Get Hypnotised

Source: Vijay Times, BVT PG - 4.
Copyright © 2005 Puja Goyal

Spiritual and haunting, Trance has emerged as one of the most popular form of dance music. It was born in the underground raves and has moved towards mega clubs where it is played in full swing today. Trance has therefore covered all streams of music that fall under the category of electronically generated beat-driven dance music. It is obvious that Trance did not emerge from thin air; it has a base of some existing dance beats that were initially modified electronically to create a unique sound.

Trance to me, is more industrial and requires a different type of creativity. It involves a mix of different beats in a way that they synchronize with each other. When you listen to trance very carefully, you will be able to associate most of the beats, to the working of machines in a factory.

Hard Trance, Acid Trance, Trance Core (a mixture of Trance and Hardcore) and eventually - Goa Trance/Psychedelic Trance and Progressive Trance, are some of the inventions since Trance type of music came into picture.

Pure Trance is not outrageous, or loud for that matter, it is full of beats that grow on you instead of starting and ending abruptly. It picks up and goes down slowly blending into each beat, resulting in creating a level of ecstasy. It builds energy as it proceeds, climaxing repeatedly, taking you higher each time the beat changes. It has a healthy mix of, Doppler effects, sequencer riffs, driving bass and energetic percussion. Using the drug ‘Ecstasy’ in Europe further enhanced the effect of Trance music, as a result of which, a new wave ‘Acid Music’ was born in the U.K.

Those who are addicted to Trance, and those who listen and know Trance, claim to say that you do not need to take drugs to be taken on such a journey.

Trance evolved under three influences: the psychedelic music of the seventies, the electronic techno disco of Detroit and the late 80’s electronic new wave/industrial music.

Two of the most basic forms of Trance that we know of are Goa Trance and Progressive Trance. It’s very difficult to distinguish both forms of Trance, but they have been categorized in order to roughly define the genre and understand the overall feeling of the music.

Progressive Trance is more adventurous of the two, because of the fact that it actually tries to combine two or three very different and unrelated sounds to create something phenomenally different. It works by modifying already existing genres of music and ethnic sounds, to create a style called PROGRESSIVE. Progressive Trance is a softer version of Trance, basically because it combines hard sounds with softer instruments or human voices, to make it sound smoother.

Goa Trance on the other hand consists of very steady 4/4 beats, and lots of very psychedelic sounding wobbly noises, and acidy sounds. It has a lot going on noise wise, with a lot of wobbly noises on top of each other and less imaginative rhythms. It is not a must, but most of Goa trance is quite traditional in the fact that they have at least one tune or sample track sound from a 50’s sci-fi movie. The tracks are monotonous and can go on and on for ages. Goa Trance evolved in 1988 with TB 303 straight beat dance music, has an amazing effect on people dancing to it. It has a hard bass line and is definitely faster than other house music.

Contemporary cultural trends, drugs and basic music, all combined to form Trance. Its evolution and popularity attests to its strength as a genre, and its ability to carry a crowd dancing into a euphoric communal state will carry it onward and upward to its next incarnation.