Etikettarkiv: Niklas

Classic For The Weekend: Push – Universal Nation

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bffgi9nN5tE&w=680&h=491]

This weeks classic is one of the true classics in trance music. I’m talking about Push – Universal Nation. First released in 1998 and known as one of the biggest trance anthems and have been played by most major Djs and is still played every now and then. (Buy on Itunes)

Goosebump-moments:

0:28 when the bassdrum kicks in
1:09 when the drums fade and the main synth tweaks
2:19 when the bassdrum kicks in after the break
3:01 when the snares speed up and the Whooh comes in
5:48 when the drums stop
6:02 when everything starts to fades out
6:45 when the robotic voice comes in
7:11 when the Whooh comes in and is followed by a bassdrum and the sounds starts to fade up again
8:06 when the Whooh comes in and is followed by the main drumline

Belgian born Dirk Dierickx (now known as Mike Dierickx after changing his name in 2000) started his music career at the age of 11 when he first saw the potential of what he could do with samplers and keyboards but it wasnt until the age of 18 that he first got signed to the label USA Import Music after handing them his demo. Shortly after he released his first EP, Vision Act – A New Sign (together with Frank Van Den Driessche).

Over the years, Mike has been using 65 aliases, much depending on style and collaboration-partners. The most wellknown aliases are Push, M.I.K.E., Plastic Boy and Absolute.

Mike has been using the Push-name since 1994 when he released the first single, Acid Hysteria
came out on USA Import Music but it wasnt until the release of The Real Anthem (later known as Universal Nation) in 1998 on Bonzai Records that the big things started to happen.

Universal Nation did well in the charts and got really positive reviews. First released in France, Spain and Germany and in 1999 most other European countries followed (UK, Italy, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands).

Due to the several individual releases, the song has three different titles: Universal Nation, Universal Nation ’99 and Universal Nation (The Real Anthem). The success of Universal Nation gave Push several awards, major chart-success and put focus on Belgian dancemusic.

Worth noticing is that the vocal/robotic-sample in the middle break, ”proceed with visual attack formation” is sampled from the 1984 film The Last Starfighter.

In 1999, Push released both Cosmonautica and Till We Meet Again, the latter is a tribute to Marino Stephano, a fellow Belgian that died on the way to the studio to record with Push. Too bad no one will ever know what could have come out of that collaboration. Till We Meet Again is one of my personal alltime-favourites.

The 2000 album, From Beyond is IMHO a legendary album. Containing such hits as Universal Nation, Strange World, Cosmonautica, Till We Meet Again, Tranzy State Of Mind and The Legacy on the same album is madness!

Electro Fever 9:35
Universal Nation 7:52
Strange World 7:12
Travelogue 8:28
Cosmonautica 7:05
Till We Meet Again… 8:33
Tranzy State Of Mind 6:55
The Legacy 8:45
Live On 8:17
Outro 0:47

The followup-single, Strange World became a huge chartsuccess and once again, Push topped the dancecharts in Europe. It even became the official theme to Trance Energy in 2001. The single differs from the album version which is abit more laid back.

The Legacy, released in 2001 became another huge success, both in the clubs and in the charts and was later followed by the single Tranzy State Of Mind in 2002.

2002 also saw the new-ish album, Strange World, which actually was a re-release of the first album, From Beyond but with some newer versions of the tracks and a few remixes.

Intro 0:27
Strange World (2000 Remake) 7:23
The Legacy (Club Mix) 5:03
Universal Nation (Tall Paul Remix) 5:03
Travelogue 6:02
Electro Fever 6:53
Cosmonautica (12″ Mix) 5:24
Till We Meet Again (Vocal Mix) 3:28
Tranzy State Of Mind (Club Mix) 6:15
Universal Nation (Ferry Corsten Remix) 2:58
The Legacy (Svenson & Gielen Remix) 4:11
Live On 6:11
Strange World (2000 Reprise) 3:14
Outro 0:50
Tranceformation (Push Trancendental Vocal Mix) / Push Vs. Globe 7:50

It was also the year that the single Push vs Globe – Tranceformation came out.

