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Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from EBM in Frankfurt, Germany, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and quickly spread throughout Europe.The music is typically characterized by a tempo between 120 and 150 beats per minute (BPM), repeating melodic phrases and a musical form that distinctly builds tension and elements throughout a track often culminating in 1 to 2 ‘peaks’ or ‘drops’. Although this is a genre of its own, it liberally incorporates influences from other musical styles such as techno, house, chill-out, classical music, tech house, ambient and film scores.
It is a state of hypnotism and heightened consciousness. This is portrayed in music by the mixing of layers with distinctly foreshadowed build-up and release. A common characteristic of modern version of this music is a mid-song climax followed by a soft breakdown disposing of beats and percussion entirely, leaving the melody or atmospherics to stand alone for an extended period before gradually building up again. Trance tracks are often lengthy to allow for such progression and commonly have sufficiently sparse opening and closing sections to facilitate mixing by DJs.
This music is mostly instrumental, although vocals can be mixed in: typically they are performed by mezzo-soprano to soprano female soloists, mostly without a traditional verse/chorus structure. Structured vocal form this music forms the basis of the vocal trance subgenre, which has been described as “grand, soaring, and operatic” and “ethereal female leads floating amongst the synths”. However, male singers, such as Jonathan Mendelsohn, are also featured.
History
The KLF’s “What Time is Love? ” was released in the UK in 1988. The earliest years of Trance were defined by Frankfurt labels such as Eye Q, Harthouse, Fax +49-69/450464, Force Inc., and others. Producers such as Pete Namlook, Oliver Lieb, and Rolf Ellmer created noteworthy tracks such as “Eternal Spirit” by 4Voice, “Hearts” by L.S.G., and “We Came in Peace” by Dance 2 Trance.
Much of the development of trance can be traced to Sven Väth, who was heavily influenced by his experiences traveling to Goa where DJs were using psychedelic rock and other sounds to induce a trance state at beach parties.Väth, Dag Lerner, and Torsten Fenslau had an affection for hypnotic dance sounds and the music at Dorian Gray and Omen began to reflect this.
Väth launched Eye Q with Heinz Roth and Matthias Hoffman in 1991, followed by Harthouse in 1992, releasing some of the most well-known trance tracks of the era. Eye Q took a softer approach to trance with records such as Cygnus X’s “The Orange Theme”, Brainchild’s “Symmetry” and Vernon’s “Wonderer”. Harthouse focused on a harder sound with tracks such as “Quicksand” by Spicelab, “Spectrum” by Metal Master, “Human” by Resistance D, and “Acperience” by Hardfloor.The sound of Frankfurt was the sound of trance. DJ Dag Lerner, one half of Dance to Trance has stated that he was the first to call his music trance and “gave the child his name.”The genre got its name -like state the music attempted to emulate in the 1990s before the genre’s focus changed.
In a 2006 interview with Resident Advisor, Sven Väth acknowledged the role of his labels Eye Q and Harthouse in helping to create what people know as trance music today, going on to say that “people are getting a wrong interpretation of what this music is all about” and differentiating his own form from modern forms, saying, “They are following a format — always producing the same structure. It’s a pop format for this music.”
As German trance made its way back to Goa, a new subgenre emerged that was more organic in sound with an oriental aesthetic in its melodies, often with references to Eastern philosophy. Goa trance would go on to spawn many sub-genres of its own, including psytrance, psybreaks, and others.
n 1991 in Berlin, MFS Records began to gain a profile, signing Mijk van Dijk, Cosmic Baby, and Paul van Dyk, soon releasing some of the most well-known early trance tracks such as “Love Stimulation” by Humate and “Perfect Day” by Visions of Shiva, as well as perhaps the first ever trance compilation, Tranceformed From Beyond. While writer Bom Coen traces the roots of trance to Paul van Dyk’s 1993 remix of Humate’s “Love Stimulation”, there is little evidence to support this contention. In fact, van Dyk’s own roots can be traced further back to his work with Visions of Shiva, van Dyk’s trance project with Cosmic Baby coming earlier. Early on, Paul van Dyk had been relatively sidelined on the scene, but his collaboration with Cosmic Baby quickly led him into the heart of the scene.
History part 2
In the UK, the British approach to this music and house music was similar: progressive chord structures, crescendos, longer breakdowns, and more organic instruments. In 1993 Platipus Records was launched by Simon Berry as an outlet for Barry’s various projects, including Union Jack, Clanger, Art of Trance. Platipus would become one of the most consequential progressive labels. Another influential label of progressive trance was Hooj Choons with notable trance releases from artists Tilt, Oliver Lieb, Solarstone, as well as the well-known Three N’ One remix of Cafe Del Mar by Energy 52.
In Australia, Christopher J. Dolan from Melbourne, who performs as Quench produced one of the most iconic anthems of the 90s, “Dreams” in 1993. It was re-released in 1994 and was nominated for the ARIA Award for Best Dance Release at the ARIA Music Awards of 1995. It peaked at No. 9 on the French singles chart, and No. 75 on the United Kingdom Singles Chart. By October 2000 it had sold over a million copies worldwide. Dreams is widely considered pioneering in the sounds of trance and has influenced DJs and Producers for decades.
In Germany, a harder sub-genre of this music emerged. With a faster tempo and gated pads, hard trance introduced the breakdown-build-anthem template that would become nearly ubiquitous in later sub-genres. Hard trance would inspire hardhouse, hard uplifting, jumpstyle, NRG, and hardstyle. Perhaps the best known label for this subgenre of this music was Bonzai Records, a sublabel of Lightning Records with notable tracks including Jones & Stephenson’s “The First Rebirth”, Cherry Moon Trax’s “The House of House”, and Blue Alphabet’s “Cybertrance”.
By the late 1990s, uplifting took over the scene with its fast tempo, characteristic builds, long breakdowns and big drops.In the early 2000s, pop-style vocals began being added into the music.The development of another subgenre, epic, finds some of its origins in classical music, with film music also being influential.This music was arguably at its commercial peak in the second part of 1990s and early 2000s.
From the late 2000s to the mid 2010s, this popular music providers such as Armin van Buuren‘s A State of Trance, Paul van Dyk, and Above & Beyond remained popular, while lesser known DJs changed to other sounds.In 2017 a new wave of underground DJs such as Nina Kraviz began incorporating this music into their sets.
In 2023, an effort by John 00 Fleming and others led Beatport to split this genre category into two: Main Floor and Raw/Deep/Hypnotic. The latter was designed for the underground side of the genre.