Trance

“El Dorado” was a year-long fight in the studio. What came out is psytrance that doesn’t follow the rules. The Latin influence creates tension throughout the track, complexity where you’d expect simplicity. Still high-energy, but it moves differently than typical festival tracks.

The “Breaks” remix strips out some of the trance and finds the funk that was hiding underneath. Same source material, completely different perspective - less cosmic, more groove-focused. That bassline is on a mission!

Picking up on the hard-dance tip from where Speaking in Tongues left off, “Thrillride” is a hard trance oriented track but with a lot of techno influence and a hefty amount of dirt.

I really enjoyed how this one evolved, both in producing it and in how it listens. There’s a lot of early 90s influence present here, which is highlighted more in the “Carousel mix”. By contrast, the “Gravitron mix” takes on an “inverted” character, elements of the original were reshaped for a really different sound.

Strap in for the ride. Listen to Thrillride on your favorite platform. If you want a copy to keep, the digital single is cheaper on Bandcamp (linked) than anywhere else.

The premier track on this one is “Speaking in Tongues”, a hard, fast slice of hard dance which draws a lot of influence from psytrance. I suppose this follows a thread I started with The Gateless Gate but with a little more gas.

The B-side “Shrieker” has a little different energy, but doesen’t underwhelm; this bouncy hard house track has an equally dark vibe with a bit of modern “donk” which will give your subwoofer a workout.

Together this release follows up on another recent hard dance release, and I hope you enjoy! You can pick this up anywhere you listen to music, but you can get it cheaper than anywhere through the Bandcamp player.

The namesake of this EP is an interesting, challenging read. Although brief, you could spend a long time trying to understand. What I suppose I get out of it, in short, is non-judgement. This is a hard endeavor for a human and an even harder one for an artist, in particular because an endeavor itself is a form of judgement.

Choosing one thing means rejecting another. I do what I can, however, to “experience” rather than “decide”.

Psytrance was the main inspiration for this EP, although it goes into euro-trance territory in places. “Third Time” is the third version of an older favorite, and “Start to Finish” is an adaptation, rather than a remix or cover of, Bear McCreary’s excellent score from the Walking Dead episode of the same name (S6E8).

This album started with a simple concept: a series of tracks centered around common instrumentation. Bells were the centerpiece for all of these songs; they differ drastically, however, in style and tone.

There’s a bit of everything here. Starting with “Nightmare”, which gallops into the album with heavy basslines and a solid 4/4 rhythm; “Trigger Warning” brings the breaks with 808-style beats; “Apex Predator” is an agressive drum and bass throwdown; “Prism” closes up the “main” album with a slice of synth-heavy dream-pop. There’s also a remix of “No Greater Love”, one of the first tracks I ever produced.

There are two VIP mixes for a couple of my favorite cuts on the album, “Prism” and “Apex Predator”.

Existential Funk was what came out when I stopped second-guessing myself.

2008 was a year when I couldn’t stop writing. I kept starting tracks in one genre and finishing them in another - minimal techno that wanted to be drum and bass, trip-hop that demanded breakbeat treatment, house tracks that went trance halfway through.

Most producers would call this unfocused. I called it honest.

The album title came later, but it fits perfectly. This was music about being caught between states - between genres, between moods, between who you were and who you’re becoming. The “funk” isn’t just the groove; it’s that unsettled feeling when you can’t quite pin down what you’re hearing, or feeling, or becoming.

“The disc has enough thumping bass and spacy synthesizer chords to please any trip-hop head.”

– URB.COM