The 2003 release, Journey Of Life was another epic trance track which later was followed by Push’s third album, Electric Eclipse and the new singles Electric Eclipse and R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Intro 1:11
R.E.S.P.E.C.T. 8:25
Imagine 6:08
Electric Eclipse (Original Mix) 7:57
Journey Of Life (Original Mix) 9:07
Trance-Parent 6:37
Blue Midnight 7:38
Universal Nation 2003 7:50
TRANCEFORMATION (vs. Globe) 6:36
Strange World (Tranquilo’s Chill Out Mix) 5:39
United We Stand 8:45

After this, there was a huge gap until 2008 when Push’s new EP, Universal Voice EP came out. In the gap, Pushed worked mostly on M.I.K.E.-productions which can be heard in the sound of the new releases.

What I really liked with the older releases was the dark but yet warm sound and the epic buildups while the new tracks lack most of that.

The 2009 Global Age album was Push’s fourth album and IMHO the least good of the albums. This saw a more progressive sound and IMHO the edge that got me hooked to Push had disappeared.

The last few years, all the effort has been put into M.I.K.E. And Plastic Boy. The sound of the new releases are pretty decent but when I want to hear really good music, I rather put on an old Push-track. The epic sound of old Push will never die, at least not in my mind!

Classic for the weekend: Tiesto featuring BT – Love Comes Again

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aezttQNJXyo&w=680&h=491]

The next featured DJ needs no introduction. Voted best DJ in the world 2002-2004, founder of Black Hole Records (together with Arny Bink), the In Search Of Sunrise-compilations, performer at the summer olympics in athens. I’m ofcourse talking about Tijs Michiel Verwest or Tiësto which is the name most people know him under.

The track features in this weekends classic is Tiesto featuring BT – Love Comes Again (with BT on vocals) (buy on Itunes)

Goosebump-moments:

1:12 when the main bass kicks in
1:41 when only the main kick and bass is heard
2:09 when the vocals starts
3:04 when the main synth comes in
4:18 after the breakdown when the vocals only are heard
4:46 and onward after the main synth kicks in again

Lyrics:

You have become what you have always been
light flickering around, peripheral vision
no words we can speak, our paths have been chosen
but all trails that we trek,
-should lead us back to here because our

love comes again
just when i’ve broken down i found
love can come again
you’ve got to believe that

love comes again
just when i’ve broken down i found
love can come again

dig within me, turn all the secret stones
forests and fields, breathing with blood and bones
still no words we can speak, our paths have been chosen
but all trails that we trek,
-should lead us back to here because our

love comes again
just when i’ve broken down i found
love can come again
you’ve got to believe that

love comes again
just when i’ve broken down i found
love can come again

Dutch born DJ/Producer started his musical career in the mid 90´s, then producing hardcore/gabber under the aliases Da Joker and DJ Limited. It was first after creating Black Hole Records in 1997 with collegue Arny Bink that the path to trance begun.

His first own release on the label was Theme From Norefjell, the first track of many with production partner Dennis Waakop Reijers. Early stuff from the label included the Magik-series and a few productions under the name Allure (together with Wouter and Sjoerd Janssen from Showtek and David van den Hurk.

His second single on Black Hole was Sparkles and that was followed by the collaboration with Armin Van Buuren under the name Major League with the single Wonder Where You Are.

Meanwhile working on his own tracks, Tiesto managed to release some legendary tracks together with Ferry Corsten under the Gouryella-moniker and also Benno De Goeij under the Kamaya Painters-moniker. He also released the In Trance We Trust-compilation that made way for many of todays biggest trance artists like Ferry Corsten, Armin Van Buuren and Johan Gielen to the mainstream crowd.

In 2000, Tijs left Gouryella and Kamaya Painters to concentrate on own material. This later resulted in the legendary 2001 album In My Memory, the first release on his sub-label, Magik Muzik.
The now legendary album contained such hits as In My Memory, Flight 643, Lethal Industry and Suburban Train, all huge hits in the trance-scene.

The 2003 live dvd Tiësto in Concert is IMHO a must-have in every trance-freaks collection.

But it wasn’t until the second album, Just Be and his gig at the opening of the Summer Olympics in Athens that his worldwide commercial fame came. Tijs was asked by the officials of the The Athens Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (ATHOC) to play at the opening after they had seen his 2003 Tiesto In Concert-video. Rumour has it that he played for free as he thought this was lifetime opportunity to reach out to the bigger mass. The 90 minute gig was seen by 72.000 people in the audience, 15.000 athletes and millions of people in their tv-sofas worldwide.
The Summer Olympics-tracks were later mixed together and released as Parade of the Athletes.

