The word ‘trance’ means ‘a dreamy or unconscious condition rather like sleep’. In music language it is a style of club music lying close to Ambient, Techno and House. Today trance forms an emotive, synthesized melody and has become a favourite amongst youngsters the world over.

The composer of a trance track tries to let you forget everything in real life and to let you make a mental trip while listening to his track. This is one of the main reasons why trance tracks are usually very long, eight minutes being the minimum time for such tracks. Listening to trance means a total cut off from the rest of the world and going on a journey in a totally different world, mostly one, which is non-existent. It is largely due to the unconscious state of trance lovers that they are often considered as anti-social by the society.

History of Trance Music

Trance music started evolving in the late 1980s under three main influences:

1)      The electronic new wave or industrial music of Front 242, Einstruze Neubatten, Killing Joke and the likes;

2)      The electronic techno disco of Detroit; and

3)      The psychedelic music of the 1970s.

The first step towards what we know as trance today was taken in 1988 with the introduction of the TB 303 sound into straight beat dance music, and the amazing effect it was found to perform over people dancing. This effect was further enhanced by the administration of a rediscovered drug called MDMA or the Methylene-Dioxy-Methamphetamine. This drug was popularly called ‘Ecstasy’ and it lead to the evolution of Acid music in the UK.

Germany is the birthplace of trance music where it formally began only as late as 1990. Yes, trance by origin is a pretty new kind of a musical genre. Of course the development of a music genre is an evolutional process, so the first tracks of those days are very different from the trance music that is composed these days. In Germany trance music grew quite popular in those years, but in other countries it remained very underground. Later on the UK and France took over the growing music style. Today more and more people are listening to trance music and there are some trance tracks that even hit the popular music charts. This popularity turned hardcore trance into a commercial product and many trance musicians decided to cash on the commercial aspect of this music. But even then trance has not yet picked up in terms of sales when compared to other popular forms of music.

As stated Germany is the home to trance music. Energy 52’s Café Del Mar and the work of Paul Oakenfold helped to produce a solid foundation upon which trance bases itself today. Oakenfold helped to make trance reach the mainstream music scene in the UK. Since his drive for trance in the early 90s, trance has evolved into many genres like acid trance, ambient trance, etc. But the one that most people have come to love today has got a French connection. Producers like Robert Miles of Children, BT and Sash have helped create the trance music that we need. Germany today too is a great ‘Trantic’ hub in the form of DJ Taucher and Paul Van Dyk. However the main exporter of trance music are not France and Germany, but Holland. Dutch producers like Vincent de Moor and Ferry Corsten have taken trance to an entirely new level promoting trance tracks into the mainstream charts. Tunes such as Carte Blanche and Out of the Blue have been super hits the world over.

Today trance is popular worldwide with some great musicians in every country. Eyal Barkan of Israel and Vladimir Cosmo of Russia are prime examples. Trance, the genre, which was once looked down upon as music of the anti-socials has now become world famous. Eventually, trance spread from Germany to Goa in India and in Thailand, which today is one of the greatest producers of trance music. In fact trance reached these two countries even before it reached Europe, particularly in Holland, Italy and Britain.

Trance Music in India

The relation between trance and India goes back to as early as 1960s when Goa had turned into a beach for freaks, rock stars, travelers and various other excitement hunters. These people also called the ‘Hippies’ (remember ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’) lived by the ancient mantra of ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’. This is similar to the definition of trance, which is a state of unconsciousness. These people in their urge for excitement used to stay totally aloof from the world in their own sweet world, which gave them immense satisfaction.

Although by late 1980s such a condition had changed but still people in Goa found out the wonderful effect of the Acid music and started to further develop the style. The first people to do so were Goa Gil and his friends, who were living in Goa and experimenting with various musical styles to dance to since the late 1960s. Parallel to that in Europe, some of the industrial and new wave musicians started taking interest in the new sounds introduced by Acid music. They bended them into heavier electronic style using more dense sounds and heavier and faster rhythms. This was the birth of a new genre of trance called ‘Goa Trance’.

In the late 1980s several Israelis came to India and they brought back with them tapes of this new music, which suited the Israeli state of mind very well. The music was highly emotional and very releasing, which was just what the post army traumatic Israeli needed to release all the tensions built into them. Israel's first trance artists were Har-el Prussky, DJ Miko, Guy Sebbag and Astral Projection. Not long after them, followed Eddie Mis, Witchcraft and Art Indust.

Further Development of Trance

While the world was getting gripped into the sound of trance a breakthrough was made. With the introduction of the Recordable Digital Media (the DAT tapes and the Mini Discs), as well as the drop in prices of digital studio equipment and the affordability of powerful home computers trance music reached the homes of people for the first time coming out of the clubs. Since trance is 99% electronic, you can do tracks without the heavy and expensive analogue audio equipment such as microphones, pre-amps and mixers. One could make trance music while working at home on his computer, with good sampling software, a couple of synthesizers and a sequencer to control them all. Such music could then be distributed via DATs or MDs. Thus technology has made trance music very cheap without the need to invest huge sums of money.

In the last few years we have seen more then a few musicians emerging from these home studios of theirs into the bigger and growing market of trance music, such as Indoor, Xerox and Freeman, Power Source, Sandman, Shidapu, Infected Mushroom, Space Cat, Oforia, Mystica and various other artists. These artists fall in the category of what is called ‘Israeli Trance’, which is more melodic then most of the European stuff. A whole culture has evolved in Israel around trance music, very much parallel to what's going in Europe, Goa, and Australia. This culture professes peace, love and harmony with mother earth and with other human beings, and it includes clothing, psychedelic artwork and cinema. A big part of the culture includes elements of Hindu religion since India is one of the motherlands of Trance and an aspect of returning to the nature, harmony and New Age.

In the last few years in a lot many countries the police has connected trance and the lifestyle with drug use. Trance music playing clubs were raided searching drugs and people were beaten up and organizers and DJs arrested. A lot of trance festivals do not get approval by the government authorities who feel that such events are the hub of anti-social activities. But despite this situation trance music gained popularity.

According to most of the observers of trance the best music is made in Germany. However in the last few years Holland has also produced some amazing music. They Dutch have given the trance scene a refreshment. However still in the midst of all the new tracks a lot of old ones are getting re-released. Classic examples of these tracks are Love Stimulation by Humate, The Age of Love, Loops 'n Tings by Jens, Open Your Mind by Usura and The Orange Theme by Cygnus X.

From the above description it is clear that trance music is reasonably new form of music and has a long way to go before one could actually call it a full-fledged musical genre. However still is one goes out to find the boundaries of trance music, he will face disappointment. This is because for some a particular kind of music takes them on a mental trail while for others another kind of music. So what is trance, is a difficult question to answer. But amongst all these conceptions one thing is for sure that trance is a popular form of music the world over and will surely emerge one day as a strong reliever of pains, miseries and sorrows that the people on this planet are undergoing. You may call it spiritual or simply religious, or fusion or simple sound of nature – that’s what trance can be for different people as long as the sound comes from the machines.

Collated by Verus Ferreira