Anything goes

This here is the very first trance song I’ve ever heard: Cybordelics - The Adventures of Dama. It’s from 1993, but I only heard it in 1996. I still remember very well listening to it. Back then, the only source of electronic music I had was a weekly radio show made by DJ Horace Dan D. I remember staying late at night to listen to the show, even though I was always supposed to go to school the next day - the show was on Wednesday nights, from 22:30 until after 2:00 sometimes. Because of technical limitations, I had an awful contraption for recording it and the quality of the sound was appalling, but it felt great being able to listen to it later! I would listen to it every moment I could and I remember I would always run out of tapes to record on.

Before discovering electronic music, I had gathered tapes with all kinds of music, but then I erased them all to record the show on them. Horace Dan D had the very healthy habit of making a short introduction and history of an electronic genre during each show and I really owe my passion for various styles to that single fact. I think my interest in the history of all these things also comes from there.

It sends shivers down my spine when I listen to it. I had forgotten the title of the song until I heard it by accident on Digitally Imported’s Old School Electronica a couple of months ago and then I was able to look it up on youtube and I am really glad (and amazed) to find it there.

Boy, it’s great being able to listen to it again!

We can see in the song the very early ideas of trance and how it should be. I just love the way the song just takes its time, leading you into it, without any hurry (the first drum in the song is at 2:30!), and the minimalistic structure of the sounds. It really creates a trance inducing stream of sounds.

Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but having grown up with music like this, I don’t really like most of what is going on in mainstream trance nowadays. Of course, the fact that it is getting more and more commercial doesn’t help either, but the most important thing is that sometimes it really sounds awful.

Also, good as it may sound when listening to it in earphones going down the street or on TV, trance is not meant for meaningful vocals. It is just not compatible with the state it is supposed to induce while dancing. Listening to lyrics, sometimes even singing along, just takes that away because it forces you to focus on the music, whereas dancing to trance should be an unconscious experience, where you let yourself simply be swept away by the stream. From this point of view, I haven’t had the chance to dance to a good set of trance for a long time. The last good one I heard was DJ Sterbinszky some 4 years ago, the first time he was in Obsession in Cluj (I think the club was still called Tutankamon then). I think that may have also been the best , too. But I digress…

Anyways, this here is a great song.