My Top 5 influential releases ~ Early years and beyond, the music that got me playing!

These are the five albums that I feel have influenced not only my desire to play, but also my influence in exploring dance music as a whole.

1.) Paul Van Dyk – Out there and back. (2000)

I originally bought this because I had heard “For an angel” played out and only knew it was a Paul Van Dyke track, that release was not in this CD I felt like I had been violated. Until I listened a bit longer. I can even remember buying this on my break at Borders on Chapel in 2000. To me this CD was always a perfect car CD on the long haul drive into Billboards from Eltham. With this album Paul really brought his production to a whole other level in my opinion. The albums flow is a graceful progression from the stigmatic Break Beat intro of “Vega”, detouring into the tingling melodic rifts of gems like “Avenue”. This is a beautiful album, incorporating what was back at its time of release all the major elements of trance. The more you get into the album the mood gradually builds, plateau’s then builds again. There is a twist of genius in using “Face to Face” which I would occasionally play as an early morning tune at festivals as an elevator to reach you to the very clubby “Love from Above” which is my personal favourite tune on the album. The album culminates with the massive dance-floor hit of 2000 “We are alive”. Paul proved a lot of naysayers back in the day with this album that he was not a one trick pony and whilst this album did travel over a few pundits’ heads, it flew right into my CD library and never really looked back.

2.) Astral Projection – Another World (1999)

Never leave one of your favourite cd’s at a drug dealers house. That is the lesson I learnt with this CD. This was the 3rd or 4th electronic release I ever bought and although i have the digital copy on my laptop, I miss the CD. This was the only Psy trance purchase and probably will be. The thing that really got me about this CD was probably because it was less Psy trance and a little bit more tech. This was when Psy was still referred to as “Goa trance” and this CD to me is a perfect wedge to see how Psy Trance has developed. You have to remember that when this album was released Psy was still very much a two year old bastard child of tech and trance parents, keen to run away and do its own thing, but still heavily relying on its parents for daily necessity. Its a gritty and earthy listen with a constant tech fueled beat. “Nilaya” and “Searching UFO’s” were the picks of the bunch. If you can find it have a good listen.

3.) The very best of 3 years Headline – From Tech to Trance (2003)

This is in short the best tech trance album ever released in my opinion. Myself and my then girlfriend had this wedged in our CD player for possibly six or seven months. Oliver Klitzing basically threw together all of the releases that had spawned of his label, remixes, his production as Chromedioxide 2, Kaylab and his countless other aliases into a two disc marathon of balls out tech trance. This CD testifies him as an amazing producer and I for one feel he was majorly over looked as the likes of Tiesto, Van Dyke and Van Burren came into dominance. His problem which can be noted on this album was that at the time his music really had no genre, he was the only really flat out tech-trance producer and tech trance was being built or probably was built around most of his releases. Oliver is best described using the Hunter S. Thompson rant on Dr. Gonzo “There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. Some kind of high-powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die”. As trance built and tech backed off he was left a duck in an ever changing pond, It was either Tech or Trance. Not both at once, well at least for the masses. Tunes like “Fucking society”, his remix of Emmanuel Tops “Turkish Bazaar” and Judges “The only one” show off his creative sack of beans. Seriously I cannot stress how unbelievable this two disc compilation is, it’s hard, but not hard enough to be hard trance. The fluffy melodic “I feel love” riff’s are kept in line by swift, non-exaggerated break downs and 808 drum lines. I fear that if you do try to track this down you may hit a number of brick walls. But if you can hunt it down it is well worth the listen.

4.) Hard Kandy Episode 2 mixed by Nexus and the Kandy Kollective (2006)

