Music
10 tracks proving trance shouldn’t be a dirty word
It’s not without its detractors, but at its best, this uplifting, euphoric big-room dance sound is still transcendent. These classics of the form will make you want to reach for the lasers.
It’s the revival few could have predicted. That trance is back at the fore now – thanks to the fresh blood transfusions of acts such as Bicep and Lorenzo Senni and DJs including Nina Kraviz dropping it in their sets – might seem surprising. After all, it’s the style of dance music that purists sniff at, derided as mainstream or cheesy by its detractors. Yet despite its sell-out stadium status, there’s something special that shines through in the best trance tracks.
Trance sprang from the more spaced-out end of acid house and techno. Initially derived from the rave scene in Germany and Holland, its musical DNA can be traced back to far earlier tracks by electronic pioneers – Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygene, Tangerine Dream's Love On A Real Train, Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4.
At its heart, trance is concerned with reaching a euphoric hypnotic state through repetition, and places an emphasis on galactic melodies. Its earliest incarnations at the start of the 1990s capture this lost-in-the-moment bliss perfectly, while its later iterations at the turn of the 2000s indicate its crystallisation into something harder and faster.
By the start of the century, trance was the No.1 money-spinner in dance music and its biggest DJs were commanding astronomical fees for gigs in Ibiza and elsewhere. Still, many in techno and house have sought to bottle the genre’s transcendental essence since. It’s resulted in fine modern examples of trance and contributed to its revival.
Perhaps key to its appeal, the unpretentiousness of trance offers an antidote to the studied cool evident elsewhere in dance music. Here are 10 of the best trance tracks ever…
1. KLF – What Time is Love? (Pure Trance Mix)
Staring into their crystal ball, UK dance conceptualists Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond predicted the future with a spooky prescience. Released in 1988, this early version of What Time is Love? boasts a spiralling, trippy riff to get lost in, burbling acid and enormous pads, like light streaming in through a break in the clouds. Immensely influential.
2. Jam & Spoon – Stella
Surpassed by Frankfurt duo Jam & Spoon’s own remix — but the original best captures the Balearic essence of early trance. Its soothing keys build into a swirling evocative techno figure, while the faux Spanish guitar and thundering beats contribute to Stella’s status as a bona fide White Isle anthem.
3. Ramirez – Hablando (Accordeon Mix)
Yes, accordions are rare in trance, thankfully perhaps. Still Ramirez’s Hablando is a gem, with its squeezebox riff, Spanish spoken word interjections and bustling percussive energy. The track was recently remixed by Radio Slave – another indication of the trance revival.
4. Age Of Love – Age Of Love (Jam & Spoon Mix)
“Come on. Dance with me.” Italian duo Age Of Love’s track is the trance archetype. With its epic building riff, quasi-spiritual choir voices, and a breakdown guaranteed to activate your rush, this tune has been remixed countless times (most recently by Solomun) and is one of the few trance numbers even the hippest in dance music have continued to play through the years.
5. CJ Bolland – Camargue
Belgian producer Bolland was best known for his harder techno hits on R&S Records, but this poignant trance piece is his finest work. A speedy cut that pivots on its gorgeous organ chords and bubbling bass, it’s the kind of tune you can imagine Bicep deploying today.
6. Paul van Dyk – For an Angel
Still one of the most successful DJs in the genre, Germany’s Paul van Dyk is also responsible for this 1998 trance classic. Fast and frenetic in the late ’90s style, it contains an evocative bassline and a suitably celestial piano line.
7. Nathan Fake – The Sky Was Pink (James Holden Mix)
Few remember it now, but electronic experimentalist James Holden started out in trance (check out Horizons). This, though, is his greatest achievement: a subtle stormer with a trance riff at its core, that counts Hot Chip among its many fans.
8. Sasha/Emerson – Scorchio
Neither Alexander Coe – aka Sasha – nor Darren Emerson are likely to credit it as such, but Scorchio is a trance corker through and through. Bass arpeggios build and build before the payoff: a ginormous synth barrage of spine-tingling melody designed for play in the most capacious superclubs.
9. Booka Shade – Mandarine Girl
Paragons of late 2000s tech house, Booka Shade may have slowed the tempo on this classic, but everything else about Mandarine Girl screams trance. The sidewinding riff seems to rise from the depths to the heavens. Coupled with that percolating bass and epic atmosphere, it’s an example of how the genre has been co-opted.
10. Bicep – Orca
The Belfast duo has recently steered in the direction of trance; it suits them well, especially so on the celestial, breakbeat-laced opener of their debut album.
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