New Location (www.trance-asia.com)

Trance Asia has moved to a new location on the web! Please visit Trance Asia at http://www.trance-asia.com. Please update your bookmarks and favorites!

Blog Update

As you've noticed, I haven't had any time to post recently. I was overseas most of the month of August and when I returned home, there was a pile of work waiting for me. In addition, I'm thinking of re-formating my blog to a different platform. I'll explain more soon.

While back in the USA, I heard some great tracks and hope to post more reviews soon.

Liquid Room Closing

I just returned from the USA to news that the Liquid Room is closing its doors at the end of this month! More information can be found at www.liquidroom.com.sg. Until further notice, I will remove the link on the right-hand column.

Review: Empty by Miguel Sassot

My friend went to see Paul van Dyk play live in Central Park, New York City on August 18th and 19th. (For more information, see here.) When I arrived in New York on the 21st of August, he was waiting to rave to me about Paul's sets and a track in the set called, "Empty" by Miguel Sassot. He played me a low-quality bootleg audio file of the track and, in agreement with him, I realized this is definitely a track to learn more about. I look all over the net for information on the track. Beatport didn't even have it listed. Surprisingly, I finally just found a copy of it at iTunes!

The original mix is not a typical radio mix, 3 minutes in length and under. It is a full length track at 9:55m in length. The track continually builds for almost 5 minutes, until about 5:45m into the track the Miguel bring out the true uplifting cords and melodies. For those of you who are fans of epic and extremely melodic trance, try to find a copt of the Aly+Fila Remix, too. Absolutely fantastic! In fact, it strengthened my belief that, thankfully, epic trance isn't dead. This is what large-room, melodic trance is about. Hopefully, some DJs in addition to PvD will pick up this track and add it to future compilations and sets.

Trance Bloggers at Trance Republic

Thanks to Chris at Trance Republic for adding me to the list of local trance fans who are maintaining blogs. I look forward to hearing more people's comments and suggestions!

Look Who's Back!

A couple of months ago, I noticed that the website for Trance Republic (TR) had disappeared. Although I'm a regular reader of this well-designed and solid-content website, I must've missed the memo on any move or shut-down they had planned while I was traveling. I noticed that I was still seeing the TR CDs at music stores, so I wondered what had happened. Well, it's back at a new URL. Check out Trance Republic at their new website www.trancerepublic.sg. I've also included a link on my column to the right.

Review: In the Dark

Those of you who are fans of Alucard will know his other name, the real one, Peter McCowan. Peter comes from Canada and has quickly become one of the bext remixers and producers in the trance genre. He's added his own interpretations through remixes of "Satellite" by Oceanlab, "Spiral" by Robert Nickson and Matthew Adams' "Sunscape" presenting Stratosphere. He also had ventured into releasing his own productions including "Blue on Blue" featuring Jennifer Grimm, "Proem" and "Overrated."

This album, "In the Dark," released on the Experimental Division label, is unlike his previous work that I have heard. It ranges greatly in both style and complexity. Several songs, such as "Pit of Despair," "In the Dark, and "Two Sides to Every Story" are very experimental in sound. There is very little of trance in them. Speaking of lacking trance, "One Hit Wonder" is totally out of the ballpark. Its sound is somewhere in 1970s Soul Train and P-Funk, with a bit more modern sound with the beats and effects. Mr McCowan even plays with some hip-hop in "Real Ones."

Peter also sounds a lot like William Orbit at times with tracks like "Coming Back to Life" and "Coda." Both these songs are extremely melodic, have a distinctly modern-classical sound (hence my mention of William Orbit) that are very strong and smooth. I have no doubt that someone will use them as a intro or outro to a set. "Getting Away," "When It Rains It Pours," and "Energiss" are more mellow pop-variety songs that should appeal to a wide variety of listeners. Nice beats and rhythms, calming female vocals and melodic riffs galore. The real success of this album, however, is in the chill-out and ambient songs "Moontribe" and "Blue on Blue" (Chill). Both of the tracks are extremely good listens.

If you want to try something new, I strongly recommend this album but its availability isn't so good. Unfortunately, this is not a large release album. You might be able to find it at a music store in Singapore or you can also download it from iTunes and Beatport.