Now back to the trance…

At Tidy Magna on Saturday the 7th of March they had the following trance sets:

Agnelli & Nelson vs. Solarstone
Guyver vs. Garbo

I was really surprised to see these were not the first sets of the night, the doors being open from 8pm. If the biggest hard house brand in the UK is paying such attention to trance at its one night event and then releasing the Agnelli & Nelson vs. Solarstone live set on a 3 CD pack (alongside Lab4 LIVE and Paul Glazby), then what does the future hold?

In recent years there has been a major turn around with many brands crossing genres. We have already seen, during 2007, Tidy Trax release a Bryan Kearnley remix of Tony de Vit’s ‘The Dawn’ and then we have Riot Recordings adding an impressive list of trance to its catalogue. What interests me is the fact that Riot Recordings have not only released some great trance music, but have drafted in some of the major names in the hard house/dance scene such as BK and Amber D to work alongside trance greats in the form of Ali Wilson and Judge Jules. Nukleus also have been back on form with some great trance releases. The later half of 2008 saw Yoji (formerly Yoji Biomehanika) release Tech Dance Euphoria which had a whole lot of trance included, along the lines of Stoneface & Terminal ‘Volcano’, 4 Strings ‘Catch A Fall’ and Ronald Van Gelderen ‘Dirty Rocker’. When someone such as Yoji, who is always at the forefront of trends and developing sounds, seems to be pushing trance music, then I’d be sitting up and paying attention. I have always found him to be way ahead anyone else in the hard dance industry. You only have to look at where hardstyle is now and note that he was playing that genre years ago, infused with his melodic sound!

Will this crossover continue as has already been championed by Goodgreef? I think they have to be the most respected event out there for making this vision happen! I’d like to think some of the diehard hard dance fans could thoroughly enjoy some tech-trance from the likes of John O’Callaghan, Eddie Halliwell and DJ Choose and start to fully understand that not all trance is strictly hands in the air Kevin & Perry stuff (or Human Traffic for that matter). To be honest we could even do with re-educating a few techno heads whilst we are at it – it’s not called tech-trance for nothing surely?

What are your views on trance filtering through the hard dance scene? Do you think it will give rise to another commercial success in the years to come, such as that of the late nineties, if this trend continues?

Photo credit (thumbnail): jmsl08