Trance? Crap not crap?

[blossie33]

Not a fan myself, I wouldn't go to a trance party by choice though some of it isn't too bad - the stuff bordering onto techno or harder dance - but psytrance, definitely not!
Not crap but not my taste.

 

[milesy]

It's like an entire subculture made of vomit.

 

[foo]

This is unforgivable. It's like an entire subculture made of vomit. Some old trance is practically minimal techno though!

nicely put - and that documentary is hilarious

 

[Mapped]

If I don't like the music, I'm outta there in half an hour.

I'm kind of with you here. I have friends who are into thier trance, so I go along to the odd do with them and they can't understand why I would want to leave at 6am, when the party goes on into the next day.

It takes a lot of self control for me to stay until 6 sometimes, if I get nutted I want decent tunes not monotonous wibbly rubbish. I'd rather go home and crank up the stereo.

It takes all sorts I suppose, but trance parties have thier pros and are very friendly, they go to alot more effort in terms of venues/decor than techno squats and have great drugs. It's just a shame about the music

 

[Bazza]

I would like to register my dislike of psytrance here. I don't think any other genre can manage to make even the most beautiful of women look ridiculous as she attempts to dance to it.

 

[jusali]

There's good (Schultz, Perry O'neil), there's bad (Van Buuren, Jon 00 flemming) there's ugly (tiesto)

 

[Negativland]

that documentary is hilarious

"It's like a quantum leap in sophistication, utilising the concept of, uhh, limitlessness"

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Some of it is pretty good. A lot of it is really, really bad though.

 

[Superape]

The hard trance stuff when you're swigging a bottle of pear & smoking something interesting in the Glade is just my cup of tea

Once you've seen some of the music software like rebirth & reason & know how piss easy it is to make, it's less impressive

 

[Taxamo Welf]

Shit!

i clicked crap by accident.

FFS. No its not crap, no style of music that big could possibly all be crap. I couldn't really tell you whcih buts or scenes were better than others, but overall i appreciate the shamelessness of the movement, they really couldn't care how credible it sounds as long as they enjoy it.

I'd like to hear more of it in small doses; i think it would finish off a techno set well.

 

[Spandex]

is trance crap?

Well, what passes for trance today is pretty much totally crap - either sub-sub-sub-paul van dyk vooop-vooop-vooop hands in the air rubbish or wibbly hippy psytrance nonsense.

But trance hasn't always been so bad. When I first got into free parties/raves/clubbing in the early 90s trance was new and exciting. You'd hear Rez by Underworld, Lush by Orbital, PWOG, Drum Club, some Harthouse, R&S, Guerilla stuff. Now, I expect a lot of people will think: that's not trance, but in the early days of the scene, that was what got played at trance nights. Just because it isn't rubbish, doesn't mean it's not trance.

As with all new scenes, however, it pretty quickly mutated into something else. Trance seemed to move in three different directions:

There was the the goa/psy stuff - I still like some early Dragonfly type stuff, but the scene pretty quickly became swamped with acid-fried hippies, and the music became formulaic, loosing the warm acid house feel of the early stuff and becoming full of daft samples about pixies and aliens. After '95 it was pretty much unlistenable.

There was the euro stuff - that was always fairly cheesy (Jam & Spoon, Humate, DJ Dag) but was good fun at the time. Then came Paul Van Dyk. I like a couple of his albums, but aparently so did everyone else who was into this type of trance and everyone on this side of the scene started making rip offs of PVD tunes, getting more and more formulaic, and getting cheesier and cheesier. Then there was Gatecrasher. When I lived in Sheffield, Gatecrasher had just started and was seen as a cheesy house night where 30 something blokes would go to pick up teenage girls on pills. But then the whole dressing like a fule and waving glowsticks scene developed there. And the music got worse and worse leading to what most people think of as trance today.

Then there was the harder trance - this got played at squat parties, where just about every flyer bore the legend: ACIDTECHNOTRANCE. As the squat scene developed, the music played at the parties developed it's own style. As that music had little to do with the other two styles of trance, that was politely dropped from the musical description, and it just became known as Acid Techno.