The Just Be-album contained loads of gems like Love Comes Again (with BT), Traffic, Nyana, UR (with Aqualung), Just Be (with singer Kirsty Hawkshaw) and his version of Samuel Barbers classical track Adagio For Strings.

The result of Tijs hard work got him voted Best DJ from 2002-2004 by the readers of DJ Magazine. No DJ before him had got the no1 spot for 3 years in a row and he held the record until 2010 when Armin Van Buuren got voted Best DJ 4 times in a row.

A cool fact is that Tijs was dubbed Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 2004

In 2005, Tijs went on tour around most of central- and eastern europe, playing for 10.000-15.000 people at every stop. That’s not much when you compare to his 2005 gig at Sensation White in The Netherlands where he performed for over 45.000 people.
He also went on an US tour which later, in 2006 resulted in the mix-album In Search Of Sunrise 5: Los Angeles. The compilation was released at the 2006 Winter Music Conference in downtown South Beach, Miami.

Tijs was also chosen as the official ambassador for the Dance4Life foundation in May 2006, and released the song ”Dance4Life” with Maxi Jazz to help spread the awareness of HIV/AIDS

2007 saw the release of Tijs third album, Elements Of Life which is the most commercial of the albums so far. He teamed up with vocalist Christian Burns (from the band BBMak) for the track In The Dark, Maxi Jazz (from Faithless) for the single Dance4Life, JES for Everything and Julie Thimpson for Do You Feel Me. He also collaborated with BT for the tracks Bright Morningstar, Sweet Things, and BT also sung the vocals on the single, Break My Fall.

The album went very well in the charts and later gave Tijs a nomination for the Grammy Awards in 2007 for best electronic/dance album.

The fourth album, Kaleidoscope, released in 2009 was a step more into electro and house with collaborations with Calvin Harris, Sneaky Sound System, Cary Brothers and Nelly Furtado. The album went high in the charts worldwide and a few singles were released, like I Will Be Here, Feel It In My Bones and Who Wants To Be Alone just to name a few. The album was the first on Tijs new imprint, Musical Freedom which he started after parting with Black Hole Records as his new style wasn’t what Blach Hole usually released.

Kaleidoscope is IMHO the most boring album he’s done.

In 2010, Tijs released Magikal Journey: The Hits Collection 1998–2008, which contains all the classics that made him famous.

Worth noticing is that Tijs released the Allure-album, Kiss From The Past in 2011 which were a step back to his trancier side

Also worth noticing is his remix-work through the years which includes classics like

1999 BT – Dreaming
1999 Binary Finary — 1999 (as Gouryella)
2000 Salt Tank – Eugina
2000 SuReal — You Take My Breath Away
2000 Sarah McLachlan — Sweet Surrender
2000 Delerium — Silence
2001 Jan Johnston — Flesh
2001 Faithless — Tarantula
2001 DuMonde — Never Look Back
2001 Coast 2 Coast — Home
2001 Abnea — Velvet Moods
2002 Roc Project — Never
2002 Paul Oakenfold — Southern Sun
2002 Moby — We Are All Made of Stars
2002 Moby — Extreme Ways
2002 Mauro Picotto — Pulsar
2002 Lost Witness — Did I Dream
2002 Kosheen — Hungry
2002 Conjure One — Tears from the Moon
2003 Skin — Faithfulness
2003 Radiohead — Street Spirit
2003 Madonna — Die Another Day
2003 Kane — Rain Down on Me
2004 BT — The Force of Gravity
2006 Klaus Badelt — He’s a Pirate
2006 Tiësto — Dance4life
2006 José González — Crosses
2007 Imogen Heap — Hide & Seek
2007 JES — Imagination
2007 Justin Timberlake — LoveStoned/I Think She Knows
2007 Seal — The Right Life
2008 Cary Brothers — Ride

IMHO, Tijs glory days are over but i’m so glad that he left us some major classics so we can look back on the good old days with a huuuge smile.

Classic for the weekend: Andain – Summer Calling (Airwave Remix)

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgyUZwIEoH0&w=680&h=376]

This weekends classic is from 2002 and this article is about the remix. I´m talking about Andain – Summer Calling (Airwave Remix). (Buy on Itunes)

What I really like is the hypnotic beat over the smooth Andain vocals together with the goosebumping buildup after the breakdown.

