Trance 1998

4Voice II (1998). After extensive journeys through the incredible worlds of futuristic and ancient sounds, Pete Namlook rediscovered the Bass Drum. Now reintegrated into the most successful Trance-Product on Fax it is being taken to an area where melodic Dance, Electronic Listening Music and Ambient have their home. Check out the integration of monumental Hip Hop sounds on "New York, 25th of November 2089", travel to the "Cave of Ancient Dreams" with Ambient, dance with "Old Loves Dies Hard", go on a ride with "The Driver" and fall in Love with "Anemra"…

The Energy of Sound is a 1998 album created by Trance Atlantic Air Waves, a side project of Michael Cretu (founder and musician behind the musical project Enigma). Cretu worked alongside Jens Gad during the recording of the album. Out of the ten songs in the album, only three were original as the rest were all cover versions. In terms of style it's dominantly electronic, but the music is in both spectrums with some tracks being fast and energetic while others rely on a subtle touch.

Juan Verdera aka The Muses Rapt is a Spanish psychedelic trance musician. He began his career in the early 80's when he worked as a keyboardist with experimental punk bands like Derribos Aria, who used drum machines and guitars to create a hybrid of punk and industrial. He then came to Ibiza and began promoting concerts and invested his money in a studio in which he began to write his own experimental techno tracks. When he performed his first open-air-party in India, he "fell in love" with Goa trance, and so he decided to devote himself to creating of trance…

Shpongle is a psychedelic electronic music project from England that formed in 1996. The group includes Simon Posford (a.k.a. Hallucinogen) and Raja Ram (one of three in The Infinity Project). The duo are considered to be one of the progenitors of the psybient genre - a genre combining world music with psychedelic trance and ambient. Their musical style combines traditional music from all over the globe and vocals with contemporary western synthesizer-based psychedelic music. When asked to describe Shpongle's music, Posford has responded that it is "like nothing you've ever heard before." Their debut album, Are You Shpongled?, was released in 1998 on Twisted Records…

Cosmic Baby (aka Harald Blüchel) has always walked a fine line between serious music and entertainment music. On the one hand he has remixed pieces from Sven Väth, Vangelis and Yello, yet on the other hand this classically trained concert pianist has embued his Trance tracks with a completely new dimension that deserves the title of "Techno-art". "An album shouldn't be just a collection of good pieces - it must also have a concept behind it," says Cosmic Baby about his album, "Heaven". The 14 tracks are cleverly ordered in dramaturgical fashion, each taking you away to fantastical tonal worlds all of which could make up the sound-track of a dream. The music wiith a lot of snorkelling and distortion. Sometimes classically overdone, then suddenly set to pronounced drumbeats, a revision of seven years of Cosmic Baby on the one hand and the unmistakable influence of electronic pioneers like Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre…

Four masters of the trumpet, two generations apart, get together for an inspired session to pay homage to Dizzy, Miles, Satchmo, Clifford Brown, Chet Baker, Lee Morgan, Kenny Dorham, Booker Little, and Fats Navarro. All four play together on the opening "So What" and the closer, Gillespie's "That's Earl Brother"; they split off in different groupings on the other tracks. With Mulgrew Miller on piano, Peter Washington on bass, and Carl Allen on drums, the rhythm section is well in the pocket, and while none of the tunes are copies of their more famous namesakes (no chorus quoting here), the spirit is dead on the money on every track, making for some exciting jazz very well played. Highlights include "Jordu," "Nostalgia," "My Funny Valentine," "The Sidewinder," and "There's No You." An inspired and accessible session.

Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating artists in the field of EM. One never knows what to expect from the astral guitarist who draws his ideas and stories from his many travels and experiences in Asia. In the Hindu religion, an Avatar is a human being sent by God. He appears on Earth when the Divine creation is threatened by fanaticism, injustice and deception. Klaus has seen pictures and representations of Avatars, which inspired him to write this album. From psychedelic to progressive, passing by these superb mellotrons invested with an electronic fluid, the vision of this musician-synthesist, guitarist and mellotron adept defies time and styles while remaining faithful to the Hindu roots that inhabit him and make him so special…