But I don't think that's the quite end of the story for trance. Some of the Minimal 'techno' coming out of europe has a real trancy feel about it. The trouble with that scene, however, (besides the so-minimal-it-does-nothing stuff), is the sheer quantity of formulaic stuff coming out - not unlistenable, but not good either - that swamps any decent tunes that may be released. Who knows though, maybe there'll be some decent trance in the future...

 

[Idaho]

I didn't realise Mr R M**** played guitar

Heh - it does look a bit like him doesn't it.

 

[Skim]

But I don't think that's the quite end of the story for trance. Some of the Minimal 'techno' coming out of europe has a real trancy feel about it. The trouble with that scene, however, (besides the so-minimal-it-does-nothing stuff), is the sheer quantity of formulaic stuff coming out - not unlistenable, but not good either - that swamps any decent tunes that may be released. Who knows though, maybe there'll be some decent trance in the future...

I agree there isn't much of a difference between some of today's minimal techno and what I used to think of as trance. It's long, repetitive and, well, puts you in a trance. But it's a lot more acceptable to say you listen to minimal rather than trance

Every genre is swamped by formulaic tunes at some point. There's a lot of limp minimal stuff out there, for sure. I can't dance to it personally, but it is very good for a chillout/after hours situation.

 

[Citizen66]

Would Papau new Guinea be classed as trance? Apart from that track it's pretty dire.

 

[Negativland]

Phil Sherburne on the new trancey minimal

 

[Skim]

Phil Sherburne on the new trancey minimal

Thanks for the link

 

[Skim]

The funny thing is that as electronic genres continue to blur, it gets harder and harder to say what trance is. I'm reminded of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's 1964 proclamation as to what constituted pornography: "I know it when I see it." Regardless, there are specific hallmarks of tranciness. The first is almost certainly its melodic urge — those grand, stirring phrases that lead to hands-in-the-air high points that feel like the sky has broken apart.

I love that Nathan Fake tune he mentions... and that track has some definite hallmarks of that tranciness mentioned above, that "melodic urge". But I would have called it minimal techno, because it doesn't have what we've come to think of as traditional trance sounds, like wibbly arps and cheese. But Dinamo is an uplifting track, it's got a hands-in-the-air quality. It's not a million miles from trance...

Link to Dinamo sample

 

[sam/phallocrat]

mmm . . . detuned nord leads . . . gahgahgah

 

[free spirit]

TRUE......

A lot of my fellow snob head techno fans look down on trance but take them to hear Derick May and watch them dance when he plays Gilgamesh Trescore on Fragile records then ask them what they think of trance.

there's a major difference between that and an entire night of utter bollocks trance by numbers with the occasional good tune.

Derrick may techno for 110 mins + 10 mins of shit hot trance would float my boat

an entire night of bollocks trance + 10 mins of shit hot trance in a crowd full of numnuts = fs teh serial killer

 

[free spirit]

spandex knows the score

 

[Final]

crap.

 

[Teepee]

The big drop in 'Seven Cities' by Solar Stone is magical.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Not crap, just cos Samsara had the best atmosphere of any London club I've been to, bar none.

 

[jbob]

Complete and utter pony.

 

[kyser_soze]

There's been good trance and bad trance, and TBH if I've necked a couple of decent pills I'll be up and bouncing for a few hours to it - I had some blinding nights at Samasara@ the Fridge when I was a younger man...

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

You're all too elitist for your own good. Trance is one of the easiest types of dance music to get into, and, I found, the one that I could enjoy the most immediately without being 'on' anything, cos it was uplifting all by itself.

 

[Blagsta]

I agree there isn't much of a difference between some of today's minimal techno and what I used to think of as trance. It's long, repetitive and, well, puts you in a trance. But it's a lot more acceptable to say you listen to minimal rather than trance

I find deep house to have much the same feel. Minimal, hypnotic and seductive.