Lyrics:
And when it hurts for me
I never felt so empty
Memory has its way
Falling
Falling

Those summer mornings
You kissed me out of my next dream
Then without warning
It goes away

And then it goes
And then it goes
And then it…goes

Search to find you somewhere
As winds began to sway
Got in my car and just
Driving
Driving

Those summer mornings
I danced inside your warm embrace
You hear me calling
And now you’re gone

Goosebump points:
00:57 when the vocals start
02.38 when the main synth comes into the background
03:36 when the breakdown starts
03:56 when she starts wailing
04:18 when the main synth kicks in after the break. ORGAZM ALERT!!
04:47 when the kickdrum starts up again

A famous man have many names. That quote fits perfectly on the next featured artists.
Belgian born Laurent Christian Georges Véronnez is one of trance an progressive’s busiest producers, with over 35 different aliases he has produced some 500 different tracks in various music styles.

His musical career started at the age of 7 as he started playing around with synths but it wasn’t until the age of 18 when he sent some demos to the infamous Bonzai-label that his music career really started taking shape. At Bonzai, he quickly grew to one of their biggest artists.

Laurent’s main influences back then was everything electronic, from early Kraftwerk to Future Sound Of London and producers like Jean Michel Jarre, Orbital, Oliver Lieb and Brian Transeau just to name a few.

The first big success came after teaming up with DJ Fire (real name Jurgen Leyers) back in 1998 as Fire & Ice. Since then, many aliases has been used. L-vee, V-one, Airwave, Meridian, Green Martian, Lolo and Body-Shock just to name a few.

The most common alias used is the Airwave-alias, but he also did some collaborations in projects like Planisphere (togheter with Georges Petkidis, Fire & Ice (with Jurgen Leyers) and Cape Town (with Ludovic Meyer)

Laurent consider his style of music as ”pure electronic dance music with a sniff of electronica and trance and progressive sounds”

Laurent’s first release as Airwave came in 1998 with the single I Want To Believe, which was follorwed by the single Above The Sky in 1999.
In 2000, Airwave released 3 singles: Escape From Nowhere, Innerspace and Alone In The Dark. Alone In The Dark was the first track I heard from Airwave and IMHO one of his best ever. It was also with the same track that Airwave became huge in the UK.

The followup single, Save Me came out in 2001 and in 2002, Airwave released his first album, Believe.

In 2002, Airwave also teamed up with Armin Van Buuren and released Airwave vs. Rising Star – Sunspot. The same year also saw the release of Another Dimension as well as a re-release of Above The Sky as an EP with Alone In The Dark and Innerspace as additional tracks.

In 2003, when the the owner of Bonzai, Lightning Records went bankrupt, Laurent teamed up with Yves De Ruyter, Fly (owner of Bonzai) and Marnik (A&R from Lightning Records) to create the label Banshee Worx. The same year, the single When Things Go Wrong was released.

The second Airwave-album, I Want To Believe came out in 2004 and was a 2CD-piece where the 1st CD was the 2002 album Believe and the 2nd CD contained new material.
2004 also saw the re-release of the track Ladyblue, first featured on the 2002 album, Believe, but now redone for 2004 with an epic 12 min mix by Markus Schulz. Also released the same year was the EP Boredom, which also featured the track Last Flight To Gaia.

The singles, Progressive Agressive, People Just Dont Care and The Promise I Made (with Jon O’Bir), all came out in 2006 together with Airwaves third album, Trilogique which was a 3CD album.

The fourth album, Touareg came out in 2008 and was contained both new material aswell as fresher versions of older tracks.

In 2009, Airwave teamed up with old friend Ludovic Meyer (from the Cape Town-collaboration) for the epic track Batignolles Blues. Most people know Ludovic Meyer under the nickname Ferry Tayle. Ferry Tayle & Stephan R Neverending Story Remix of the single is a smooth uplifting remix and a favourite of mine.

I had the opportunity to see Airwave and Ferry Tayle perform as Cape Town last year and it was amazing. Airwave plays like a god on his keytar!

2010 saw the release of Airwave Presents Lolo – Myla’s Theme and 2011 the release of single Hello World. Hello World is also the first track released on the sub label L*C*D* Recordings

Airwave released the singles Atlas Winds / Chiricahua in 2012 but they had to be withdrawn due to Atlas Winds used a sample that Airwave bought years earlier that contained holy words from the Quran and it’s forbidden to use any words from the holy book, especially holy songs. I know that Airwave is working on replacing the vocals and hopefully we´ll see a re-release of the track later this year.

