Sweet Lullaby [Bruno Power Remix] by Andromeda

I'm often a bit annoyed by how things are credited as "presented" by such and such an artist.  If that artist isn't the artist on the disk, I don't care that he's "presenting" another artist.  And if the artists are using a stage name, but presenting their stage name as if it's something other than themselves, that's pretty silly too.

Andromeda was originally a four-man team, and while Julian DJ and Davide Sonar were indeed two of the four, I don't see it as credited to Julia DJ and Davide Sonar, so in my own labeling and cataloging of tracks, I ignore that and call this a song by Andromeda.  As you'd expect, it straddles the line (depending on the specific remix you're listening to) between hard trance and early hardstyle, but honestly; that's some of my favorite hardtrance anyway; the pseudo-hardstyle hardtrance.

Angelius [Nish Remix] by Spaceshokkers

Claudio Pettanice has rather jealously held on to the S.H.O.K.K. name, even though he was only ever half of the classic line-up.  Arguably, Marco Guardia (also known as Reverb) was the more important half, or more influential behind it, at least.  Reverb was also a big part of the driving force behind Flutlicht, his other duo, with DJ Natron.  Pettanice remixed most of the Flutlicht songs (as either DJ Giotto or DJ Emergency), but they're never the best remixes, and both of those names seemed to lack traction, it seems.

After Guardia's retirement and disappearance from the scene, Pettanice revived the S.H.O.K.K. name and did quite a bit with it, and... well, he's got some great remixes out there, and even some great original tracks, but they tend to have more of a DJ Space Raven sound to them relative to older S.H.O.K.K. titles.  This isn't unusual, as DJ Space Raven partnered with Pettanice to become the second iteration of S.H.O.K.K., which tends to require a partner to really put out great stuff, it seems.  Despite this, both of them want to hold on to whatever value they believe their stage names have, so Pettanice sometimes refers to S.H.O.K.K. as he and Space Raven working together, and sometimes as himself, and Nicholas Perrottey usually wants to keep his DJ Space Raven brand out there too; neither wants to be seen as merely one member of a group, it appears.  The DJ Emergency and DJ Giotto stage names have been quietly forgotten.

In any case, in spite of the fact that they'd been working together as S.H.O.K.K. specifically for a number of years by the time they put this out, Spaceshokkers refers specifically to the concept of the two of them being separate artists but collaborating, rather than the more integrated type of collaboration they do when they both work together under the S.H.O.K.K. name.  And the naming convention was interesting; Pettanice did something similar when working with Marcel Scheffers (stage name Marcel Woods) and they called that collaboration Woodschokkers.

Here's Freddy [Uberdruck Mix] by Uberdruck

Just when you thought A*S*Y*S's "Acid Nightmare" was the iconic hard trance song based on the themesong from A Nightmare on Elm Street, well, you have to consider this as an alternative.

Uberdruck was famous for their extremely dark, almost "evil" sounding sound, and it's the perfect match, obviously, for this subject matter.

Life on Mars [Extended Mix] by Pulsedriver & Rocco

I really, really love this song.  More recent than you might think, it's a throwback to the heyday of hardtrance, Wave II style, by two Wave II artists.

Granted, the Rave Mix is slightly better, I think.  But both versions are just great tracks.  One of the reasons I love it, I think, is that it goes a bit against the grain.  I really love the menacing, dark sounds that most hardtrance songs have, because it fits the genre so well, and because it's just my nature to like dark, menacing music (that's why back in the 80s, I always preferred Depeche Mode to Erasure and the Pet Shop Boys.)  But because most of it fits that vein anyway, the ones that don't and still manage to be very well done tracks tend to be among my very favorites precisely because they're different.

Danger [Mass In Orbit Remix] by @dam

Of course, @dam is Mass In Orbit (and B-Tronixx and a few other aliases too) but eh.  I'm not going to quibble with the tendency of EDM artists to hide behind multiple stage names for various songs, although it sure seems like a marketing disaster to do so.

Regardless, this is a great song.  Now that my total is way up over 1,800 tracks in the hard dance mix together collection, if I were to really comb through them to come up with the top... 50 or so, this would make the cut.  It'd be more iffy for a top 25, but it might do it yet.

Play [Paul Maddox Remix] by Stimulator

Stimulator is a Dutch outfit, but they seem to be associated with the fundamentally British Tidy label.  This particular song is not their best one (Paul Maddox was too "housy" for my taste as a trance remixer, most of the time).  There is some absolutely excellent material by Stimulator though, which we'll be hitting eventually as I continue to survey my hard dance stuff.

Chimps & Pimps by Bas & Ram

The Dutch have long been a haven for loads of hard dance styles: gabber/hardcore, hardstyle, and hardtrance.  Bas & Ram are two Dutch artists who have made quite a splash on the hard trance scene, putting out some real classic belters.  Sadly, I wish they'd been a bit more prolific, because there's hardly anything that they've done that I don't think isn't phenomenal.  While I like a lot of these Third Wave hardtrancers, like Nostic or The Sixth Sense, or Noizy Boy, or Lee Walls, or... I dunno, several dozens more, it does seem like the focus on "energy" over melody has made their output, while really good, kind of all samey too.  But back in Wave Two, during Bas & Ram's heyday, the songs really stood out from each other more.

Revelation [Phalanx Remix] by Alphazone

Alphazone, under a few names were a very unique German hardtrance outfit, well known for their complicated, technical basslines.  This is nice in hardtrance, because a lot of guys think that just having a super heavy kick is sufficient.  And sometimes it is.  But the basslines that do more are almost always more interesting.

Alphazone also did some really great remixes, including of Dave Joy and others.

Der Klang [Junk Project Mix] by Phuture Punk

I really love this song.  Made by a duo that is not the same as but which overlaps with the Russenmafia guys, it kinda has a similar sound, although a bit more stark and cold and acid, whereas the Russenmafia is dark without being cold, most of the time.

This is the Junk Project Mix, but that implies that there's another version of it somewhere, which, as near as I can tell, is not true.  Besides, Junk Project was just another alias of the same duo anyway.

Out of Control by Pro-Tech

Another belter from Pro-Tech, the duo of DJ Wag and Martin Roth (Y.O.M.C.)  The latter was more of a regular trance artist, but when collaborating with hard trancer artists, his touch was absolutely brilliant.

Pro-Tech did a lot of releases with two versions of the song; a DJ Wag remix and a Y.O.M.C. remix.  This one had the original version and the DJ Wag remix.  Not sure why, except that it was an earlier release (the very first under this name, in fact) and maybe they simply hadn't established the pattern yet.

Watching You (Vocal Club Mix) by DJ Darkzone

German DJ Darkzone made som, as you'd expect, stomping good, very dark hard trance songs.  As one of the first hardtrance artists I stumbled across ("The Human Form" was in one of the first Qlimax setlists I listened to) I've been following him for a while, but sadly, his output wasn't as prolific as some, because what he did do was quite good.

Although I still consider "The Human Form (Vocal Club Mix)" and "Infinity In Your Hands (Second Club Mix)" his best tracks.

Acid Pulse by Nostic

Nostic is part of a new, Wave III of hardtrance, and they (he, really) does a lot of stuff in other similar styles as well, as do many of the Wave III hardtrance artists.  Even on his own site, he talks about doing hard trance, psy-trance, classic trance and acid, although to some degree these can overlap.  Acid in particular is a template that can be applied over any type of electronic music, because it just refers to that 303 bassline.  In fact, it's kind of hard to overstate the influence acid has on hardtrance in particular, which grew out of the acid movement.  Tons of hardtrance songs still retain a wild, face-melting 303 acid line going through them.  And frankly, I wouldn't want it any other way.  Some of the earlier British acid techno of the 90s is great stuff, but acid was made of the hardtrance exaggerated kicks and dramatic song structure, where the acid contributes significantly to the intensity of the sound.

