of quality ever since. Psychedelic trance is definitely a very finicky beast when it comes to mixing, producing and of course just simply keeping the dance floor happy. The plethora of sub-genres, high standards of the listeners, and the general clusterfuck that comes with any psy-trance party of a decent size means that it’s difficult to keep things straight, especially when the best parties have music that changes not just per DJ, but per hour.
Theta Waves brings us some great early morning progressive psy. This focus on beats, progressions, trancey chords and a distinct lack of eery, scary samples separates it from the psy you’d hear before midnight or when the DJ is attempting to scare tripping people off the dance floor. This not only enhances sober listenability, but also makes it more generally enjoyable for people who don’t have a good handle on what a psy-trance party may actually be like. Accessibility is big in dance music, especially stuff that never even approaches radio play.
One highlight on the mix that I particularly enjoyed was the seventh track mixed into the set, called “Crack Case” by Reactant.
This track is a personal favorite, as I definitely will applaud any use of poorly-conceived anti-drug marketing in EDM. This track in particular samples the after-school special from the mid-90’s, featuring Alf, Bugs Bunny, Winnie the Pooh, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a whole host of other cartoon characters. They all combine forces to keep kids off of drugs, weed and crack specifically. While the entire idea of Michaelangelo telling kids not to get high is bafflingly hilarious, the track maintains a driving beat along with the humor of it all. It’s important to ensure kids make the right decisions, and if they’re not taking their social cues from cartoon characters, then their parents have clearly failed.
All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable mix that won’t scare away anyone who’s not too familiar with the genre, and will definitely stoke the “Damn it’s been a while since I went to a psy-trance” party sensibilities in anyone who knows what they’re listening to. Put it in your face.
Terry Gotham 