Tiefenrausch (The Deep Blue) (A*S*Y*S* Remix) by Kai Tracid

I continue to explore the intersection that happened between about 1998 or so at the earliest and maybe 2005 or so on the late end between hard trance, acid and early hardstyle.  Very different stuff than the 80s synthpop that I grew up on (in some ways, anyway) but clearly descended from aspects of it too.  One thing about trance that is great but also... not... is the fact that the beats are pretty predictable.  By that I mean that it starts off lean, builds up, has a big drop, then has a beatless soft interlude, before building back up to another big drop and then kind of "leaning out" again near the end.  This is part of the reason why I like the intersection; some of the other stuff, especially in remixed form, isn't quite so predictable.

Anyway, Kai Tracid is one guy, who apparently founded Tracid Traxx record label, which as you can guess focused on trance and acid, although the hardstyle sound grew out of this same community or like-minded German and Dutch DJs.  A*S*Y*S*, whom I've talked about before, was on the label; it appears (from vague commentary on discogs as well as song credits) that Kai Tracid was probably an early member of the band, and co-wrote some of their tracks (like "Acid Nightmare" among others.  When he went solo with Kai Tracid, he seems to have become more "trancy" rather than the much more overtly "acidy" sound of A*S*Y*S*.  But since A*S*Y*S* was still on his label, even as he was no longer associated directly with the name, they've clearly kept in touch, and A*S*Y*S* did this awesome remix of Kai Tracid's "Tiefenrausch (The Deep Blue)".  In fact, it's clearly the best version of the song, in my opinion.