Anyway, here's one of Nostic's tracks that particularly emphasizes the acid, as the title would suggest.

The Big Light [Hard Trance Mix] by Spiritual Project

Spiritual Project was one of the many SAIFAM groups; a bunch of north Italian DJs who worked together and who seem to have jointly produced most of what they did, if the credits are any guide.  There are six writers credited to this record, which is not unusual with SAIFAM projects, including big shots Luca Antolini, Technoboy and Tuneboy; the latter two of which were well into their hardstyle phase by 2003 when this came out.

It's hard to know exactly who should deserve the lion's share of the credit for SAIFAM projects, but if I had to guess, I'd say that this has more of a Luca Antolini sound to it than Technoboy and Tuneboy (or the other three guys; I have no idea what their sound is like) but that doesn't necessarily mean anything; keep in mind that Technoboy kept up a hard trance alias, DJ Gius, for quite a while, and all three (all six) are credited with all kinds of hardtrance stuff from the SAIFAM group.  However you want to call it, this team was very prolific, but they liked to use a lot of various names and aliases which sometimes makes it hard to tell exactly how prolific they were, because it looks like separate groups when it actually isn't.

That isn't to say that they were the nucleus of north Italian hardtrance and hardstyle, though.  Gigi Lav and the Trance Generators guys were a similar (albeit smaller) nucleus, as was DJ Vortex, Arpa's Dream and the 4 Navigators team as was Julian DJ and Davide Sonar.  All of them dabbled in both hardtrance and hardstyle, and while some outfits were more likely to do one than the other, they all kind of slipped easily in and out of the two, and many tracks have that kind of straddling the line feel where you're not 100% sure which of the two you should classify it as.

In a Trance by Mark Richardson

Part of the British scene, which I still need to investigate more, quite honestly, comes Mark Richardson.  He's actually done a lot of stuff, but this is the only track of his that I've heard.  He was on the Nukleuz label, which I had heard of vaguely as more of a funky hard house label, but apparently they did do some hard trance as well.

In fact, I think that's my problem in general with the British scene.  While I do find stuff that I quite like there, and I've even found quite a bit of it, it's rare that it's actually my favorite stuff (most of my absolute favorite tracks are either German or North Italian, or sometimes Swiss) and I tend to overlook a lot of the hardtrance because I think of the UK as being a hard house country.

Anyway, as always, there's plenty more to explore as I dig deeper and deeper into this stuff.  And some of the hard house stuff ain't bad, even if I'll never like it as much as I do the hardtrance or even much of the hardstyle.

The M3ssenger [DJ Chuck-E Remix] by DJ W

DJ W is a pretty major player in Wave III hardtrance.  Since about 2011, he's been releasing a ton of tracks, remixing a ton of tracks, and collaborating on a ton of tracks.  Biographical info on him, real name Robin Westerhof, is kind of scanty, but he seems to be associated with a lot of Dutch acts.

Anyway, here's the first of his output that I've featured here on this blog so far.

Realize [Original Vocal Mix] by Earth Inc

Earth Inc. is an alias of Ralph Wegner, who also produced under a number of other aliases, most prolifically under Ralph Novell.  Not everything he did was trance or hard trance; in the latter part of the 00s decade, he seems to have branched out into electro house, tech house, and other styles.

I've said before and I'll say it again, I think the divisions between styles are too esoteric and don't matter all that much.  I have plenty of early hardstyle and some hard house and some classic or progressive and tech trance mixed into my "hard trance" collection, which I should really just call harddance, with an emphasis especially on hardtrance because that tends to be my favorite kind.

For that matter, I wonder sometimes about putting some aggrotech in too.  I probably won't, because stylistically it's pretty far from the other stuff, but I do think about it sometimes.

Daydreamer by O.G.R.

I've had a lot of fun exploring the specifically British hard trance scene, which had an awful lot of overlap with the hard house scene (like the Dutch and North Italian hard trance scenes overlapped with hardstyle.)  You'd think I'd have discovered it first, but no—I got introduced to German and North Italian specifically hardtrance first, and most of what I got (for a long time) was Continental.  That's not to say that I didn't have a fair bit of British stuff, but there was actually a lot more going on with the British scene than I thought.

O.G.R. was an alias of Paul Maddox, who did mostly hard house stuff for Tidy.

Paradise by The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense is one of many newer hard trance artists.  Hailing from the Netherlands, he's one of the guys keeping the fire going long after its peak faded to be replaced, kinda, by hardstyle (at least if the itineraries of Qlimax type events are any guide.)

Curiously, hard trance is today a thriving genre, with a lot of new material (albeit more underground than it used to be) while hardstyle seems to be mostly moribund.

Silent Heart [Flutlicht Remix] by Green Court

Green Court, featuring the solo trance artist Marc Dawn, has done some good stuff (under both names), although much of it isn't necessarily hard trance as opposed to just trance.  However, much of the harder stuff is in the remix department, with great remixes of some of their tracks by guys like Cosmic Gate, S.H.O.K.K. and Flutlicht, etc. And of course, I have some great remixes by Green Court of some of those bands too.  The community of hard trance is kinda fun, because seeing the community and its networked nature, although there were really more than one community.  The north Italians, for example, seem to have comprised a community, and they worked a lot with each other (not exclusively, but certainly mostly), there's the Tidy Trax British community, the Swiss communities, the German community, etc.  Some guys, like Scot Project seem almost like capstones who remixed stuff for everybody in all communities, whereas guys like Jay Walker seem to have been more focused on his own British community.

For today, here's a Green Court song, remixed by Flutlicht.

The Ultimate [Y.O.M.C. Remix] by Y

"Y" is another project of Martin Roth and Uwe Wagenknecht (Y.O.M.C. and DJ Wag.)  One of my very favorite hardtrance songs ever is also by them, "Life on Mars" (credited originally to DJ Wag and M.R.) and one version of the vinyl came with a "DJ Wag Mix" and a "Y.O.M.C. Mix".  This was a pattern that they were to undertake on several of their future projects together, including, for instance, Pro-Tech.  Y is a smaller project, with not much in the way of output, and although it did come with a Y.O.M.C. Remix, it did not come with a DJ Wag Remix, the other mix being done by DJ Overdog instead.

Be that as it may, this nicely shows why I've always loved the Y.O.M.C. remixes.  Sadly, it's hard to find both versions of most of the Pro-Tech songs, so for most, you have either a DJ Wag or a Y.O.M.C. but not both ("Dominating Power" being one of the few exceptions.)  Now, he wasn't always a super hard trancer; much of his solo output, for instance, is "classic trance" rather than hardtrance, but with the right partner, he put out some of the best hardtrance I've ever heard.  Maybe it was specifically his "regular" trance roots; rather than getting carried away with complicated basslines and exaggerated kicks, he made sure that there was a good, solid melody and song construction first.

Wrong Love (Original Mix) by Ralph Novell

Ralph Novell is one of many aliases of Ralph Wegner, who made all kinds of harder trance (not always necessary hardtrance per se, but always on the harder side of trance) under all kinds of names.  Partnered frequently with Bas & Ram and Alphazone, he was a pretty prolific guy, and a lot of his material is really good; a bit more on the melodic and less on the chunky, thumpiness than some.  He's also got some great remixes.  Definitely worth checking out!  This is one of his better songs, and it's really great—although many think that the Alphazone remix is even better.

Hybrid by Digital Pressure

Digital Pressure (also known by the alias Naxos Project) is one of those quintessentially early British hard trance outfits.  Made up of John Stembridge (i.e. Jay Walker, JK Walker, Apogee, MTW, etc.) and Steve Knight, along with Marcos and the Tidy guys (Guyver, Paul Maddox, K90, Lee Haslam) and a number of other guys, many of whom dabbled in hard house as much as hard trance (or many of them are properly seen as hard house artists who dabbled in hard trance, actually) they're a great example of the UK scene, which had a lot of subtle differences to the scenes in the German and Low countries scenes, or the north Italian scenes, etc.