I will have the privilege to see Airwave perform a liveset this summer at Luminosity Beach Festival in Holland. According to the lineup, the next DJ in line is Ferry Tayle (together with Manuel Le Saux). I can only hope that Airwave will perform a few track as Cape Town. That would be a memory worth remembering!

Classic for the weekend: Rank 1 – Airwave

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gcebbgooOM&w=680&h=491]

This weeks classic comes from a group that has been in the scene for a quite some time. Its an alltime tranceclassic that pioneered the wave of the Dutch trancesound. I’m talking about
Rank 1 – Airwave (Rank 1 vs Dutch Force Remix) (buy on Itunes)

Benno De Goeij and Piet Bervoets started working together back in 1996 as the duo Pedro & Benno but it wasn’t until 1998 they took the name Rank 1. They also released some tracks under the names Precious People, Gualagara, A.I.D.A., Simplistic Mind, Two Disciples and R.O.O.S.

The name Rank 1 name came from the idea of ”what if we get ranked no 1 in the charts”
Their big breakthough as Rank 1 came in 1999 after the release of the single Airwave which even got high rankings in a few charts all over the globe, for instance #10 on the UK Singles chart and #25 in the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play. The single became a huge hit and was played by most major djs around the world at the time.

It was also remade in 2000 as a mashup with Donna Williams’s track True Love Never Dies which IMHO is the best mashup never released!

Rank 1 re-released Airwave in 2003 with vocals by Aino Laos, but now under the name Breathing

Lyrics:

breathing
feel it on my skin
your breathing
falling to your arms again
spread my wings and fly
hold my head up high
feels like summer wind
when you’re breathing,
breathing

breathing

everytime I close my eyes
when the stars begin to rise
I feel like I could fly
you’re the reason why
when i need to have you near
drowning in my tears
the colors fade to grey
you wash them all away
morning sun
you’re the one
deep within
I hear you breathing
Breathing
feel it on my skin
your breathing
falling to your arms again

spread my wings and fly
hold my head up high
feels like summer wind
when you’re breathing
oh when you’re breathing
breathing

Meanwhile working as Rank 1, Benno De Goeij was also busy with some other projects, like for instance the project Kamaya Painters with Tiesto. Kamaya Painters released 3 track in total:

1998 Endless Wave / Northern Spirit / Outstream
1999 Far From Over / Cryptomnesia / Soft Light
2000 Wasteland / Summerbreeze

Since the release of Airwave, several huge hits has been released.

In 2001, they released Such Is Life with singer Shanokee which also came with a pretty decent Marco V remix. The same year also saw the release of Awakening which came with remixes from Cosmic Gate and a really beautiful Ferry Corsten remix which I still listen to quite often.

Their album, Symsonic came out in 2002 with all the major releases so far. It even came out with a DVD.

1 Symsonic
2 Cosmomatic
3 Airwave (Album Cut)
4 Conspiracy
5 T.T.C.
6 Awakening (Radio Edit)
7 Down From The Deep
8 Equilibrium
9 Such Is Life (Sunday Afternoon Rework)
10 Passage To The Unknown
11 Still In My Mind
12 Airwave (Sunset Mix)
13 Such Is Life (Album Cut)
14 Citrus Juicer
15 Live At Trance Energy 16.02.2002
16 Airwave (Video)
17 Such Is Life (Video)
18 Such Is Life (Live At Sensation)(Video)
19Awakening (Video)

In 2003 they released a new vocal track called It’s Up To You with vocalist Shanokee. It was a remake of the album title track, Symsonic but now with vocals and a bit faster tempo.

The 2004 release of Beats At Rank-1.Com became the official Trance Energy theme 2005. The same year also saw the release of the singles Opus 17 / Top Gear .

In 2007 they teamed up with Armin Van Buuren for the single This World Is Watching Me with vocalist Kush. Since then, Benno has been a co-producing most of Armin Van Buuren’s productions. On Armin’s 2008 album, Imagine, most songs were written by Benno except for Imagine, Fine Without You and Intricacy.

2007 also saw the release of Life Less Ordinary which was a collaboration between Alex M.O.R.P.H. & Rank1. They also collaborated with Jochen Miller on 2 projects, the 2008 release And Then… and the 2010 release The Great Escape. Since 2008, Benno has been involved with most Jochen Miller-releases as co-producer.

