Our Future by Aponaut

Aponaut is a nice little duo that has, unfortunately, limited numbers of releases, but what they do have is very good.  They are very much a part of the third wave style hard trance; a blend of influences from lots of other genres, including often hardstyle, acid, hardcore, and others, mostly lush, layered synths rather than Spartan minimalist sounds, lots of "fuzziness", etc.

Amplifer by Schattenmann

I don't like how Discogs and others give us Schattenmann, but actually show it under Dave Joy because Dave Joy presents Schattenmann is how it's released.  Schattenmann is the group name.  Now, in this case, Dave Joy is a member of Schattenmann.  And no doubt they were hoping to capitalize on the success Dave Joy had had with "First Impression."  But "Amplifier" is not a Dave Joy song, it's a Schattenmann song.

I don't know how successful this song was, although I do know that another Dave Joy trio, Basic Dawn, certainly had a pretty decent hit with "Pure Thrust."  Dave Joy wasn't a super prolific artist, sadly, because I tend to like most of what he did, both on his own and with the various groups he worked with; both with original tracks and with remixes.

Of course, Dave Joy was his stage name; his real name is Marc Hunziker, and he was a Swiss DJ.  Most of the groups he worked with both as remixer, as a member, or other collaborator of some kind or another, were also all Swiss too—a nationality that doesn't seem to have completely forgotten how to put its own people first.

Mammatus by Daniel Doering

Funny how randomization works.  This is literally one of the very last tracks added to my list, but it's what comes up today.

Daniel Doering, also known as Danny V seems to be an ethnic German (based on his last name) left over in the Danzig corridor, since all reports claim that he is Polish.  Sadly, he died in a car accident last year, but he left us with a decent body of great hard dance work before he went.

The Silent You [The Mystery Remix] by Unmark

It's debatable to what degree this trance record is actually hardtrance; it kind of straddles the line.  Unmark is one of a few solo projects of Marco Guardia, also known as Reverb,  Guardia is a Swiss DJ most famous as one half of both S.H.O.K.K. and of Flutlicht.  It's not hard to see him as the more productive and musical genius half of both, but maybe that's not really fair—S.H.O.K.K. has done plenty of good things since he left, for instance (although usually partnered with DJ Space Raven, or other team-ups and they've become, if anything, more... I dunno, they kind of blend into the landscape of modern hardtrance much more than they did before.)  It also seems that the solo projects of Guardia tend to lose their hardness and revert back to "normal" trance, so maybe he needed the influence of his partners, even if he was actually the real musical genius behind both of those outfits.

Second Chase [Extended Mix] by Dave Joy

Dave Joy was a reasonably big name in Swiss hardtrance, but he didn't really release a lot of tracks.  What he does seem to have done is release the same track over and over again in multiple remixes.  I think I have no fewer than fifteen of his first (and most well known) release, "First Impression", and surprisingly, most of them are really quite good.  With "Second Chase" he did it again, although I get the impression that this wasn't as big a hit, and it had fewer remixes over time (the number declined rapidly over time; by the time we get to "Fourth Joyride" not only had the titles become a bit silly because he couldn't figure out how to make the numerical thing work while still coming up with something as iconic as "First Impression" but there are also only two remixes of this available at all.

That said, Dave Joy also released some stuff under other aliases, and as team-ups with various other people (usually reserving a "band name" in that case, such as Schattenmann and Basic Dawn) and he also did a lot of remixes.  Notably, he really seemed to work to develop a specifically Swiss hardtrance scene, which I can certainly respect him for, even though I'm not Swiss at all.

"Second Chase [Extended Mix]" is a pretty good sampling of his general style, especially near the beginning of his career, but honestly, some of the remixes are more exciting, including ones by Alphazone and Kaylab vs Reeloop. (Yes, I know that Kaylab and Reeloop are actually two different aliases for the same guy.)