"Hybrid" was the b-side to "Hey Kids".  Half of Digital Pressure, John Stembridge, is sometimes called the British version of Scot Project, and while that might be overstating things a bit, he was quite prolific under a variety of aliases, and his work is really pretty awesome.  Sometimes, as with Scot Project, his remixes are even better remembered today than his original tracks, but he did lay down some real classics while he was at it during the heyday of his career.

Exploration of Space [Extended Remix] by Cosmic Gate

Curiously, while the further from my discovery of Scot Project I get in time, the less enchanted I am with his work (speaking very broadly; he's still got loads of good stuff too) the same is not true for Cosmic Gate.  Cosmic Gate, according to pretty much everyone in the scene, has long since "sold out" but the first two albums—maybe the first three if you push it—and associated singles, are all excellent, and when they come back around in rotation on my listening, I like them better than even I remember, mostly.

"Exploration of Space" is one of the early hits of Cosmic Gate; I daresay that without the science fictiony themes, it doesn't sound like proper Cosmic Gate even.  This is a great song.

Somebody [Hangover Help Mix] by Arome

I'm sometimes critical of Scot Project, although I should be fairer and admit that it's not because he doesn't have a ton of good work.  Rather, because I found him so early, I've found that I like some other artists work better, and that I think his reputation is over-rated.  He's had some work that is mediocre and some that I don't even like at all—I think I'd have to say that I like Kai Winter (of Kan Cold, Derb and Hennes & Cold fame) better, for instance.  But that's not really very fair to Project, who did some great stuff, especially with the Arome name.  This isn't his best work under that label, but it's still a good one, and certainly good enough to make the cut onto my list.

Secret Dream [Hard Mix] by Luca Antolini

Luca Antolini DJ is one of my favorite artists in the hardtrance scene.  One of things I really appreciate about him is that he was associated with the Saifam Grupo gang, but unlike most of the rest of that crew (Technoboy and Tuneboy, especially) he never abandoned hardtrance for hardstyle, really—if he did anything hardstyle, it was more dabbling, whereas hardtrance always seemed to be his real love.  And he was really good at it.  Some of his songs, and some of his remixes of Saifam songs, like those by Pacific Link or Atlantic Wave (kind of an oceanic theme going on there) are among my favorites in the genre.

This one that came up on the randomizer isn't one of my favorite of his songs, but it's certainly good enough.  I like it quite a bit.  But "Heat" and "Contatto" and "Planetary Collapse" are his best work.  And the S.H.O.K.K. remix of "We Belong" is just incredible.

Luca Antolini seems to have done a bunch of work with Steve Hill too, which is kinda cool, because their styles complement each other in terms of making the music even more intense and harder, but without degenerating into self-parody like some of the hardcore subgenres have done, or even hardstyle often enough.  That's one of the joys of hardtrance as opposed to some of the other hard dance styles; it's still almost always melodic and has some musical merit to it besides just percussion and stuff.  Sure, trance can be formulaic and by the numbers, but even then, it's usually better than some of the alternatives that don't use a tried and true successful formula.

The Future [Luca Antolini DJ Mix] by Technoboy

The SAIFAM group is so famous for their hardstyle, particularly Technoboy and his most frequently used partner, Tuneboy, that it's sometimes easy to forget that they also did a lot of hardtrance.  Often, Technoboy used one of his other aliases for hardtrance, like DJ Gius.  Then again, this is a really early track, predating even "Raver's Rules" and of course, it's remixed by Luca Antolini, who was always more of a hardtrance guy who didn't get nearly as much into hardstyle (personally, I always felt like when he did it was commercialized selling out anyway.  Maybe I'm wrong, and it's not like that output is bad, I just get this vibe like he doesn't like hardstyle as much as hardtrance and would rather make the latter.)

Curiously, as hardstyle came and went, hardtrance endured.  The hardtrance scene, more underground than it used to be, no doubt, seems to be thriving and new material from new artists is coming out regularly.  Hardstyle, on the other hand, seems to be more or less moribund.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I like a lot of hardstyle tracks, especially some of the early ones that had a hardtrance vibe to them still, of course.  But I like hardtrance a lot better.

Harder [Club Mix] by Pedro del Mar

In spite of his stage name, Pedro del Mar isn't Spanish.  Discogs claims that he's German, but given his last name, I doubt that that's true in any real sense, either, only a paperwork or legal sense.  He also doesn't really look very German (and his brother, Roger Shah looks even less so), so I'm guessing that he's actually a Paki or Afghan or Iranian or something.  Both are DJs, although I don't think hardtrance is really their main thing; I think they do more progressive and balearic trance

Regardless, this is a really nifty song.  One of my favorites in the hardtrance genre, honestly.  It's maybe not quite as hard or intense as some in the genre, but it's more melodic.  You would think that that would mean that I'd be trending more towards classic trance, or other derived trance forms other than hardtrance, but actually the exaggerated kicks and super intense bass lines are one of my favorite parts of hardtrance.  The melodic nature of trance itself is the other part, which is why I prefer hardtrance to hardstyle, or hardcore or hard house or hardtechno or other acts under the more general the harddance rubric.  Not that I don't like a lot of stuff there too, but hardtrance is easily my favorite of the harddance styles.

Legends [Green Court Remix] by Dave 202 and Phil Green

Dave 202, another Swiss DJ who uses the time-honored tradition of a first name and a number (borrowed from Richard 23 of Front 242, no doubt) and Phil Green, who says he's Swiss, but who has a Slavic real name, team up here to give us "Legends", an amazing piece of uplifting hard trance, which German duo Green Court remixed into an amazing anthem.

The Hijackers remix is probably more well known, and the Green Court only appeared on the German release, but I like it quite a bit still.

Afraid of Us by Russenmafia

Russenmafia is a group I've talked about before, but I've actually only very recently (after I'd already been pretty heavily invested in investigating this genre) really gotten into some of their alternate names and work.  This isn't necessarily one of their best songs; I'd say "Dakrapo" and "Corruption" are probably the best under that name, "Too Cold" by Icebreaker (which as far as I know, only comes as an "Aquaplex Mix" but Aquaplex is another project of some of the group members of Russenmafia anyway) are definitely their best work.  But it's a good sample of what their kind of music sounds like anyway.

Isn't It All a Little Strange [Flutlicht Remix] by S.H.O.K.K.

I've let this blog linger, sadly, but I finally remembered to post again, and what did I get by random result?  One of my absolute favorites of the 1,100+ tracks in my collection!

S.H.O.K.K. and Flutlicht are actually related groups, both are duos, and both include one of the same guys, Marco Guardia, a Swiss DJ/Musician who also went by the stage name of Reverb.

He's retired now, and the Flutlicht name seems to have gone with him.  His Flutlicht partner was Daniel Heinzer (DJ Natron) who only ever released under the Flutlicht name, although he also did a lot of remixes at one point (although they were often collaborations; i.e., remixes of Flutlicht songs or S.H.O.K.K. songs.)  Guardia's partner in S.H.O.K.K. was Claudio Pettanice, who also used the stage names DJ Emergency and DJ Giotto, and who still works with the S.H.O.K.K. name, although his new partner is Nicolas Perrottey (DJ Space Raven.)

Anyway, both Flutlicht and S.H.O.K.K. have some great songs, but probably both of them are even better known for some of their absolutely insane remixes than for their own songs anyway.  Massive remixes like that of fellow Swiss artist Dave Joy's "First Impression" or DJ Spoke's "Ignition" (also Swiss), Marc Dawn's "Expander", Alex Bartlett's "Amnesia", etc.  The list goes on and on.  The S.H.O.K.K. and Flutlicht output is some of my absolute favorite stuff in the genre.