2009 was a big year as 2 of Rank 1’s track became the official anthems. First out was L.E.D There Be Light which was the official Trance Energy theme and later Symfo, which became the official Sunrise Festival theme. I remember seeing Rank 1 playing L.E.D. at Trance Energy that year, major goosebump-moment!

Feel free to download JP Bates beautiful mashup of Rank 1 – L.E.D. And Roger Shah’s Back To You which you can download for free here.

2010 saw the release of 100, which was a collaboration between Nic Chagall, Wippenberg & Rank 1. The title is named after being the 100th track released on the dutch label, High Contrast Recordings.

My guess is that we will see more great things from Benno & Piet in the future, they have so much more to give the trance audience. Or as the title of the Airwave-mashup said ”True Love Never Dies”

Classic for the weekend: BT – Flaming June

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd_B6gOI0MA&w=680&h=491]

This weeks classic is somewhat connected with last weeks piece on Paul Van Dyk as he was a co-producer on this track. Im ofcourse talking about BT – Flaming June (BT & Paul Van Dyk Mix) (Buy on Itunes)

I remember being amazed the first time I heard it. The mixture of the Piano, The flute and the pumping bassline thru the track is really awesome. It’s been 15 years since the original release and it still sounds fresh!.

Goosebump-points:
0:27 when the piano comes in
0:53 when the flute starts
3:02 when the bass-lead starts
4:25 when the breakdown starts
4:39 when the echoing piano kicks in
4:52 when the main Piano kicks in

BT, or Brian Wayne Transeau was born in Rockville, Maryland in the early 70’s. He was early discovered as a prodigal child when it comes to music and first studied music at the Washington Conservatory of Music and later went to Berklee College of Music.

In the beginning of the 90’s he met up with Dubfire and Sharam of Deep Dish and started doing dancemusic. His first releases didn’t get any big response in the US but on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, djs Paul Oakenfold and Sasha played his music at every gig. It wasn’t until Sasha bought BT a planeticket to visit London that BT really witnessed his own success.

Until this time he had released Libra presents Taylor – Anomaly (Calling Your Name) with vocalist Jan Johnston and
his own singles Embracing the Future and Nocturnal Transmission.

While in London, he met up with dj/producer Paul Oakenfold and got signed to his label, Perfecto.
The first release on Perfecto was came in 1995 with the single Loving You More with singer Vincent Covello and later the same year BT’s first album, IMA (the title means ”now” in Japanese).

The album contains some cool songs like Embracing The Sunshine, Nocturnal Transmission (which was partially used on the soundtrack to the movie ”The Fast & The Furious”) and Loving You More.
The same year, BT also remixed a couple of tracks. Most memorable is his remix on Grace – Not Over Yet.

The US version of the IMA album released in 1996 also contained the hit single Blue Skies with singer Tori Amos. The single also became no1 on the Billboard Dance Chart.

It was around this time I discovered BT after hearing Embracing The Sunshine on MTV. I later bought both Loving You More and Blue Skies on CDM.

In 1997, BT released the singles Flaming June and Remember., both singles were also featured on BT’s second album, ESCM (Electric Sky Church Music).

Compared to the IMA-album, ESCM contained more vocals and a saw more experimental BT with darker sounds and also contained both drum & bass and breakbeat. BT also use live instruments like guitar, bass and drums, all played by himself.

ESCM saw the return of vocalist Jan Johnston who sings on both Remember and Lullaby for Gaia.

1999 saw the release of the third album, Movement In Still Life and contained hit singles Godspeed, Mercury & Solace, Namistai (with Paul Van Dyk), and the US version also contained Never Gonna Come Back Down. The album was heavily influented by the new hip hop-wave in the US so the original UK version was totally remade for the US market.

Tracks like Godspeed and Mercury and Solace did well in the UK, but would not fare well on US radios, where Never Gonna Come Back Down and Shame performed well on American alternative rock stations.

The fourth album, Emotional Technology came out in 2003 and contained hits like Somnambulist (Simply being loved), Force Of Gravity and Superfabulous.

It was also the year that BT got into Guineess world record-book for the Somnambulist-tracks that contains most vocal edits in a single track, with 6,178 in the album version. This technique is called Stutter and uses a program called Bias peak which BT loves to work in. You can hear it being used in loads of BT’s productions including the NSYNC-track Pop which BT produced.

