Back in the '90s I listened to all sorts, a real omnivore despite the increasing focus and patriotism for the London pirate nexus
Here's a tune I really liked outside that zone
Involves stunning deployment of Mentasm stabs, using panning and delays, the net effect of which to make the stabs appear sculpted in stereo-space, to be coming at you from multiple angles like geometrically faceted javelins.
Be patient, it does take a while to build, there's a long chuggy trance intro, and then the killer section kicks around 4.10. -and after that then it just pummels and sears all the way to the end.
Ooh gosh - imagine the rushes this triggered across the Continent!
It's like a cleaner, pristinely-focused version of Human Resource's "Dominator"- sharp like a new pair of glasses.
Not sure what you'd call it, or what is was known as at the time - Hardtrance? Trancecore?
Quite close to Dance Ecstasy 2001, the trance-leaning offshoot of PCP
First heard "Are Am Eye" when Lenny Dee played it at Rezerection - where it stood out in a field of otherwise extremely samey and indistinguishable material heard through the night - mostly happy hardcore - "A A E" stood out not through being eccentric or deviant but just quintessential and exemplary.
Picked up a bunch of other tunes including his similarly titled "Eye C Red" and "Eye B M" and a few other Noom bits - but nothing else I heard from Tom or the label quite hit the bull's eye like "Are Am Eye".
Noom meets Nuum - a remix that has some Acen "Trip to the Moon" at the start, and passim
The Commander's own remix
Or one of them - he did a bunch over the years (sad to learn Commander Tom died in 2022)
Many others remixed it
Indeed it's been remixed to a ridiculous degree
The original is unimprovable
Over the years I've actually come to prefer the nexus 6 tres chic ep on noom. Are am eye is great when you first hear it but the off beat trance started to get annoying for me, too oompa loompa. Which doesn't mean that trick is bad, I just prefer it when its at 160+ and can serve as texture, whereas below that it starts to give too much charlie and chocolate factory vibes, nowotamsayin?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIyVjuoSoPc
proper braineater.
Dave Angel used to hammer this one. Almost like a funky trance, which despite people in trance claiming, doesn't really exist. If anything the defining thing of trance and prog house vis-a-vis detroit and even euro techno proper of the R&S/Labworks/disco b variety is a complete absence of frictional groove.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTVqZk3pb14
I.E: I'd say euro techno is often groovey, even if it isn't overtly funky or has immediate black feel and significations. I find Wolfgang Voigt interesting in that regard. Trying to reinterpret funk in a way by using signifiers and approaches as far away from the funk (as we know it) as possible.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2KKqQuvkr4
Trance on the other hand uses the kickdrum as a steady anchor, but in actuality most trance is either stiff or floaty. At least after 1995. Before that it was often too tied to techno so you couldn't really make such an equivocation, I don't think.