Let the Music Play [Original Extended] by Walt

There's a fair bit of good stuff by Walt, real name Wouter Jannsen, a Dutch musician who's most famous for his collaboration with his brother as the hardstyle act Showtek.  But he's got some pretty good hardtrance stuff too, much of it under this alias.

Kind of a weird one, but I like it nonetheless.  Derb again.

Insane Asylum (Pedro del Mar Remix) by Thomas Trouble

Thomas Trouble, from San Francisco, is just about the only American hardtrance artist I can think of.  Pedro del Mar is actually Patrick Shah, from Berlin.  Or... well, he lives in Berlin.  I'm not sure that he's a German—he's fairly dark and Mediterranean looking, and Shah isn't really a German name, as far as I know (and as that kind of thing is a hobby of mine, I'm not usually surprised by it.)

In any case, it's a brilliant song.  I love it.

The other remix was by SMP, otherwise known as Roger Pierre Shah, and "Pedro's" actual brother.  This version is the better one, though.

Attack by Derb

Derb has come up quite a bit in my blog posting, but relatively infrequently in my DJ set mixes that I've making by random selection.  This is one of my favorite tracks of theirs.  There's a remix version that's also on the Works collection, but it's not necessarily better than the original.

Can't Have Enough by Hennes & Cold

While not one of my personal favorites of the Hennes & Cold works, you've got to admit that they just have an extremely competent catalog overall.  Even their mediocre songs with vocal samples from weird hip hop or R&B songs are good.  They're regular stuff, without those cheesy vocal samples, are almost uniformly excellent.  There's almost nothing by Hennes & Cold that I don't like (maybe "Born Blind" and "Shhhh!"—although even those aren't bad, just not as good).  Kai Winter's other major collaboration, Derb, is a bit more experimental at times, so it has some really excellent stuff and some... well, nice try material too.

His solo works collection is even more experimental, plus it includes a lot of earlier works, but it's also got some really great material.  But even as much as their own works, some of these guys are as famous for their remixes of other people's stuff.  (This is especially true of Scot Project, but all of the hardtrance big-shots make it true to a certain degree.)

Where I really first noticed Hennes & Cold was from their remix of "Retribution" by Titchy Bitch and the Fallen Angel.  Holy crap, that's a great song!  "I know over 200 ways to kill a man!"

Sadly, it's been so successful, that you can't even hear the original anywhere, because the Hennes & Cold remix is the only one that's available anywhere.  So I can't compare it, but it is what it is this many years after the fact.  Sigh.

We Call It Acid by Organ Donors and A*S*Y*S

This slightly truncated version of the song is the best I can find on youtube, although you can hear the whole thing on spotify. (https://open.spotify.com/album/2PssKYtcCHrzs4xI5yM7pb)

This is another song that reinforces my central premise; to me, a year ago, this was a fairly typical acid techno song, of the type that I was familiar with from the rest of A*S*Y*S's output.  Of course, I was wrong about that, A*SY*S doesn't do acid techno so much as they do acid trance and hard trance.  Discogs calls this song electro house, and the youtube description calls it subground.

EDM is over-split and over-categorized.  Nobody really cares all that much about the finer distinctions between the styles.  And they're too finely defined if the same song gets categorized differently in different venues, or—as happens in the youtube comments section of a lot of these—people argue endlessly about what exactly it it.  Personally, I find that I like the trance structure with build-ups and drops, quite a lot, and I like the really hard sounds of hardtrance and some of the hardstyle when it isn't caricaturish and noise.  I'd probably find plenty to like in hardcore or gabber if I got into it, although given how much hardtrance and before that hardstyle blew up my collection, I'm reluctant to explore it much. (And my limited exposure so far hasn't been all that promising.)

I might even like a lot of British hard house.

But I don't worry too much about genre labels.  If some hard house makes it's way in, I hardly even notice, much less complain.  If some regular trance with boosted bass makes its way in and doesn't sound out of place, I don't care.  My DJ set mixes are mostly hard trance and acid trance, but feature a fair number of early hardstyle songs, acid techno songs, and even a few classic trance songs and subground songs here and there.

In fact, although I keep saying that I'm not really in collection mode right now, I do still keep finding more stuff.  I recently got a bunch more DuMonde tracks (which is funny; they were on my radar from the very beginning, but I put them on the back burner until just now) and I've filled up a few corners with Max Savietto (and his various aliases) stuff, including some new "Loop Hole" remixes from 2012 and a whole new collaboration that I'd missed, Evergray.  I earlier got a fair number of tracks from Resonate: The Brutal Sound of Hard Trance which was a British collection.  There's seven such collections, and I only did a cursory scan of the first one.  This collection says hard trance, but according to most, it straddles a line between hard trance and hard house a lot of the time.

The Race 2012 (Steve Hill vs. Technical Remix) by Luca Antolini

Luca Antolini, of the Saifam group, is one of my favorite trance artists, and his frequent collaborations with Steve Hill are phenomenal.  This isn't even my favorite of their work together (the "Contatto (RVRS BASS Remix)" probably has to take that prize; or one of the several "The Heat" versions.

Angel of Death [Hennes & Cold Remix] by Angel of Death

Angel of Death was another Kai Franz collaborative project. It only had a few tracks put out, but they're all really good.  "Angel of Death" was—unsurprisingly—probably the signature track (although I personally think "The H" is the best one.)

And when you get Hennes & Cold to remix it, you know it's probably going to turn out great.  This is a great track.

Ignore the picture.  That's another DJ; Yoji Biomehanika, who does a bunch of tech trance and other stuff. I'm actually not much of a fan of his, although I do have one Scot Project remix of one of his songs in my collection that's quite good.

The Worm (Marcos Remix) by Steve Knight and DJ Ryze

Although I'm especially belated in discovering the English hardtrance scene, there was actually a fair bit of activity there—although a shocking amount of the stuff early in the millennium seems to be centered around three guys; Steve Knight, Mark Dearden (Marcos) and especially John Stembridge (Jay Walker, JK Walker, MTW, Apogee, various other aliases.)  In addition to their solo stuff, they also seem to have collaborated with each other (and occasionally others) in various guises as well.

There was another pole around the Tidy Trax guys, and some of their output is hardtrance, although there's also a lot of hard house and other stuff that is similar in that crew, but not the same as hardtrance.  Guys like K90, Guyver, Lee Haslam, Paul Maddox, etc.  In fact, it may be fair to say that hard house is more the focus of the Tidy Trax guys and some good hard trance was an almost inadvertent output.

The more modern British hardtrance scene, centered around guys like Alex Kidd, the Organ Donors, etc. tends to be more subground than traditional hardtrance, but the three mentioned above are doing stuff as good as anything the north Italians, the Germans, the Dutch or the Swiss ever did.

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

Kai Tracid was actually a member of A*S*Y*S during much of their classic output, but I think that this is clearly a remix by the other guy in A*S*Y*S, Frank Ellrich.  This is one of my favorite remixes of one of my favorite hard trance songs.

The NRG, or original mix is also very good.  The Oliver Lieb mix is, I think, kind of over-rated.  There's nothing wrong with it, it just... who cares?

This song is all about the NRG remix and the A*S*Y*S remix.

Heartbreak (DJ Arne L II Remix) by Cosmic Commando

Cosmic Commando, otherwise known as Gollum & Yanny (I'm not kidding about that, actually) were two DJs that did a lot of stuff on their own, and with other collaborations with other DJs.  But their release of "Heartbreak" was a good one, and not only because it had a picture of Chun-Li on the CD release (although that certainly didn't hurt.)  (By the way, another of their releases, "Slave to the Rave" had a picture of Gamera on it.  But the B-side is a better song, even if it has bad grammar in the title.)

