Not too long ago, in the middle of Amnesia's main room at the Cream Ibiza closing party, Paul Van Dyk's orchestral melody enveloped me with an indescribable feeling of euphoria and emotion: every breakdown turned into an impressive weapon that forced the crowd to close their eyes and put their hands up. That is the beautiful lasting memory of the trance community; its ability to control states of minds, heal broken hearts and reduce people to tears in the blink of an eye. Ferry Corsten, Tiesto and ATB are just some of the names that marked a generation of music fanatics during the mid 90's that it seems to be back, alive and kicking, in our current century.
But as with every kind of music, the trance community has been branching out in such a variety of sub-genres – from goa trance to psychedelic, pure, epic, commercial, vocal and many more – and the number of productions has been rocketing and plummeting over the years depending on the club trends. Hopefully, in a time where the scene achieves more diversity than ever, it seems that the four chord composition, layered synths and percussion beats have come back to reclaim its popularity. Or at least, since two years ago, we've had the most amount of trance nights on the island for a long time - Cream, ASOT, Nemesis boat party, Connect, Judgement, Full On, Driftwood and many pre-parties and bars all over town.
Now, as we await more news for the trance faithful on Ibiza, we are excited about the first trance Essential Mix in two years, courtesy of Egyptian pharaohs Aly & Fila, who debuts in the BBC Radio 1 set presenting 34 FSOE's productions, including their brilliant collaboration with Luke Bond A Million Voices with Audrey Gallagher's vocals. The set has just spread the voice: trance is back to stay.
Throughout the podcast the duo presents jewels by the hand of John Askew, Ferry Tayle, Pure NRG, Solarstone, Simon Patterson and The Thrillseekers as well as a brilliant remix of one of the classics: Ferry Corsten's Beautiful.
A whirlwind two hour journey through intense, quality uplifting tracks amongst some tech beats to balance it out. Aly & Fila has shown us that there are few current trends of music that can evoke such emotion in the way trance does. Listen out loud and judge for yourself.