The album, This Binary Universe, was BT’s fifth album and wasnt a typical album but more an experiment into producing in full 5,1 cinema sound. It was actually BT’s 2nd album to do this, the first was the soundtrack to the movie Monster, released back in 2003.

The album, both released as CD and DVD contains a broad mixture of jazz, breakbeats and classical music and even a full 110-piece orchestra. This was a non-vocal album and didnt really contain any hits.

The latest album, These Hopeful Machines, released in 2010 was the biggest success to date. 8 out of 12 tracks from the 2CD album became singles including, The Rose Of Jericho, The Emergency, Every Other Way, Forget Me and A Million Stars. The album featured vocalists Jes, Kirsty Hawkshaw, Christian Burns, BT and Rob Dickinson. Even his daughter, Kaia Transeau sung the lullaby-part on the track Forget Me.

The album also came out as These Humble Machines with radioedits and released as 1CD and later as These Re-imagined Machines as a remix-album with remixes from Adam K & Soha, Marcus Schossow, Ferry Corsten, Tydi, Chicane and Armin Van Buuren just to name a few.

While doing his own thing, BT’s songs has also been featured on loads of film scores including The Jackal, American Pie, Driven, 3000 miles to Graceland, Zoolander and The Core just to name a few. He has also had his tracks featured in videogames as Gran Turismo 3, FIFA 2002, Wipeout Fusion, Need For Speed: Underground, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 and Burnout Revenge just to name a few.

For me personally, These Hopeful Machines was 2010s biggest album by far and I really love the remix-album too. So many beautiful tracks, especially the Josh Gabriel remix of Every Other Way. It is one of those albums that will live on forever.

BT – Embracing The Sunshine
BT feat Tori Amos – Blue Skies (Deep Dish Blue Phunk Mix)
Grace – Not Over Yet (BT Remix)
BT – Godspeed
BT – Mercury & Solace
NSYNC – Pop
BT feat JC Chasez – Force Of Gravity (Ferry Corsten Remix)
BT & Jes – Every Other Way (Josh Gabriel Remix)
BT feat Kirsty Hawkshaw – A Million Stars (Myon & Shane 54 Remix)
Tiesto feat BT – Love Comes Again

Classic for the weekend: Paul Van Dyk – For An Angel

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6xb3F9qcdw&w=680&h=491]

The next track is made by one of trance biggest DJ’s. Paul van Dyk (or Matthias Paul which is is real name). First released on his first album, 45RPM, back in 1994 and remixed plenty of times since with latest remixes coming out in 2009. The track i’m thinking of is For An Angel (PvD E-Werk Club Mix) from 1998.

A fun fact is that it was actually my hardrocker-friend that tipped me about this track after hearing it on the local radio. He later bought the CD-maxi.

Goosebump-points:

0:55 when the druma kick in
1:37 when the breakdown comes and the main synth starts
2:33 when the piano starts
4:51 when the breakdown comes
5.33 when the piano starts again

Paul grew up in east Berlin in the early 70’s and his musical intrest came from listening to the pirate western radioprograms broadcasted over the berlin wall, stations like RIAS and SFB. He and his friends occasionally came over some smuggled mixtapes that people visiting the eastern block bring with them.

Paul and his mom got a permit to leave eastern Berlin to live with his aunt in Hamburg just before the berlin wall fell and later in 1990 he moved back to Berlin. His first DJ-gig was at the legendary Berlin club Tresor in 1991 but it wasnt until he teamed up with Kid Paul at the Turbine club that he was discovered. Pauls mixing techniques made producer/DJ Cosmic Baby open his eyes for the young talent. Paul and Cosmic Baby later released 2 singles under the name Visions Of Shiva, Perfect Day in 1992 and How Much Can You Take? In 1993.

1994 was a big year for Paul. It was the year that his first album, 45 RPM came out on the label MFS and also the singles/EPs The Green Valley E.P. , Pumpin’ / Pump This Party , 45 Remixes Per Minute and 45 RPM -The Special Spanish EP Version. The latter cointained the first version of For An Angel, with vocals by Ute Lampka-Konrad.

Meanwhile Paul released his own tracks, he also did some remixed. Most memorable of the older remixes are his version of Humate – Love Stimulation entitled Lovemix

With the release of his second studio album Seven Ways, label owner Mark Reeder launched Pauls career in England by licensing the album to Deviant Records. The album later became no1 album of 1996 according to the readers of DJ Magazine.