I comment probably too much on the coincidences of the randomization, but getting a DJ Arne L II remix right after doing a DJ Arne L II song is kinda funny.  I don't actually have much of his work.

Lucutus by DJ Arne L II & Mirko Milano

This is a short version; I can't find a Youtube clip of the longer version, but it still sounds the same, just without the long intro and outro.  Most notably, it has the big "beast mode" drop at 2:01.

I later found that I wasn't a huge fan of much of the rest of the work of DJ Arne L II and Mirko Milano, although they do have a few other great tracks.  And they seem to do their best work when collaborating with each other too.

Acid Overdose (DJ Neo Mix) by DJ Neo

DJ Neo has been a long-time partner and collaborator with Blutonium Boy. Whereas Blutonium Boy is pretty much a hardstyle DJ, DJ Neo is the one more likely to bring in a lot of hardtrance and acid elements.  The track below is a beautiful confluence of all three: early hardstyle, acid, and hardtrance.

By funny coincidence, the Blutonium Boy remix came up just a week or two ago in my randomization, so it's out there too.  You should compare and contrast.  Often the remixes by the two aren't really all that different, but with some tracks, there's a significant difference (I'm especially thinking of "Hardstyle Nation" here, where the DJ Neo mix is, curiously, probably more hardtrance than hardstyle, in spite of the title).

99.9 (Scot Project's Under The Knife Remix) by the Organ Donors

Two of my hardtrance love/hate relationships combine into one track here.  The Organ Donors are a duo that end up wandering as much into subground territory as hardtrance most of the time, and they have a bit of that quintessential British house sound that I don't like (I do like the British acid sound, however.  And the Brits did some really good classic hardtrance here and there, although when they did, it was almost always compared to what the Germans were doing; i.e. "Jay Walker is the British Scot Project!"  However, some of their material is still pretty cool and qualifies as capable of being in my "best of" collection.

Scot Project is another one who, while his stamp and influence is unmistakable, I often think is over-rated.  He did some good work, but not everything he did was wonderful, and he's far from my favorite artist or remixer either one.  Maybe love/hate is too strong a word to describe either of them; more like, "yeah, that's pretty cool" contrasted with complete apathy.  I can't quite motive myself to hate anything that either of them have done, but I rarely really love it either as what I'd call an absolute paragon of the genre.

But this is a good remix of a good Organ Donors song, and a pretty good example of stuff that makes my best of list, but wouldn't make a much more exclusive VIP room within the best of folder, were I to create such a thing.

Back to Earth by Cosmic Gate

Defying the odds of probability, Cosmic Gate makes a third appearance in a row.  As an aside, although I'm probably not really looking for more Cosmic Gate songs, I have been getting just in the last little bit, a number of Cosmic Gate remixes of other people's songs.  And there's some really good material there too.

The Wave (New Clubmix) by Cosmic Gate

I've probably been due for some Cosmic Gate for a while now, but I'm a little surprised to get two of their tracks back to back.  Here's the New Clubmix version of "The Wave."

Exploration of Space (Green Court Remix) by Cosmic Gate

Cosmic Gate was a big name in hard trance in the early part of the 00s.  They were still around later, but infamously "sold out" and started doing some other kind of music, that was presumably more commercially successful.  At the very least, their fans weren't thrilled with the change in direction.  But they had two albums worth of material, plus many singles and remixes, etc. of really good, solid, millennial hardtrance before they started doing... whatever it was that they were doing (I admit, I'm not curious enough to investigate really, other than a quick glance at discogs.  Their first two albums are listed as trance and hard trance, but the next ones get labels like trance, progressive trance, progressive house, etc.  Hard trance is right out, but it was the hardtrance sound that really made them what they were in the minds of their audience, I think.

Anyway, "Exploration of Space" is one of their early hardtrance hits, and it comes in a variety of remixes and whatnot.  Here's the Green Court remix.

No Alternative (Brooklyn Bounce Remix) by RBA

Perhaps fittingly, this is one of the earlier hardtrance songs I discovered from a recording of an old Qlimax set.  I've now got half a dozen or so remixes of this song, which is a great one, but this is one of the best still.

I can't remember if any Tommy Pulse has come up yet or not, but he was a founding member of RBA, which didn't really have a lot of output anyway.  It was basically Tommy Pulse collaborating with a few friends before releasing tons more material under his own (stage) name.

Not only that, TRON Darth Vader—pretty cool image, right?

Derb (Derbus) by Derb

This came up on my randomization thing-a-ma-jiggy.  I've actually blogged this song before, although I used a different remix.  Here's the original mix.  In the re-release single, it was called derb (Original Mix) but on Derb's Works collection, it's called the same thing that it was originally called, which is "Derb (Derbus)".  There is, of course, more than one "original" mix if by original you mean that it was included on the original vinyl single release: "Derb (Dernimbus)" is just as "original."

Anyway, this has become over the years a bit of a hardtrance classic, so it's pretty well-known to people in the hard dance scene.  It's been remixed, remade, sampled, and otherwise brought into all kinds of hard dance songs and all kinds of styles over the years.

Cowgirl [Tim Davison Remix] by Underworld

When weird 80s British synthpop group Freur ended up becoming hugely influential early to mid-90s EDM band Underworld, they ended up becoming pretty famous because of the use of some of their songs in famous "alternative" movies; "Born Slippy NUXX" was in the soundtrack for Trainspotting and "Cowgirl" (arguably their most recognizable song) was on the soundtrack for Hackers.  It doesn't really fit the definition of hardtrance by any means.  Released in 2008—many years after the 1994 original release of "Cowgirl" on an unofficial release called Tim Davison Edits Vol. 1, the track wasn't even titled (although it's pretty darn obvious what it is, given that "Cowgirl" is a famous and well-known mid-90s minimalist techno anthem)—discogs calls it either electro house or progressive house.

But part of that is what I've been saying all along; the stylistic differences that separate "genres" of EDM are too esoteric and nitpicky to really matter to most people.  I had long ago thrown this in my list of songs that I'd mix in with what was actually hardtrance and acid.  It came up to be included when I made my randomized list for my first megamix, and coincidentally, it came up again pretty quickly in my blog "song of the day" highlights.

 

Strange World by Jay Walker

Jay Walker (also JK Walker, Jay K Walker, JKW and more—real name John Stembridge) got a bunch of attention as "the British answer to Scot Project" and that's probably fair.  He put out some insane originals, but some even more monster remixes.  He's not quite as prolific or well known as Scot Project, and even in my own collection, I've probably only got about half as much that belongs to him as I do Scot Project.  But what I have is just as good; in fact, I think much of it is better.  I like some Scot Project work as much as the next guy, but he didn't literally turn everything he touched to gold, and I sometimes think that his quality is over-rated (if not his influence.  That's probably fair.)

Anyway, "Strange World" is curious; it's a bootleg that got a physical release (not just put up on Soundcloud or YouTube or whatever, because it predates those) and it's kind of a mashup and remix of two existing trancers: "Strange World" by Push and "The Promiseland" by Hypetraxx.

Acid Overdose (Blutonium Boy Mix) by DJ Neo

This is a fascinating choice for today, because this is a song that straddles a few lines.  Is it an acid song?  A hardtrance song? A hardstyle song?

Discogs calls it hardstyle and hardtrance, but of course, that's just a user-submitted set of labels and doesn't necessarily have to be definitive.  Curiously, it doesn't call it acid, which it obviously is as well.

Honestly, I think the DJ Neo Mix tends to be more hardtrance and this Blutonium Boy mix tends to be more overtly hardstyle.  That's sometimes true for other songs too—"Hardstyle Nation" in spite of the title, is clearly a hardtrance song when mixed by DJ Neo (although the Blutonium Boy mix is a classic of early hardstyle rather than hardtrance.)

