Jeremy's Reviews Blog

Sunday, November 18, 2007

A State of Trance voting opens...

It's time to vote for the top 5 trance songs of the year for Armin Van Buuren's radio show, A State of Trance (available on XM Radio

http://www.arminvanbuuren.net/


2007 has been a really amazing year for trance, almost as good as the golden age of 1997-1999 or so, when I started listening.

I went with

Deem - Tears of Hope (Aly & Fila Mix)

First heard this in the Summer. Really emotional breakdown.

Andy Blueman - Nyctalopia (Onova remix)

Another instrumental with a wonderful breakdown that's making the rounds among DJs at the moment, but not released yet. This one is more symphonic sounding and less focused, but still intensed. Like feeling the approach of a thunderstorm, how the woosh of the front passes over you.

Dash Berlin - Sky Falls Down

Nice vocal trancer. Have no idea who does the vocals, not on their website. Haunting melody, too, somewhat harsh sounding synths (Which fits the Berlin part of their name, german trance is often like that, or used to be), even the dub is pretty good. But I like the vocals, too. "I'll be waiting...'til the sky falls down."

DJ Shah ft Adrina Thorpe - Who Will Find Me (Summer Sunrise Mix)

Balaeric trance, which is a bit languid and has a spanish guitar sound to it. Very nice vocals, breathy. Very catchy, especially the lyrics in the latter half of the song "Dance dance in the morning light/ Hey Hey it's a beautiful day."

Cosmic Gate ft Denise Rivera - Body of Conflict

Like most Cosmic Gate songs, it's hard trance (which has harsher, heavier sounding synths) though not real hard, and like a lot of their songs, it's contrasted by lovely female vocals (They have a version of Somewhere over the Rainbow, actually.) The vocals in this are aggressive, too. There's no one thing about the song I like, but it's put together very well and I found myself humming it a lot. "All I know, all something something, a reflection of you, something something body of conflict"



(My favorite song of the year is actually probably Above & Beyond ft Zoe Johnston- Good For me, but he didn't play the mix I like, so I didn't vote for it. Ms. Johnston replaced Dido in Faithless after she hit it big, and if anything, her voice is better).

Labels: , ,