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.
Psychedelic trance, psytrance, or psy is a subgenre of trance music characterized by arrangements of rhythms and layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. The genre offers variety in terms of mood, tempo, and style. Some examples include full on, darkpsy, forest, minimal (Zenonesque), hitech psy, progressive, suomi, psy-chill, psycore, psybient, psybreaks, or "adapted" tracks from other music genres. Goa trance preceded psytrance; when digital media became more commonly used psytrance evolved. Goa continues to develop alongside the other genres.
Etnica is a project originally formed by Carlo Paterno, Max Lanfranconi, Maurizio Begotti, and Andrea Rizzo. They are a very well known Goa trance project from Milan, Italy.
In'R'Voice began his music career in Moscow, Russia. In the late 1980s, he was a fan of the classic industrial bands like Skinny Puppy, Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb. Driven by the innovative sound of industrial music, Kozlov began to experiment with analogue synthesizers. In 1992, he recorded his first tracks on a Studio “Tandem”, which recorded mainly pop musicians, but had very enthusiastic sound engineers. Together they developed the sound of Kozlov's project Inner Resonance Voice. In 1994, In’R’Voice became hugely popular on Moscow's main radio station Maximum and in nightclubs. A year later he received an award for innovations in music from the Ministry of Culture of Russia.
Spirit Zone Recordings was an independent record label releasing Goa trance, psychedelic trance, progressive trance and ambient music. Founded in 1994 by Wolfgang Ahrens, the label has been defunct since July 2005.
Oliver John Wisdom was a British Goa and psy trance musician, and clothing producer, who lived in London. From the 1990s he recorded under the name Space Tribe.
Balearic beat, also known as Balearic house, Balearic, Ibiza house or Ibizan chillout, is an eclectic blend of DJ-led dance music that emerged in the mid-1980s. It later became the name of a more specific style of electronic dance/house music that was popular into the mid-1990s. Balearic beat was named for its popularity among European nightclub and beach rave patrons on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a popular tourist destination. Some dance music compilations referred to it as "the sound of Ibiza", even though many other, more aggressive and upbeat forms of dance music could be heard on the island, such as Balearic trance.
Spontaneous Illumination was Entheogenic's second and most successful album. It was released in November 2003 for the German label C.O.R.N. Recordings and went to Number 1 on the German Chill-Out Charts, where it remained at number 1 for 8 weeks. Spontaneous Illumination stayed in the Top 10 for an additional 12 weeks.
John Fleming is an English trance producer and DJ from Worthing, West Sussex. He has had releases on record labels such as Ministry of Sound, Deconstruction Records, Logic Records, and 3 Beat Music. He also owns and runs Joof Recordings. He has performed at many clubs including Cream, Gatecrasher, Ministry of Sound, and Godskitchen.
Ultra Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, which is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America.
Anita Kelsey is an English singer and songwriter whose vocals and top lines are featured on many hit dance records and feature films. Her voice has appeared as backup vocals for artists such as Kings of Leon, the Good, the Bad & the Queen, Razorlight, Boy George and the Spice Girls, as the featured vocalist on big screen productions such as Dark City, and more recently as the singer and songwriter for a series of successful dance projects. Since 2009 she has worked as a cat behaviour consultant.
Aly & Fila are an Egyptian trance music duo made up of Aly El Sayed Amr Fathalah (Aly) and Fadi Wassef Naguib (Fila). They host an Internet radio show called Future Sound of Egypt, and are the founders of the label of the same name. The duo has played events across the world including Ultra Music Festival, Tomorrowland, Global Gathering, and Luminosity Beach Festival. Four of their tracks were chosen as "Tune of the Year" on Armin Van Buuren's show A State of Trance: "We Control The Sunlight," which featured the vocals of Jwaydan Moyine in 2011, "Unbreakable," with Roger Shah and vocals by Susana in 2016, "Somebody Loves You", which featured vocals from Plumb in 2020, and "For All Time" with Armin Van Buuren and vocals by Kazi Jay in 2021.
Martin Johan Stääf, also known as Liquid Stranger, is a Swedish-born electronic musician, described by Generation Bass as "the epitome of Transnational Dubstep covering everything from Latin, Asian, Eastern European and Jamaican Dancehall dubs." Martin Stääf is known for his experimental approach to composition where he merges genres to create a unique style of music. Martin Woods of Chillbase describes Liquid Stranger's music as a "unique blend of Ambience, Big Band Jazz, Dubstep and Psychedelica drizzled over electronic Dub Reggae grooves." Stääf lives in Edmond, Oklahoma.
Alex Tronic is Scottish electronic musician, award winning DJ, producer and label owner Paul Croan, who is based in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland. Croan works from his private recording studio also based in Edinburgh. MusicTech magazine describe the studio as a "Vintage Synth treasure trove. His debut album To Infinity was championed by Radio 1 and the track "Chiller" made iTunes top 20. The track "Smoke a Kipper" made number 17 in the top 100 Scottish songs of 2023 published by the Scottish Herald newspaper.The single "The Strangest Times" was championed by Guy Monnington on Amazing Radio who included the track in his `Against the grain playlist` The video for the track was shortlisted for video of the year by The Weekender magazine.
Torsten Stenzel is a German music producer, composer and Honorary Consulate of Germany. Classically trained from an early age his roots are within the field of Electronic Dance Music. His interest for music first started at age five when he received piano lessons by academic piano teacher Andre Terebesi. He is the father of multi-platinum international recording artist Au/Ra.
Electric Universe is a psychedelic trance project from Germany formed by Boris Blenn and Michael Dressler in 1991. Their first EP release, Solar Energy, was an instant hit with the underground trance scene and is often credited with putting the Spirit Zone Recordings label at the forefront of psychedelic trance early on. According to The Sofia Echo, they were "hailed in the 1990s as one of the top psychedelic trance projects to come out of Germany".
Audiopathik is a dark psychedelic trance act from Sonora, Mexico.
Kenneth James Gibson is a musician, record producer, composer, singer, songwriter and a founding member of Bell Gardens, Furry Things, Eight Frozen Modules, and [a]pendics.shuffle.
Perfect Stranger is the stage name of Yuli Fershtat, an Israeli musician, producer and DJ, born in 1970 in Moscow, Russia, moving to Israel at the age of 11.
The following is the discography of DJ Umek, including albums and singles.