But again; it's always curious that the lines between these genres are not hard, fast and easy to spot.  Plenty of tracks cross over them freely and ignore them to a great degree.

When I do "Contatto" one of these days, I'll have to do the one credited to Pacific Link and with a Luca Antolini mix, but I'll also put the one credited to Luca Antolini vs Steve Hill called RVRS Bass Mix.  That, more than most other songs I have, shows that telling hardstyle from hardtrance can be very difficult, because they're the same song with the same structure, and there's not a lot to separate them other than the addition of a bassline that sounds a bit more reversed in the one version vs the other.

Although, to be fair, that's a hardstyle song that sounds a lot like trance on the RVRS BASS version, and a hardtrance that shades towards hardstyle on the Pacific Link version.

Third Pleasure [Extended Mix] by Dave Joy

Dave Joy is a Swiss hardtrance artist who's output isn't very big, but who really milked the few songs that he made.  There's a kind of numerical vibe to his titles: "First Impression", "Second Chase", "Third Pleasure" and "Fourth Joyride (Buckle Up)".  Then, he's got a few collaborations under his belt too, and some remixes.

This isn't really a remix so much as it is Dave Joy's mix.  It's also not super hard for a hard trance song; it tends to shade a bit more into progressive territory.  Or maybe I just think that because it's not very dark, although dark and hard are not necessarily positively correlated.

This 10th Anniversary Edition comes with six versions.  There are no less than about 15 or so for "First Impression"—but it was a real, genuine hit (especially the S.H.O.K.K. remix) and is considered a real classic of the peak hardtrance era. 

Inspirations by Danny V & Mac Storm

Listed on the Therabyte Allstars 4-piece collaboration (by Therabyte Records) this is an interested song.  I don't know what else Mac Storm has done, as his discogs page is blank (except for this one song).

Danny V seemed to be an up-and-coming DJ in the hard dance scene, though—although he's from Poland, he has an ethnic German last name.  Sadly, he passed away just a few weeks ago in a car accident, so his ability to continue to up-and-come is obviously over.  He's got a decent body of work, though.  You should check it out.

Go! (West Mix) by Russenmafia

In spite of their name, Russenmafia are two German guys, who also work under a variety of names (Thomas Rubin, S.O.D., Solid Sleep, and the more prosaic Andreas Krämer & Thomas Pogadl.)  They did some pretty hard hardtrance—really cold and machine-like most of the time, too, quite often.

This is their first big hit (under the Russenmafia name, anyway.)  They also did a lot of remixes under that name, so their tag pops up a lot all over the place.

Requiem (Electronic Wizard Remix) by Kan Cold

Randomization brings up some more Kai Winter, although not as Hennes & Cold this time; merely as "Cold."  Although he's mostly better known for his collaborative efforts (Hennes & Cold, Derb, etc.) he's got a decent body of work on his own, too.

I don't know much about Electronic Wizard.  He's got two remix credits on Discogs, and that's it.  No real name, no nothing.

This is an unusual song for a hardtrance outfit—extremely melodic, with soaring synths and atmospheric riffs, a relatively slow tempo, etc.  But it's beautiful nonetheless; in fact, it shows how much depth and variety the genre was capable of when it wasn't just being exploited for big kicks and hard bass lines.

Journey by Hennes & Cold

Hennes & Cold is up again today, thanks to randomization.  I don't think I have anything interesting to say about them again so soon after just discussing them, so without further ado, I'll just leave you with the song.

Out of Control [DJ Wag Club Mix] by Pro-Tech

I've got a bunch of Pro-Tech songs with the big DJ Wag 65 track mp3 album I bought on Amazon for $12.  Pro-Tech is simply DJ Wag and Y.O.M.C. (Uwe Wagenknecht and Martin Roth are their real names) who collaborated before as well; in fact, DJ Wag's biggest song, "Life on Mars" which was credited to DJ Wag in later releases, was first released back in '98 credited to DJ Wag & M.R.  Even with it's re-release, the UK version is the best one, because it features a DJ Wag remix and a Y.O.M.C. remix, and those are probably the two best remixes of the track ever done (unfortunately, they only ever had a rather poorly mastered vinyl release.  The Y.O.M.C. version was recut as the Y.O.M.C. Global mix, but it's not as good of an arrangement.)

Pro-Tech releases often had the same format; they were songs that were credited to a group that included the two of them, but each vinyl release had two mixes, one by DJ Wag and one by Y.O.M.C.  If not, they sometimes had an original mix and then a DJ Wag remix.

The big problem here, both with the Pro-Tech releases, but with others as well, is that many of these mixes are not readily available anymore.  The only way to get them is to track down rare and out of print vinyl and hope that it's in good enough shape that you can rip it to a digital format where you can actually use it.  So, the DJ Wag Club Mix, shown here, is readily enough available (I got it on the big album I mentioned that I bought above, and you can hear it on YouTube and Spotify both as well)—the original mix, on the other hand, I can't find anywhere.  Even just to listen to a crappy copy uploaded on YouTube to see what the song sounds like.  Can't even do that.

The problem is that sometimes you can do that, at least, and it's clear the the track is a great one.  But then you can't find a high quality copy of it for download or for sale anywhere, and again, you're left to go chase old, out-of-print vinyl and hope for the best.  I wish DJ Wag and M.R. would really put out a Works style compilation, the way Hennes & Cold or Derb has done.  But I guess it seems like we're stuck with what we do have, and we'll just have to miss some stuff here and there.

Can't Have Enough (Remix) by Hennes & Cold

Kai Winter (the Cold in Hennes & Cold) was a very prolific trance artist, known not only for his work as Hennes & Cold, but also has half of the duo of Derb, and also as Kan Cold.  There's quite a bit of scattered other stuff out there as well under a number of different names, but those are the most prolific aliases used, and the three that have had a Works compilation released in relatively recent years.  I actually heard of Hennes & Cold first from their remix work before I heard any of their original work—DJ Choci and The Geezer's "It's Beyond Control" and even more, Titchy Bitch and The Fallen Angel's "Retribution."  Both are on the list to eventually be featured, but as I explored Hennes & Cold, I came to really appreciate their original work too.  They've got a lot of really good songs, and are just really talented artists, producers and DJs.

This is a good one; not one that I'd necessarily have picked to highlight their absolute best work, but it came up in the random selector from the tracks that I've thought were good enough to be featured in the random selection.

Given how many Hennes & Cold tracks I have on that list, it was inevitable that they would come up sooner rather than later, and will probably feature again shortly (then again, I haven't had an A*S*Y*S song come up yet, and I'm sure I have more of their tracks than any other single artist.  I'm sure they'll be up soon, though.)

Not this track, but Hennes & Cold are also credited with being one of the very first hardstyle artists, mostly because they seem to have invented the reverse bass effect—although they use it on a track that is straightforward hard trance.  Combined with the pitch shifting and other exaggerated kicks, like on Warmduscher's "10 Kleine Bassdrums" and you've basically got Early Hardstyle coming out of hardtrance without any particular sharp break.

Loco (Black Mix) by DJ Scot Project & A*S*Y*S

Ultra prolific artist (and especially remixer) joins forces with fellow German and pretty prolific himself Frank Ellrich, using his best known alias, A*S*Y*S to release this one-off track.

Project is Frank Zenker, and like I said, he's fairly prolific as an artist, but especially prolific as a remixer, and his remix style almost defined hardtrance, at least after the millennial rollover.  Frank Ellrich, on the other hand, works under more nom de plumes, and although he does a fair bit of remixing too, he's more of an artist, I think.  His best-known work is as A*S*Y*S, but the best known work of A*S*Y*S is when it was a duo; with Kai Franz (Kai Tracid).  Franz later split and went and did more of his own thing (including getting into running a yoga fitness center for a few years, apparently—but he was also extremely prolific under a variety of names throughout the 90s and 00s—and Ellrich retained the name, but he released stuff under his own name too.