In 1997, Paul met up with american producer BT (real name Brian Transeau) and together they produced hits like Flaming June & Forbidden Fruit. And 1999 they released Namistai. The same year Paul released version of the epic classic Age Of Love – Age Of Love. This was also the year I personally discovered Paul van Dyk.

With the re-release of the album 45 RPM in the UK and the US, Paul decided to remix his old 1994 track, For An Angel and gave it the name ”E-Werk Club Mix” after a classic club in Cologne, Germany. Paul also got a resident at the world-famous Gatecrasher club in Sheffield, UK where he early stated that he was anti drugs so people did own t-shirts with the tag ”No E, Pure PvD”.

In the middle of 1998, Paul decided to leave his old record label and start his own to control everything that was going on. The new label was named Vandit Records.

The same year his remix of Binary Finarys instant classic 1998 was released which also topped the german dance charts.

The album Out There and Back, released in 2000 contained a bunch of hits like We Are Alive with swedish singer Jennifer Brown, Avenue and Tell me why (The Riddle) with english singer St Etienne. Worth noticing is that many of the track on the album were sung by his wife Natascha van Dyk.

After releasing his mix-album, Politics Of Dancing in 2001, Paul went on a worldwide tour and also saw the release of the live DVD, Global 2 years later.

In 2003 he also released his fourth studio album, Reflections which were inspired by a trip to India. The album contaned the hit Nothing But You and he later was nominated for a grammy-award. Also worth noticing is that many of the tracks from the album later was used in tv-commercials for Motorola, HBO & Land Rover just to name a few.

After releasing his second mix-album, Politics of Dancing 2 in 2005, he dedicated the track The Other Side with singer Wayne Jackson to the victims of the 2004 tsunami in Thailand.

The album, In Between, released in 2007, contained hits like White Lies (with singer Jessica Sutta), New York City, a collab with Starkillers, Austin Leeds and singer Ashley Tomberlin and also Let Go with singer Rea Garvey

Worth noticing is that many of his tracks has also been used in video games like:

1999: Wipeout 3
2003: FIFA Football 2004
2004: Need For Speed: Underground 2
2008: Mirror’s Edge
2009: Grand Slam Tennis
2011: Test Drive Unlimited 2

Also, Paul has also worked on some movie-soundtracks:

2003: Zurdo (which he won an Mexican Oscar)
2004: One Perfect Day
2005: The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants
2005: Into The Blue
2008: The Dark Knight

2012 will see the release of his 6th studio album, Evolution, and a also a tour with the new album.
Planned gigs so far: Tallinn / Estonia, Stockholm / Sweden, Bologna / Italy, Graz / Austria and Brisbane / Australia.

After listening to the new single, Verano, I hear a fresh sound which probably will end up in a really big year for Paul!

– Niklas

Classic for the weekend: Chicane – Offshore [Disco Citizens Remix]

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mplayysPDZU&w=680&h=491]

Welcome to an all new section on bejbi.se.
This section is going to present an important Tranceclassic just before the weekend starts, all written and presented by a long time friend and a walking wikipeda of music: Niklas.

The first track in this section is my all-time-favourite. I first heard this sometime in 1997 on a mix-cd called Club Mix 97 which contained loads of great tracks that I still listen to.

The track i’m talking about is Chicane – Offshore (Disco Citizens Remix) [Buy it on iTunes!]

The things that stood out most was the atmospheric strings, the piano and the guitar-riff.
The track was originally released back in 1996 and became an instant Ibiza-anthem with the balearic sound that’s captured in the song.

The track was later re-released under the name Offshore ’97 with vocals. Offshore ’97 was originally a bootleg made by Anthony Pappa with vocals from a track called ”A Little Love, a Little Life” by the group Power Circle, which later became the official vocal version called ”Chicane with Power Circle – Offshore ’97”

Lyrics:
A little love, a little life
A little love, a little life
Let it show
A little love, a little life
Let it show
A little love, a little life

I feel in my mind, I’ve got to let go, I’ve got to unwind
I need a good time, I need to find love, I’ve got to get high
I feel in my mind, I’ve got to let go, I’ve got to unwind
I need a good time, I need to find love, I’ve got to get high

You’ve got the passion to feel inside
A little love, a little life, now you decide
There ain’t no reasons why we can’t share
A little love, a little life can take us there