“One and in comes one, then there comes the two to the three.” “ All your bass belongs to us” “Full Intention” “Oh yeah baby jam your fingers in my……” You get the idea, we all got the idea and the kids were fucking hooked. This CD was seriously like crack cocaine when I was just starting to come up on the scene as a DJ. It had dropped like an A bomb on the Melbourne club-rave scene in 2006 and while Bass Station vol 1 killed “power trance” (whatever the fuck that was anyway) and delivered hard darker style trance; Episode 2 went the other way, showering us with a serving of hard trance and then delivered us the desert of UK hard house and hard dance. The two CD’s in episode 2 act as an amazing catalyst for each other. Nexus’s offering on disc 1 delivers us an array of very serious German hard trance. Relying on a heavy dose of Scott Project who at the time only had to record his farts to have a number one, this CD is littered with classic gems that still get their fair share of rotation. The unbelievably picturesque classic Alex Bartlett “Amnesia” (Flutlicht Vs. SHOKK RMX) is timeless, whether it be the at times haunting female vocals or the intensely crafted breakdown , much like Marc Aurel’s “Running”. Packing his mix with the likes of the Scott Project remix of the Signum classic “Coming on Strong” and Thomas Trouble’s “Insane Asylum” Nexus took us through an intelligent journey in German Hard Trance, culminating with the epitome of classics Ultrashock’s “Sound of E”.

If Nexus’s mix was the sun then disc two was definitely the moon. While Ajax and Krash’s offering on Hard Kandy Episode one pointed me in the direction of what sound I was after, Episode 2 disk 2 stamped exactly the sound I was shooting for and eventually the sound that would define the beginning of my career. Mixed by the Kandy Kollective (Sott Alert, Ajax and Krash) this hyperactive offering of UK hard house and UK hard dance is one of those mixes that has developed into an institution for my generation of ravers. So many scattered days in my memory of running around repeating Tomcrafts “Prozac” “Prozac”….”Prozac” or “This is what we call a global killer….The end of mankind.” Featuring five releases out of the Tidy Two label and offerings from Stimulant DJ’s and War Brothers the key developments of this mix was that it clearly illustrated the cognitive shift Hard house made seamlessly into UK Hard dance. In tracks like “The Birds” or “Snatched” the bounce of the hard house scene is there, but the kick drum is just that little bit heavier and hollow. Songs like “Blow the Roof” and “You’ll know it” have the sharp tight snare rolls and driving bass lines that would come to define UK Hard dance. There is the damn right obscene in Pornrockers “Cuntlicker” and the swiss cheese of cheesy songs, Scott Alert its “10am and there are still 300 people rocking it on the billboards dance floor and we’re not fucking leaving till you drop ‘WE ARE ONE!’” by Chemistry. To those that were partying at that time and for the next two generations of party goers this album will always be an institution in its own right.

5.) Clubbers guide to 2007 mixed by Goodwill and Kid Kenobi (2006)

Usually I am not terribly enthused by Ministry of Sound annuals or cd’s. Unless it’s the chillout albums or the NRG series from back in the day I tend to shy away. However this release was one I actually went in search of whilst I was still living in Sydney during the period where I had left Kandy and starting Substance. This release was in fact very much the “How Taran M, got his groove back” in terms of releases, as this release prompted me thinking about what I was going to play at this club I was starting up. It is very much an album where for one brief moment MOS have seemed to lapse in creative control over DJ’s and just let them do what they are best at. Sure there are a couple of radio friendly bleeders like Fedde La Grand’s remix of “Creeps” and the annoyingly earwormish Body Rocks- “Yeah Yeah”. But where this CD succeeds is the foot tapping Kid Kenobi mix on Disk two. Apart from the Hook and sling remix of Stanton Warriors “Shake it up” which has about as much class as an Ikea vase, The mix is decidedly well prepared. Tracks like Canberra locals The Aston Shuffle “Killer Application”, Trente Moller’s remix of Moby’s classic “Go” and Plump DJ’s- Mad Cow gave me the basis of what I would begin exploring in my sound at Substance. Goodwill’s mix as well carries a very solid feel to it, although being a tad commercial “ (previous tunes mentioned) there is not a lot of pretension and wank which you would come to associate with the general expectation of MOS annual. This was very much MOS’s retaliation against the now famous “One Love” CD’s and for once they actually achieved a release that I’d score over the 8/10 mark.

Well there you have it, that’s my top five influential CD’s in my time behind the decks the last 10 or so years. Other notable mentions would Be Hardware 1-3 for my dollop of techno and Aqua’s first Album, but in terms of what I have played and when, that would be it. Actually Aqua should have been in there, I mean I used to play Brooklyn Bounce back in the day and there the same thing kinda??

Next top 5 in a few weeks, probably chillout albums… Peace out 🙂