Arguably this isn't really hardtrance, and some newer A*S*Y*S stuff is veering into hardstyle and subground, and other more "derived" electronic music genres.  I'd actually call this particular song probably a subground song, actually.

But I don't really get into overly proscriptive genre splitting, as I've said many times here before, of course.  And my "hardtrance" collection does include some "regular" or progressive trance here and there, some early hardstyle, some trancy subground, and various acid trance and even acid techno songs.  I think the genre splitting in EDM is out of control.  Most of this stuff doesn't justify being called a different "genre" really.  Sure, it can sound a little bit different.  But Def Leppard sounds different from Motley Crue.  Is anyone really going to say that they're different genres of music, as opposed to two bands that have their own approach to the same genre?

Right?

 

The Messiah (Resurrection Mix) by Tommy Pulse

By 2009, when Tommy Pulse released this, hardtrance was certainly a fading expression of EDM.  Curiously, Discogs calls this release both hardtrance and hardstyle, although I'm not quite sure why, because it's clearly the former, and stretching it big time to call it the latter.

"Tommy" (stage name of Dutch DJ Bastiaan Tichelaar, about as Dutch a name as I've ever seen) has been around for quite a while, using a variety of aliases.  Under the Tommy Pulse name I'll eventually be posting quite a few more, no doubt, because I have a lot on my list (including many versions of "The Answer" which was the In Qontrol anthem of 2005, I've also got multiple versions of, for instance, "No Alternative" by RBA, which is Bas and a few of his early friends, although it's in many ways a remake of "Kernkraft 400" by Zombie Nation (which was itself a remake of an old Commodore 64 video games' theme, "Lazy Jones."

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.  No doubt some "No Alternative" will come up in its own due time in the randomization.  As will "Kernkraft 400" for that matter.

You Better Run (Dance Mix) by Dark A.T.8.

Dark A.T.8. is one of the very early projects of DJ Wag, before he took on that specific name.  He often worked with various partners (his most famous being with Martin Roth (Y.O.M.C.) and Mike Staab (where the duo used many names, but the most famous is Yakooza.)

This one goes all the way back to 1994, although an even earlier Dark A.T.8. song clocks in at 1992, showing that indeed hardtrance existed almost as long ago as the advent of trance period (although I don't know that the label as specifically used, or at least widely so that long ago.  Of course, according to Discogs, you never know for sure what labels some of those songs will get.  Just because DJ Wag is a hardtrance artist doesn't mean that 1992's "Was Guckst Du Lan" won't be called techno.  Because it is.)

I picked up, from Amazon, Techno Classics 1990-2010 which is really a big "greatest hits" DJ Wag mp3 collection (65 mp3 files).  Oddly, some of them are not very good quality files—I had to clean up some skips in one using cut and pastes of a few beats from nearby, for instance, I had to remove obvious hiss and pops from others. 

It also has some weird alternate remix and artist names from how these songs were originally released, which has made figuring out exactly what I've got kind of odd sometimes.  I find often that I do have these songs, under a different name (sometimes this is obvious, like when I have the DJ Scot Project remix of Nightclub's "French Kiss" but here it says that's by Yakooza.  Which are the exact same two people as Nightclub, so that's no big deal... but again, I've already got two mixes of the Nightclub song.  I'm pretty sure that one of them is the same mix, but that the other one is one that I didn't already have.  Still need to investigate.

And that was one of the more obvious ones.

Flight 643 by Tiesto

Arguably this isn't hardtrance.  Discogs calls the original mix simply trance, while it calls the original release (with its four versions) a combination of progressive trance and tech trance.

I heard it first as part of a bootleg mashup, though, with Randy Katana's "Play It Louder", which is also (arguably) not hardtrance, but since it samples very prominently the acid bass line from the Pump Panel Reconstruction of New Order's "Confusion" it is certainly acid trance.  And at some point, progressive trance, hardtrance, acid trance, and tech trance are all fairly hard to tell apart, and the dividing line between them isn't very easy to define.

In my collection of "hardtrance" I readily admit a fairly decent number of acid techno, acid trance, early hardstyle, and tech trance and even some of the harder ends of regular trance as all "on topic" for the collection, so Tiesto's "Flight 643" easily makes the cut.

Tiesto is often called, of course, the "father of EDM" which is certainly overstating things.  What he is is an EDM DJ who managed, better than just about any of his colleagues, to go mainstream, get mainstream attention, and become a producer and remixer for mainstream musicians.  This may be related to the so-called "selling out" of trance generally, although often that is billed very specifically to Robert Miles' song "Children"

But regardless of whether or not you think trance sold-out, became ridiculously cheesy and formulaic or not, well, this is a good song.  I do tend to think that mainstream trance did become rather predictable and boring, but the stuff that kept getting harder was still awesome for many years to come.

Sweet Lies by DJ Cyglas

DJ Cyglas is a Bavarian DJ who doesn't really seem to have any biographical information out there other than that he's Bavarian, worked in some clubs, etc.

In other words, he's almost completely anonymous.  2003's "Sweet Lies" actually appears to be near the end of his career.

It's billed as a collaboration with Edge Riders, whoever they are, but this is his only credit, so he's even more of a cypher than Cyglas is.

Terminator by Wragg and Log:One

It's always nice to see when these hardtrance artists don't take themselves too seriously.  It's a real danger in a genre that's known for being very hard, very dark, and very German (well, sometimes.  I do admit that some of my favorite hardtrance is north Italian, Swiss, Dutch, or even British too.  Both DJ Wragg and Log:One are British, I believe.  They have English names, anyway.  I suppose they could be kiwis or Aussies or even Americans, but I can't seem to get good bios on them from discogs.)  Anytime someone makes a dance song out of the theme song from a movie, it can't be too serious.

Listen to that crazy acid line in there too.  It perhaps shouldn't be surprising that it's the Brits who are adding the most acid to their trance, although Germans like Frank Ellrich and Kai Franz have done it a lot too.

Untitled by Warmduscher vs Derb

Tracid Traxx released the phenomenal EP Vol.  1, which has three untitled tracks on it, all of which are collaborations between two artists on the label.  This one came up randomly; as you might guess based on the artists, it's probably the most acid of the three.  It also happens to be my least favorite, although that's less an indictment of this song and more an endorsement of the others.  Kan Cold vs. Kai Tracid and A*S*Y*S vs Hennes & Cold are just phenomenal hardtrance songs.

It may be worth noting that Kai Winter (i.e., the "Cold" in Hennes & Cold and Kan Cold—and also a founding member of Derb) is involved in all three songs.  He's a talented and prolific guy, but because he split his work between various aliases, he maybe doesn't quite get the same level of recognition that someone like DJ Scot Project does.  Not that Zenker didn't also use aliases (to a lesser extent) too.

Anyway, from EP Vol. 1 (sadly, no follow-up ever seemed to come about, and it only ever got a German vinyl release.  It really needs a digital remastering beyond this YouTube release.

Global Anthem (Original Mix) by Sa.Vee.Oh

One of the quite early hardtrance sounds I picked up (when I really started paying attention to hardtrance as a genre, that is—I'd had a number of songs for years before I really paid attention to it as a discrete genre from acid trance or classic trance) was by Tankis & Savietto (it was the Lost in Case mix of "Octopus") and it's still one of the better tracks in the oeuvre, I think. I heard it in an old Qlimax setlist—I think it was Dana from 2001.) The second half of that duo is Max Savietto, who not only released stuff as Tankis & Savietto, Max Savietto, and Sa.Vee.Oh.  The last is an interesting name (which also sometimes wreaks havoc with my filename conventions, depending on which computer I'm working on and which version of Windows it uses) and as such, he's got some real winners.  Hard stuff that's also melodic and interesting.  There's a lot of activity in the northern Italy region—along with Savietto, we've got Luca Antolini and much of the very early Saifam group of artists.  Most of them seem to have migrated to hardstyle fairly early on from hard trance, but there's still some really great stuff that's unqualifiably hardtrance rather than hardstyle. (It's worth pointing out that the dividing line between hardtrance and a lot of early hardstyle stuff is pretty fuzzy and hard to determine exactly.  A lot of commentators consider the Hennes & Cold hardtrance song "First Step" to be the first hardstyle song because it has a very clear reverse bass and seems to be the first song that did so.  Others consider the Warmduscher song "10 Kleine Bassdrums" one of the first hardstyle songs because of the pitched kickdrums that were sampled repeatedly by hardstyle artists.)