Living Harmony [Alternate Mix] by Mental Miracle

Mental Miracle is actually a two-person north Italian duo who used tons of alternate names and aliases, although most of them are definitely in the hard dance styles and sit kinda on the line between hard trance and early Italian hardstyle.  (They do have a few more housey variations too, though.)  They'll pop up over time over and over and over again, often under different names like Skam, Schwarzende, DJ Kubrik, Omega Nine, Aikon, Darksucker, Tronik and more.  Much more, actually, although I think those names have the most tracks that are likely to come up.

It's curious that the north Italians are the ones who were most likely to straddle the line between hard trance and early hardstyle.  If you read the history of hardstyle on some place like Wikipedia, for instance, you don't get the impression that hard trance was a major influence; you get the distinct impression, in fact, that it came out of the gabber or Dutch hardcore scene.  There really is a lot of variation in various regions: hard trance in the UK came out of the acid scene and has a hybrid hard house sound to it, quite often.  Hard trance in Germany and the Netherlands and the rest of the Germanic countries seems intersect very little with hardstyle, and if it intersects with anything at all (which it often doesn't) crossing into hardstyle is usually a late occurring phenomena (although it does happen late, especially after hardstyle was quite well established.)  In the Italian early hardstyle scene is where it is almost indistinguishable from hard trance, quite often.

And more recently that's true too; if you look at newer hard trance artists, like Costa Pantazis, NG Rezonance, Noizy Boy, DJ W, etc. they describe themselves as hard dance artists on discogs, and their styles tend to be primarily hard trance, but heavily influenced and hybridized with hardstyle, hard house, hard techno, acid, tech trance, etc.  But the Italians were the first to make hard trance and hardstyle merge in a fuzzy spectrum.

Third Pleasure [Re-Mix] by Dave Joy

From the anniversary remix (which doesn't label the remixes the same as the original release does, so I used the title of the post with the original release remix title) here's another Dave Joy.  Kinda funny that randomization gave me a Dave Joy track right after a Basic Dawn track, where Dave Joy was the leading member of the group.

I have a lot of tracks by Dave Joy and his associated joint projects, but to be fair, it's not as many unique songs; there are a lot of remixes and versions of most of the really popular songs (especially "First Impression" and "Pure Thrust.")  I mean, I have 13 of the former and 12 of the latter, although those are clearly the ones with the most versions.  He's also got some great remixes here and there; especially DJ Dean's "Music Is My Life."

Pure Thrust [Substate Remix] by Basic Dawn

Basic Dawn is another project of Michael Hunziker (Dave Joy) with a few other friends, famous mostly for this one song, which has a load of versions of remixes.  This is one of the best ones, so it was nice to have it come up randomized.

Stay by Alphazone

Alphazone is a trance artist, mostly—at least the approach that they bring is very trancey, as opposed to "hard dance".  Much of what I listen to is the opposite; it is on the border between hard trance and hardstyle, while most of Alphazone seems to be on the border of trance and hard trance.  While they do certainly make hard trance, I'd say that in general their style is more about basslines rather than exaggerated kicks.

Of course, that isn't quite as obvious from this track, which is their first big hit.  And Alphazone also did some absolutely great remixes of a number of tracks by a number of artists (the remix of Dave Joy's "Second Chase" is a big one.)

That said, a similar vibe can be said to relate to a few other artists as well that are notable hard trance artists, but who's focus is more on the trance than the hard.  Ralph Novell (and many of his various aliases) for example, or K90 spring immediately to mind.

Semiramide [MST Remix] by Tankis & Savietto

It is perhaps a little unfortunate that one of the first songs that comes up via randomization by Tankis & Savietto is not one of their best songs.  Still—even when they're mediocre (for them) they're pretty darn good, and this is a great song.  When you get to hear "Andromeda" or the Lost in Case (who are actually the same two guys as Tankis & Savietto) remix of "Octopus" you'll really see them at the top of their game.

Acid Rock [Simon Qudos & Lukes RMX] by Alex Mac & Zeebra Kid vs Andy James & Trix

That title and artist name combination is quite the mouthful.  What a collaboration!  Six people in all.  Anyway, this is arguably not really hard trance, but instead maybe acid hard house or something, but it's still a pretty fun track.  The Aponaut remix is even better!  And available for free at lololyrics, provided by Aponaut themselves.