 

[Blagsta]

Well, what passes for trance today is pretty much totally crap - either sub-sub-sub-paul van dyk vooop-vooop-vooop hands in the air rubbish or wibbly hippy psytrance nonsense.

But trance hasn't always been so bad. When I first got into free parties/raves/clubbing in the early 90s trance was new and exciting. You'd hear Rez by Underworld, Lush by Orbital, PWOG, Drum Club, some Harthouse, R&S, Guerilla stuff. Now, I expect a lot of people will think: that's not trance, but in the early days of the scene, that was what got played at trance nights. Just because it isn't rubbish, doesn't mean it's not trance.

As with all new scenes, however, it pretty quickly mutated into something else. Trance seemed to move in three different directions:

There was the the goa/psy stuff - I still like some early Dragonfly type stuff, but the scene pretty quickly became swamped with acid-fried hippies, and the music became formulaic, loosing the warm acid house feel of the early stuff and becoming full of daft samples about pixies and aliens. After '95 it was pretty much unlistenable.

There was the euro stuff - that was always fairly cheesy (Jam & Spoon, Humate, DJ Dag) but was good fun at the time. Then came Paul Van Dyk. I like a couple of his albums, but aparently so did everyone else who was into this type of trance and everyone on this side of the scene started making rip offs of PVD tunes, getting more and more formulaic, and getting cheesier and cheesier. Then there was Gatecrasher. When I lived in Sheffield, Gatecrasher had just started and was seen as a cheesy house night where 30 something blokes would go to pick up teenage girls on pills. But then the whole dressing like a fule and waving glowsticks scene developed there. And the music got worse and worse leading to what most people think of as trance today.

Then there was the harder trance - this got played at squat parties, where just about every flyer bore the legend: ACIDTECHNOTRANCE. As the squat scene developed, the music played at the parties developed it's own style. As that music had little to do with the other two styles of trance, that was politely dropped from the musical description, and it just became known as Acid Techno.

But I don't think that's the quite end of the story for trance. Some of the Minimal 'techno' coming out of europe has a real trancy feel about it. The trouble with that scene, however, (besides the so-minimal-it-does-nothing stuff), is the sheer quantity of formulaic stuff coming out - not unlistenable, but not good either - that swamps any decent tunes that may be released. Who knows though, maybe there'll be some decent trance in the future...

Good post.

 

[Blagsta]

You're all too elitist for your own good. Trance is one of the easiest types of dance music to get into, and, I found, the one that I could enjoy the most immediately without being 'on' anything, cos it was uplifting all by itself.

It's anything but uplifting IMO.

 

[Taxamo Welf]

Then there was the harder trance - this got played at squat parties, where just about every flyer bore the legend: ACIDTECHNOTRANCE. As the squat scene developed, the music played at the parties developed it's own style. As that music had little to do with the other two styles of trance, that was politely dropped from the musical description, and it just became known as Acid Techno.

...and its not even acid techno anymore. By about 5 years ago hardly any of the scene leaders played anything with acid at all: its hard london style techno.

I like your history, nice one

however you ARE missing out genuine Hard Trance which is big and has been very popular all over the country. In the london frame of reference, from the drome downwards it was a bg type of underground club music. The kind of music Cyberdog championed and had thousands of flyers for - no idea if that means anything to non london people. I think it has somewhat dropped off the radar a bit but it is huge internationally - theres that japanese tit i've forgotten the name of.

Thing is it was often teinned wit a psy room - which i do not get at all - in the aim of making a 'rave' as big as possible which seemed to bring in punters.

I'm not sure all hard trance is the dame hing, but what i've heard of it: a seriously aggressive style of dance music which will often drop away to just a evil military kickdrum and snare in 4 4. It seems to reject sorting out the drumline and getting a techno beat.

its all been being mixed upa bit recently what with hard house wankers like lisa lashes getting in on it. Mirorring the underground twinning of psy and hard trance, the mainstream clubs twinned trance and hard house mad which i spose was equally destructive, but i doubt anyone here cared about that scene very much anyway.