What I consider "on topic" for "hardtrance" does include, by my admittedly somewhat loosey goosey definition a bit of early hardstyle and a bit of acid that's trending towards acid trance—and for the most part, I consider complete acid trance to be a subset of hardtrance altogether (by this specifically I mean stuff like A*S*Y*S and Kai Tracid in particular.)

Anyway, it's interesting to see the development here.  "Global Anthem" appears to only have had an Italian release, so in many ways, it's echoing the exact same conditions that led to italo-disco releases nearly two decades earlier.  Not that this sounds anything like italo-disco, of course.  This is a very hard dance song.

French Kiss (DJ Scot Project Remix) by Nightclub

There are few names that loom over hardtrance like DJ Scot Project.  He is to hardtrance what Depeche Mode is to synthpop—the guy who really made the genre his, to some degree.  Alias of German producer/artist Frenk Zenker, he did do a lot of his own work, but in many respects, what he's best known as is as a remixer who took all kinds of songs, applied his trademarked formula of build-up, break, build back up, bigger break, soaring synths, massive riffs and then slow fade out, etc to them.  Many of the songs he remixed are songs that he made into hits personally.

Nightclub themselves are another alias for the same two guys who make up Yakooza, which includes Misar/Kernkraft and DJ Wag, basically.  They were certainly no strangers to successful hardtrance themselves (especially DJ Wag who has a very prolific career as both a musician and a remixer himself).

Curiously, since yesterday's song sampled a Josh Wink House/Techno song, this one is kind of a remake of a different one.  (Maybe I should look into Josh Wink a little more.  But I honestly am not a huge fan of the late 90s British electronic music scene with the exception of some of the acid stuff here and there.)

We Will Survive (D.O.N.S. Remix) by the Warp Brothers

As I've spent the last several months really digging deeply into the well of late 90s and 00s hard trance, acid, acid trance, early hardstyle, and other related styles, I've come to understand that some of what I've written in the past about those genres is flat out wrong, although not necessarily in a consequential sense.  Anyway, I've come up with a massive nearly 600 track playlist of the "best" of that stuff; I've specifically excluded some versions of some songs that are good, but aren't quite the right style (too classic trance, for instance) or some that are good enough for me to put on my phone but not on the Best Of list, etc.  (The list is actually, currently 574 tracks long, but I've got another 39 tracks in "raw" format that once I listen to them, clean up any pops or other objectionable parts, and whatnot, might make the cut.  I personally think that most of them will end up doing so, so I'll be a little over 600 when I quit.)

It's unusual that I've migrated so heavily into this stuff lately—first it was hardstyle, which I like a lot, and synthwave (some of which I still like, although I've cleaned up my list of a lot of it that didn't age well after I had it for a while) but the hardtrance and acid trance and early hardstyle stuff is likely to be my favorite of the EDM music.  It's got a classic sound, but it's also very hard, with pounding kicks.  While I really like EDM that's so hard that it melts off your face and kicks your butt so hard that you're pooping out pieces of its shoes for weeks to come, more derived hardstyle can tend to almost sound like a parody of itself sometimes.  Hardtrance, on the other hand, has rises and drops, soaring synthlines, and still has that pounding bassline and kicks.  Heck, often it even has a reverse bass line or a squelchy 303 acid bass line

Because I don't use this blog very much, and I don't really know what to do with it, but my "main" blog was having too much of its content taken up by discussions on hardtrance and hardstyle, I thought I'd migrate over here.  It's a bit of a departure from the synthpop 80s core of what I originally was intending to blog about, but what the heck, right?  As a fan of synthpop and industrial dance music during the 80s, it's hardly surprising that I'd become a fan harder EDM, which is at least in some ways, an evolved version of the latter.

Anyway, because I've got loads of songs, I decided to sort them and put up what came up out of a randomly generated list.  The first hardtrance song to come up as such is the Warp Brothers "We Will Survive (D.O.N.S. Remix)" from 2000.

I'll note that Wikipedia suggests that hard trance started in the mid 90s, peaked in the late 90s and was on the decline throughout the 00s.  This doesn't actually seem to be true; most of the stuff I've been tracking down is a post 90s phenomena, and some of the most iconic hardtrance (like DJ Scot Project, for instance, or Derb, or Hennes & Cold, etc.) all came out after the millennial rollover.  Anyway, the Warp Brothers are two funny looking German guys, who dabble in a lot of related genres; hard house, hard trance, acid trance, etc. They also tend to sample from other songs; their two biggest hits are "We Will Survive" which samples Josh Wink's "Higher State of Consciousness" and "Phatt Bass" which samples the Pump Panel Reconstruction of New Order's "Confusion."

"We Will Survive" also samples some vocal about fighting aliens, although it's a bit trimmed in this version, so they don't actually mention the aliens per se.  But in the "Long Breaks" version, you can hear the full vocal.

It's curious to note that D.O.N.S. was another project founded by one of the founders of the Warp Brothers, so this remix is, essentially, the remix of one of the two Warp "Brothers" himself.

Saving Time by Iris

I pointed out a few posts ago that I'd somehow never posted an Iris song, even though I'm a big fan, especially of their first album.  They were THE hot item in the underground synthpop scene in 1998-1999.  And their freshman album is just incredible; there isn't a single bad track on it.  As you can see, even from this demo version (which isn't really substantially different from the later official album version; just shorter) they also cultivated a real artsy vocal style and lyrics, with very layered synths that are almost, but not quite, too busy.

Of course, the keyboard player quit after the first album, and was replaced.  The sound didn't change as much as you'd think, but their later efforts weren't as consistently strong.  Awakening has some good material, but suffers from a definite sophomore slump.  Wrath doesn't have anything wrong with it, but somehow... it just bores me, and none of the tracks stand out.  After that, I kind of lost track of them—I still have some of their more recent stuff, and I burned it onto my phone so I can actually hear it, but I don't even recall which song goes with which album anymore.  With the exception of a handful of stand-outs like "Panic Rev" and "Phenom" I find that I just don't really care that much anymore.  Still worth getting; just not worth rapidly collecting and following like in those heady days of the end of the millennium.

Of course, there could be a lot of reasons for that.  Maybe I'm just getting saturated.  I find that I don't really do that for anyone anymore—but it's also been many, many years since I could fit all of my music on my CD case.  Or, for that matter, since I bought most of my music in CD format, for that matter.  Maybe I valued it more when it was harder to get, I had an actual physical something in my hands, even if I went ahead and burned it and transferred it to my phone, which is where I do almost all of my listening these days.  I dunno.  I don't follow De/Vision that way anymore.  I lost Erasure and Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys years ago.  Same for Apoptygma Berzerk, VNV Nation, Cosmicity, or... I dunno... any of the acts that I latched on to during those "wait; you mean people are still making music of the kind I liked in the 80s?" days of the late 90s and early 00s.

Plus, as anyone can see who glances at recent posts, I've gotten into a lot of weirder stuff lately; acid, trance, hardstyle, synthwave, and more even more esoteric styles here and there.

I can, however, safely predict that I absolutely will NEVER get into speedcore or it's derivatives.  Ugh.  Why does anyone even do that?