Deep Trance
Grab a coffee, a long post….
Many of us dislike putting genres in pigeon holes and would rather focus on the feeling instead, but unfortunately genres will always be here to stay. Established artists, DJ’s and producers are fortunate as we already know their sound/brand and how they will entertain us musically, but for the next generation of both artists, labels and fans, they will always need a starting point and that’s where genres come into play.
I dedicated a big chunk of my career to the Trance world and still add those influences to my productions and DJ sets today to create those hypnotic moments, its the same for many others out there, but we’re talking the Trance of old, not today that has become a completely different vibe, and this leads us back to the confusion of genres. As with any product, be it musical or physical, once it becomes popular and fashionable it will get commercialised to appeal to the mass market evolving to something a lot different/mainstream, and over time splits the meaning/feeling between generations. As history shows this happens to all musical genres; Rock, Punk, Dub etc, not just Trance, it’s the nature of the music industry.
Eventually that moment came to Trance a while back and many like me were a little overwhelmed watching the genre that we loved and invested in suddenly head in a different musical direction, we had decisions to make, either adapt and make and play more commercial music, or what I decided to do, stay loyal to the scene we had built and to keep our musical integrity in tact and realign ourselves with scenes that are more suited, but this left many of us genre homeless as we could no longer call it Trance due to the new genre confusion.
I don’t want this post to derail into pointing fingers of blame of what happened, thats all history now, we actually need these changes to motivate people like me (and very close Trance colleagues I’m talking too) to continue to invest and bring you something new, we need this eco system to kick us and make us work harder to create something new, and thats what brings me here today to let you know what I’ve been up to.
Record shops have always been the ‘bible’ of genres as they tend to have their finger on the pulse of whats happening in clubland due to the feedback of active DJs whom buy/stream music to play out every week, they get real world data, so for the past year I’ve been speaking to Beatport voicing my frustration for the genre homeless in specialist Trance world pointing out that they have eight main House genres and six main Techno genres, yet only have two Trance main genres, with Psy Trance already being a separate scene, leaving the one main Trance genre to cram everything in one place that is hindering the growth of the specialist Trance world as the specialist DJ’s will never look in the Trance genre for this vibe, so we end up putting our music over in Progressive House/Melodic Techno as thats more aligned to the more specialist scene, but its still not a perfect fit and they agreed.
Beatport also see the movement within the more specialist Trance world too and feel confidence that something is brewing, so for now we all unanimously agreed a starting point of a new sub genre ‘Deep Trance’. You can’t just launch a new main genre with no content, releases, charts etc so for now we all need to start contributing to the the Deep Trance sub genre, eventually there will be enough releases to have it a stand alone genre. I also think it will attract producers from other musical worlds, for example some Techno producers often feel a little restrained having to hold back on melodies or emotions and they will have a new credible outlet that suits in the Deep Trance world, I think we’ll get some awesome forward thinking music. Also arguably there’s already many Deep Trance releases out there in the Techno/Progressive House/Melodic Techno worlds, so they will have an official home.
The Trance scene, the Trance culture and clubbers are the most patriotic in the world, there’s nothing more beautiful on this planet I see them constantly when touring, from these baby steps I’m sure more main Trance genres will be born, Tech Trance, Uplifting Trance etc as the scene gathers momentum again, the DJ’s and producers from those worlds are doing a phenomenal job and sure they will be behind pushing their cause. For now, the timing is perfect for Deep Trance as its an organic overflow movement from the current Techno/Progressive phenomenon.
I’ve already been chatting closely to my close Trance colleagues about this whom are all in support, we just need to start spreading the word to build this momentum, so if you like please spread the word in your Trance communities.